Souza completed his first season as an assistant coach for the Eagles and arrives after two successful seasons as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Rollins College.
In 2023, Souza helped direct FGCU to its championship-winning season at 12-5-5 overall and 7-1-3 in the ASUN, earning the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament. In the ASUN Championship match, FGCU faced a daunting three-goal deficit against North Alabama, but sophomore Erika Zschuppe exploded for a hat trick to send the contest to overtime. The Eagles completed the thrilling come-from-behind win, advancing 3-2 on penalty kicks, to punch its ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the eighth time in program history. FGCU held second-seeded Texas Tech scoreless for nearly 80 minutes in the NCAA First Round before falling 1-0. The Eagles landed on SportsCenter Top 10 not once but three times in 2023. Freshman goalkeeper Olivia Molina broke the FGCU single-season save record with a program-record 117 saves. Head coach Jim Blankenship recorded his 200th win at FGCU and now has emerged as the eighth active winningest coach in all of Division I women's soccer. Four Eagles earned First Team All-ASUN honors as midfielder Ashley Labbe, midfielder Zschuppe, defender Reese Mendenhall and midfielder Kendal Gargiula made the list. Midfielder Katharina Oelschlaeger landed on the Third Team, and goalkeeper Olivia Molina appeared on the All-Freshman Team. Both Zschuppe and Molina made the TopDrawerSoccer’s Top 100 list, while Labbe earned United Soccer Coaches All-South Region Third Team honors and Scholar All-South Region recognition.
Before FGCU, he directed the Tars to a winning season in 2021 (8-6-4), downed nationally ranked No. 16 Palm Beach Atlantic University and reached the Sunshine State Conference Tournament semifinals. Last season, Rollins pulled off another Top 25 win over No. 24 Ashland University.
Prior to Rollins, Souza spent a season at Stetson University as director of operations. Originally from Ipswich, England, he holds his UEFA B license, a bachelor's of science in coaching for performance in soccer and the FA Goalkeeping qualification among other soccer performance and player development qualifications.
