Union sign midfielder Andrés Perea from Orlando City in a rare MLS deal

With the Union likely to play more than 50 games in 2023, they need as much depth as they can get. The 22-year-old Perea will help, with experience in MLS playing multiple positions.

Andrés Perea (right) celebrates scoring a goal against the Union in a U.S. Open Cup game earlier this year.Read moreJohn Raoux / AP

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published Dec. 6, 2022, 12:53 p.m. ET

A Union team that makes most of its offseason signings from abroad or its youth academy took a different tack on Tuesday, acquiring midfielder Andrés Perea from Orlando City.

It’s not the first time in sporting director Ernst Tanner’s tenure the Union have signed a player from within MLS. They did so last year with Julián Carranza, acquiring him from Inter Miami on loan at first, then paying a preset fee to acquire him for good. But it’s a relatively rare sight for the club.

“We know Andrés both from our league as well as various international tournaments and were immediately impressed with his ability and tenacity,” Tanner said in a statement. “Andrés is a versatile player who can play multiple positions in our system. We believe he is ready to take the next step in his development and will challenge for a significant role as he learns our style of play and integrates into the team.”

If that’s an indication that the 22-year-old Perea will be fairly high up the depth chart, so is the price the Union paid for him: $450,000 up front, $300,000 after the 2023 season, and up to $100,000 based on performance incentives. Orlando also will get a cut of a future fee from a sale abroad “if certain conditions are met,” the Union’s announcement said.

The window for such a sale is fairly big. Perea was heading into the last option year of his existing contract with Orlando, so the Union agreed to a new deal: guaranteed through 2025 (three seasons) and an option year in 2026.

With the Union likely to play over 50 games in 2023 across all competitions, they need as much depth as they can get. Perea might not be a locked-in starter, but he will see plenty of action. No one is going to play every game.

His most likely role will be one of the central places in a midfield diamond. If the Union deploy other formations along the way, which they probably will, his versatility will help.

If you’re wondering about attacking punch, Perea can provide a little, but it’s not his strongest suit. He had just four goals and two assists in 4,093 minutes over 86 games with Orlando. The Union know what he can do, though, because three of those four goals came against them.

Born in Tampa, Fla., Perea moved to Colombia with his family at age 5 and grew up in the academy of Atlético Nacional, one of that country’s bigger clubs. He turned pro there in 2017, and stayed until joining Orlando in 2020. (Some longtime Union fans know of Atlético Nacional as the first club Union original Roger Torres signed with after leaving. But he moved on before Perea turned pro.)

Because Perea was born in the United States, he has dual U.S. and Colombian citizenship. He played for Colombia at the 2017 under-17 World Cup and 2019 under-20 World Cup. After he moved to Orlando, he earned attention from U.S. national team scouts. He earned his first U.S. call-up in December 2020, and FIFA granted him a one-time nationality switch a few weeks later.

On Jan. 31, 2021, Perea made his senior U.S. national team debut. At the end of the annual winter training camp for domestic prospects, the Americans beat Trinidad and Tobago with a squad including six future World Cup players: Kellyn Acosta, Jesús Ferreira, Aaron Long, Cristian Roldan, Matt Turner, and Walker Zimmerman. Turner’s backup that day was Union backup goalkeeper Matt Freese.

The next month, Perea played a defensive midfield role for the U.S. under-23 team in the qualifying tournament for the Tokyo Olympics. Though the Americans came up short, it was because of a lack of offense, not a lack of defense.

It would fall to some of Perea’s new Union teammates this past July to redeem their country and end the Olympic drought for 2024.