ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2013 The Tampa Bay Rowdies announced on Wednesday the addition of attacking midfielder Mattheus Oliveira to the squad for the 2026 USL Championship season. The transaction is pending league and federation approval.<\/p>\n
Oliveira was a trialist for the Rowdies throughout the preseason. He appeared in several of the club\u2019s preseason contests and recorded an assist in Tampa Bay\u2019s 3-0 preseason win over FC Naples. The 31-year-old midfielder was most recently with Emirati side Al Nasr in the UAE Pro League.<\/p>\n
\u201cMattheus is a player with tremendous quality and great experience, so we are excited to add him to our squad for 2026,\u201d said Rowdies Head Coach Dominic Casciato. \u201cHe\u2019s a hard worker and a team player who knows what it takes to win. He\u2019s impressed us throughout preseason, and we are delighted to strengthen the roster with a player of his caliber.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Oliveria began his professional career with Flamengo in 2012. After several seasons with the Brazilian giants, he became a regular contributor while on loan to Estoril in Portugal\u2019s top division. In 2017, Oliveira signed an extended contract with Sporting CP before joining fellow Primeira Liga club Vit\u00f3ria SC and Brazilian club Coritiba for separate loan spells. Following stints with Portuguese sides Mafra and Farense, Oliveira made the move to Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates in 2014.<\/p>\n
Olivera also played for Brazil\u2019s U-20 national team as a teenager. He is the oldest son of former Brazilian forward Bebeto, who helped lead the country\u2019s national team to a Copa Am\u00e9rica title in 1989 and a World Cup title in 1994.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to say to all the Rowdies fans that I\u2019m very happy to be part of this great club,\u201d said Oliveira. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to wear this jersey, and I\u2019m sure that together we will achieve our goals and do great things this season. I look forward to seeing all the fans soon at Al Lang Stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2013 The Tampa Bay Rowdies announced on Wednesday the addition of attacking midfielder Mattheus Oliveira…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[115,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-197201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-news","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}