Official Adelaide United release

Adelaide United FC is delighted to officially announce that it has secured local based attacking midfielder Ricardo Da Silva for the upcoming Hyundai A-League season.

Da Silva has been on Reds Head Coach Rini Coolen's radar for much of this year as he kept a close eye on the Portuguese born talent while he was playing with Adelaide City in the local Super League competition. The Reds' newest signing reiterates the club's commitment to identifying local talent and providing them with an opportunity, regardless of age.

"I have followed him for a long period and I got the confirmation when he trained with us a couple of months ago that he is definitely a player that can fit into our system," Coolen said of his new acquisition.

The 27-year old trained with the Reds a couple of times a few months ago, but Coolen has had to wait to bring Da Silva into the squad due to his commitments with Adelaide City, which ended last Saturday following the club's defeat to Blue Eagles in the Super League Grand Final.

While Coolen stated the situation surrounding Da Silva was not ideal, he said the club accepted it and was now looking forward to him joining the squad on a full time basis.

"We've had a few meetings with him to tell him about our shape and the way we want to play, and it would have been better if he could have come in a few more times over the past couple of months to train with the boys for one session a week to get used to our shape, but we knew he was playing at Adelaide City and unfortunately we didn't have permission from them to do that."

"So we respected that and took the decision to leave him as long as possible to play with his local club, but the local season is over now and it's good that we can start working with him."