Union add depth by signing Kenyan midfielder Richard Odada

The Union bolstered their midfield depth for the stretch run of the season by signing Richard Odada, a 21-year-old Kenyan from Serbian club Crvena zvezda.

Odada projects as a defensive midfielder here. He has been in Serbia for two years, most of which he spent loaned out to teams in the nation’s second division — FK Metalac of Gornji Milanovac and Grafičar of Belgrade, across town from Crvena zvezda in Serbia’s capital.

Odada has played five times for Kenya’s national team, all in qualifying games last year for this fall’s World Cup. He scored a penalty-kick goal in the qualifying finale against Rwanda that turned out to be the game winner in a 2-1 victory.

The Union signed Odada to a 2½-year contract with team options for 2024 and 2025 and paid a small transfer fee of around $150,000.

“Richard is a holding midfielder with positional versatility and a great potential to be a valuable contributor as we continue to develop our roster,” Union sporting director Ernst Tanner said in a statement. “He can play multiple midfield roles as well as center back, and he has the height, speed and physicality we were searching for. We look forward to integrating him this year and encouraging his development for the future.”

Odada is a signing for the future, if that wasn’t clear enough from Tanner’s words. The Union regularly field offers for José Andrés Martínez, and while it would be shocking if he’s sold in the middle of this great season, it won’t surprise anyone if he moves on at some point.

So Odada is a candidate to be Martínez’s successor. And the height part of Tanner’s remarks is for real: Odada stands 6-foot-3, unusually tall for a midfielder.

If you haven’t heard of Crvena zvezda, you might have heard of the English translation of its name: Red Star Belgrade. The club has won 33 league titles and 26 national cups over the decades, from the former Yugoslavia to the current independent Serbia.

Red Star also has a long record in the Champions League and its European Cup predecessor, making many deep runs in the 1980s and ‘90s. It won the tournament in 1991 and remains the last Eastern European team to lift the continent’s biggest club trophy.

Odada notably is represented by the same agency that has Union star left back Kai Wagner as a client. Given how much interest there has been from European teams in Wagner over the years, it’s a safe bet that Tanner knows the agency pretty well by now.

We’ll see if the Union make another move before Major League Soccer’s summer transfer window closes at the end of Thursday. That’s the deadline for when teams can buy players under contract elsewhere. Teams can sell players based on when the league of the buying team’s transfer window closes. For most of the big European leagues, their deadline is Sept. 1.

» READ MORE: It’s surprising that Kai Wagner is still with the Union, but it also isn’t