Atlético Ottawa announced yesterday August 31st, 2022 that they had signed 2006-born defender Gabriel Carvalho and 2005-born midfielder Omar Darwish to Canadian Premier League Development Contracts for the remainder of the season.

Both players are products of the West Ottawa Soccer Club, that had been identified through the Atlético Madrid Development Program. Both of these players have been part of a group of top talented local players that have been training with the club weekly as part of the development program.

We are excited to see our first graduates of the Development Program join the A squad as we continue to battle for the top of the standings. Gabriel and Omar have shown our technical staff that they can make the jump, and we look forward to seeing them continue to grow as players with this new opportunity,” said Fernando López, CEO of Atlético Ottawa. “It is gratifying to see the Program already starting to bear fruit, and that this relationship with our local clubs is having a positive impact on the soccer development pathway in the region.” 

Development Contracts are a unique roster spot in a Canadian Premier League team. Each club in the Canadian Premier League may have four players at any one time included in their Master Roster who hold a Development permit (maximum of one (1) goalkeeper). These Players are not contracted by the CPL Club and remain registered with their current Club. These Players will not count towards each CPL Clubs Primary Roster (23-man squad signed to SPC). The players also have to be Canadian according to FIFA standards, and U18. A player signed on a development contract is permitted to play in a total of three games with that team.

S. 2 Ep. 21: Canada Doing What Canada Does – FC13 Podcast

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These are the first development players Atlético Ottawa has signed this year with the team also signing two last season as well.

The signing come at an important point in the season for Atlético Ottawa as they look to clinch a playoff stop and meet the U21 minute requirements. Currently the team are last place with at the time of writing with only 1361 minutes completed out of the required 2000 minutes needed.

Look to have these two new players be used sparely and mostly only out of necessity if it comes down to crunch time and Atlético Ottawa have not yet completed their U21 minute requirements. Or one of the main U21 players such as Zakaria Bahous goes down injured.

Atlético Ottawa play FC Edmonton in their second last home game of the season this Friday, September 2nd as they look to keep top of the table. Atlético Ottawa will probably use this game as one to play multiple of their U21 players to rack the minutes up.

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