At the start of 2022, Thiago told his agents it was time to move elsewhere.
Bulgarian champions Ludogorets, who had tried to sign him the season before, returned with another offer and secured a deal.
“In football, a lot of people try to define paths and limits for others. You often see a player going through a difficult period and being labelled as a certain type of player and that label becomes a kind of ceiling. I fight strongly against that,” former Ludogorets assistant coach Rafael Ferreira, currently at Atromitos in Greece, said.
“I believe everyone has room to grow as long as they’re in an environment that allows it. And Igor Thiago fits into a very interesting profile because he has a very strong mentality.
“In his early period, he didn’t get many minutes. And what does he do? He asks to play for the second team. He wants to play. That shows you his mentality – not sulking because he isn’t playing but looking for alternatives. When you work with that type of player, we usually say the sky’s the limit.”
Thiago’s mentality also stands out with his team-mates.
“What I really liked about him was that when he arrived, he was always asking the older players what they thought he could improve. That’s what I found different about him, special even,” says Cauly, a former Ludogorets midfielder who now plays for Bahia in Brazil.
“He already had that worker’s mentality, that desire to keep improving. And a player with his physical attributes… we already knew that, one way or another, it had to work out for him as a striker.”
It was no surprise that, following only one full season and 20 goals later, he was on his way to Club Brugge in Belgium.
“Sometimes he’d get, I don’t know, five or 10 minutes in a game, come on and score. It was like he had something about him… as if his energy attracted good things,” Ferreira added.