Lucas Ribeiro: Football Profile, Club, Net Worth and Caps of the Former Sundowns Forward

Lucas Ribeiro is Lucas William Ribeiro Costa, a Brazilian forward born on 9 October 1998 who won the South African Premiership twice with Mamelodi Sundowns. He joined Espérance de Tunis on a three year contract completed on 13 August 2026, so the player South African soccer crowned its best in 2024-25 stays at the top end of the African club game. Other footballers share the name, and everything below concerns the forward from Santa Helena in Maranhão.

The other things people type about him have short answers too. Briefly News reported on 3 March 2025 that he allegedly had a net worth of about USD 3 million, an unverified estimate from his Sundowns years, and that he is not eligible for South Africa's national team. What follows puts the whole road in one place, from the Pinheiros youth team to the move to Tunis, with the awards, the dated money figures and what the move means for the Masandawana who still look him up.

Who Is Lucas Ribeiro Costa, and Which Club Did He Join?

Lucas Ribeiro Costa is a forward who was 27 when he signed in Tunis. Which club does he play for, then? The dated answer is Espérance de Tunis from August 2026, and the route there ran from Sundowns to Cultural Leonesa in Spain, then to Al-Ittihad of Tripoli, where he was listed without playing a match. Read the profile module above for his club as it stands today.

Why do South African supporters still look him up? Sundowns won the Premiership in 2023-24 and again in 2024-25, finishing top of the table, the log as South Africans call it, in the second of those seasons. Supporters who watched those seasons want to know where the goals went next.

The Road From Maranhão to Mamelodi

The road starts in the youth ranks at Pinheiros in 2017-18, followed by a move to Valenciennes in France in 2018-19. Belgium is where the career took shape. He made his professional debut for Virton on 27 October 2019 and scored 4 goals in 8 games in 2019-20, which was enough for Charleroi to sign him on 30 June 2020. The record carries no fee for any of these early moves, so the career module lists them by date only.

Charleroi then sent him out, and he had loan spells at RWDM, Mouscron and Beveren. Beveren triggered their option to sign him permanently in April 2022. He repaid them with 11 goals in 31 games in 2022-23. It could be argued that this was the season that opened the door to South Africa, because a forward scoring at that rate in Belgium rarely stays unnoticed for long.

Mamelodi Sundowns confirmed his signing from Beveren on 6 July 2023 for an undisclosed fee, as TimesLIVE reported that day, when he was 24. The record book gives the first clue to what followed: on 4 August 2023 he scored on his debut in a 2-1 win over Sekhukhune United.

How Did He Leave Sundowns, and Where Did He Go Next?

He left in August 2025, when he ended his Sundowns contract and asked FIFA to release him. That is the plain record, and the rights and wrongs of it are not for a player profile to settle. On 12 September 2025 he joined Cultural y Deportiva Leonesa in Spain's Segunda División. He was then listed at Al-Ittihad of Tripoli without playing for them, before the move to Espérance de Tunis was completed on 13 August 2026. The record carries no fee for any of the three moves.

What does it mean for the link between Sundowns and Espérance? Both clubs are regulars in the CAF Champions League, and readers who know Zamalek or TP Mazembe from the same competition will recognise the level. So, the move keeps him in the continental conversation, this time in North Africa, and any draw that pairs Tunis with Mamelodi would put him against the club where he made his name. For Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Uganda the stake is indirect, because he becomes their concern only when one of their clubs meets Espérance in CAF competition.

What Does Lucas Ribeiro Do on the Pitch?

He is a forward who scores like a striker, a mix that explains why TimesLIVE described him as a midfielder when Sundowns signed him in 2023. The numbers settled the job title. Over his two years at Mamelodi he played 88 times and scored 37 goals, and in the league alone it was 28 goals in 44 games. That is better than a goal every two league matches from a player first introduced to South Africa as a midfielder.

The 2024-25 season is the one that defines his record. He won the Premiership Golden Boot, Goal of the Season, Players' Player of the Season and PSL Footballer of the Season, and was named Player of the Month five times along the way. Then came the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, where his goal was named Goal of the Tournament. A forward who collects a domestic goal award for 2024-25 and a global one in 2025 is telling you something about the quality of his finishing.

The team honours sit beside the individual ones. He won the inaugural African Football League with Sundowns, a title confirmed on 12 November 2023, and then the Premiership in 2023-24 and 2024-25. The table below lists every honour with its year. Anything from this season belongs to the statistics module above, which updates after each match, so read the two together and you have the full picture of a career whose best year, so far, came in Mamelodi.

How Many Caps Does Lucas Ribeiro Have?

Briefly News reported on 3 March 2025 that Lucas Ribeiro is not eligible for South Africa's national team because he does not meet South Africa's citizenship requirements. That answers the question South Africans often ask about Bafana Bafana, and the national team line in his profile module is the place to check for any change.

Sundowns fans tend to measure him against the local forwards who do get the Bafana call, and readers elsewhere can do the same with the Super Eagles, Harambee Stars, Black Stars or Uganda Cranes strikers they follow. Our pages on African footballers cover the ones who carry those national hopes. He is best read as a club footballer of continental rank, and the honours table shows that record year by year.

Lucas Ribeiro net worth

Briefly News reported on 3 March 2025 that Lucas Ribeiro allegedly had a net worth of about USD 3 million. The same report answered the question of how much he earns by putting his salary at about USD 6,000 a week, or about USD 316,000 a year, and it named no endorsement deals. That report gives neither an image rights figure nor a market value for him. All of these numbers date from his Sundowns period, so they describe neither his Leonesa terms nor his Espérance pay, and they are published estimates, never audited accounts.

How should a reader in Lagos, Nairobi, Kampala, Johannesburg or Accra use them? The figures are quoted in US dollars, and the naira, shilling, rand and cedi all move against the dollar, so convert at the rate on the day you read this and do not rely on an old sum. Keep the working in mind as well. A transfer fee goes to the selling club and not to the player, and a weekly wage is income before spending, which is a different thing from net worth. Net worth means everything owned minus everything owed, and no reporter sees a footballer's bank statements.

How to Watch Lucas Ribeiro From Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Uganda

Each Espérance match in the fixtures module shows its kick-off time given as WAT, EAT, SAST and GMT side by side, so nobody has to do sums at the door of the viewing centre. As a guide, Lagos on WAT is one hour ahead of Accra on GMT, Johannesburg on SAST is two hours ahead, and Nairobi and Kampala on EAT are three. Tunis keeps the same clock as Lagos, which means a night match there is a night match in Nigeria and a later one in East Africa.

Where the match is shown is data, and it sits in the where to watch module for each country because rights change from one season to the next. If you only want one habit, check the fixtures module on the morning of the match, read your own time zone, and confirm the channel in the where to watch module before you leave the house.