Paulo Henrique Sampaio Filho was born on 25 July 1996 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He came through the youth setup of Vasco da Gama and made his senior debut for the club in 2016, going on to play more than one hundred matches before transferring to Mineros de Guayana and then Sport Recife on loan deals.
After returning to Vasco he re-established himself as a senior defensive option, and in 2023 he transferred to Olimpia in Paraguay, where he won the 2023 Paraguayan Primera División. He returned to Brazil in 2024 with Vasco da Gama on a permanent contract, where he has been a regular figure in the senior defence and a captain on occasion.
His career has been built on consistent senior performances in the Brazilian and South American game rather than a single big move. He has been one of the most reliable wide defenders in the Brazilian Série A across the 2024 and 2025 seasons, earning multiple Selection of the Round inclusions and senior recognition.
For Brazil he debuted in 2024 under Dorival Júnior on the back of his domestic form, becoming one of the senior right-back options behind Danilo and Yan Couto. He has continued through the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign as a depth option.
Standing 1.79 m, Paulo Henrique is a right-footed full-back whose defensive consistency, recovery pace and willingness to engage one-versus-one have made him a Brazilian Série A fixture. He profiles as a domestic-development right-back — the kind that Brazilian clubs have continued to produce despite the steady European export of more headline-grabbing names.