He had already experienced top-flight football, played for Borussia Mönchengladbach and survived the demands of German football's second tier. Augsburg, however, offered him something different: the opportunity to become central to a club's ambition.
Rafael believes the timing of his arrival was significant. Augsburg had come close to promotion the previous season, but needed something more to complete the job. He felt that something was experience, leadership and a player capable of taking responsibility when the pressure increased.
"I came to that club not as a young player, but as a player with experience," Rafael told Football Presse. The club had a huge project where I was the missing piece with my experience, with my personality, and I knew the coach. The coach knew me as a player and as a person as well.
"We wrote history, going from the 2nd Bundesliga to the 1st Bundesliga. That was for me a remarkable period of time in my career."
For Rafael, the difference between arriving as a promising player and arriving as an established professional was enormous. At Hertha, he had been learning how to survive senior football. At Augsburg, he was expected to help others do the same.
That responsibility extended beyond scoring goals.
"At Augsburg was the best football because I had really good chemistry with my partner who was playing with me as a striker, Michel Thurk.
"That was a chemistry that I felt, knowing what he's going to do with the ball, without the ball, and vice versa. And of course, as I came to Augsburg, I came as the missing piece that the club and the team needed.
"The year before they almost made it, and then the year after, when they signed me, we made it. So I came as a very important player who had to take responsibility on the pitch, and off the pitch as well, also in the dressing room."
The partnership with Thurk was central to Augsburg's success. Rafael describes the understanding between the two forwards as something developed through instinct as much as instruction.
They knew where the other would move, when to make a run and how to respond when possession changed hands. For a striker, that kind of relationship can transform a team, particularly when promotion campaigns demand consistency over an entire season.
But Rafael's contribution was not limited to his attacking partnership.
Augsburg's squad contained several players with Bundesliga experience, including Simon Jentzsch, Axel Bellinghausen, Danny Baier and Andrew Sinkala. Compared with the young players coming through the squad, that group understood the demands awaiting them if promotion was achieved.
Rafael found himself in the middle of that experience.
"In my character as a person, I always build a golden bridge between young players and older players.
"Back in the day I had already experienced playing Bundesliga, and we didn't really have many players who had played the Bundesliga, like Michel Thurk, me, Simon Jentzsch, Axel Bellinghausen, Danny Baier and Andrew Sinkala.
"So I became one of the five, six, seven guys who had already played Bundesliga. I took this type of responsibility to be able to manage, to help the younger players also in the locker room and on the pitch, with my experience and performance."
That phrase, "a golden bridge", says something about how Rafael sees leadership. He doesn't describe himself as the loudest voice or someone imposing authority on younger teammates. His role was to connect different generations within the dressing room.
The players with Bundesliga experience knew what awaited them. The younger members of the squad needed guidance, reassurance and an understanding of the level they were trying to reach.
Promotion would eventually change Augsburg's place in German football, but Rafael understood that the achievement required more than individual talent.
His own experiences at Mönchengladbach had already taught him how quickly football could become a battle for survival. Having experienced relegation and the intensity of the second Bundesliga, he understood both sides of the promotion equation.
At Augsburg, those lessons became valuable.
The second tier was not simply a stepping stone to the Bundesliga. It was a competition with its own demands, one where physical resilience, consistency and collective responsibility could be as important as technical quality.
Rafael had learned that during his time at Mönchengladbach.
"At Borussia Mönchengladbach, my first season, or the end of my first season, was because I came mid-season. We survived in the league, and then the second season we were relegated to the second league.
"It was my first time really playing against relegation, learning to fight. Sometimes it's really only about the results, and the fighting mentality.
"That was also my first experience playing in the second Bundesliga. I learned there how the second Bundesliga is, because the quality of the players is a bit different. In the first Bundesliga, you have a lot of international players, and every single mistake can be punished. In the second Bundesliga, you fight more."
Those experiences gave Rafael an appreciation of what Augsburg were attempting. Promotion wasn't simply about playing attractive football or assembling talented individuals. It required a group capable of handling pressure collectively.
And within that group, Rafael had become one of the players expected to set the standard.
His description of the season is revealing because he doesn't separate his personal success from the club's achievement. The goals mattered, particularly as he became one of Augsburg's leading scorers, but his value was also measured by what he could contribute to the people around him.
That was the transition in his career: from talented young striker to experienced professional capable of influencing a dressing room.
The achievement was all the more significant because Augsburg had not traditionally occupied a central position in German football's hierarchy. Promotion to the Bundesliga represented a transformation for the club and the city.
For Rafael, it also represented proof that experience could be used in different ways. He had arrived at Augsburg with the knowledge of what top-level football demanded, but his greatest contribution may have been helping a team that was still learning how to reach that level.
"I would say that was my duty to do at Augsburg."
It is a simple conclusion, but it captures Rafael's understanding of the period better than any list of appearances or goals could.
He had been brought in to help Augsburg achieve promotion. He did that as a striker, but also as a teammate, an experienced voice and a link between the players who had already experienced Bundesliga football and those hoping to reach it.
Augsburg's rise was a collective achievement. Rafael's role within it was to be the missing piece.