Former Orlando Pirates starlet Ricardo Lourenco has finally found a new club after leaving the Soweto giants last year.
The central midfielder has joined Jwaneng Galaxy as the club reinforced its squad ahead of their 2020/21 Botswana Premier League and Caf Champions League campaigns.
Lourenco has been clubless since he parted ways with the Buccaneers at the end of the 2018/19 season.
Galaxy, who are the reigning Botswana Premier League champions, released the following statement regarding their new signings:
"Jwaneng Galaxy Football Club wishes to announce that we have agreed terms with the following foreign players, who are free agents," a club statement read.
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"Yali, Sangare: 19-year-old Ivorian U-20 midfielder. Sede Junior Dion: 22-year-old Ivorian U-23 and former ASEC Mimosas striker. Ricardo Torres Lourenco: 24-year-old South Africa former U-23 player and former Orlando Pirates MDC captain and first-team midfielder."
Prior to joining Pirates, Lourenco played for the Bidvest Wits academy, before moving to Europe where he turned out for Dutch club PEC Zwolle's under-21 side in 2015.
Lourenco was part of the South Africa under-20 side which won the 2015 Russian Commonwealth tournament in St Petersburg.
Upon his return to South Africa, Lourenco joined Pirates and he was one of the top players in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) reserve league, Multichoice Diski Challenge (MDC).
The diminutive midfielder was promoted to the club's first team ahead of the 2017/18 season by then-Pirates head coach Milutin 'Micho' Sredojevic.
His exploits for the Pirates reserve team had also caught the eye of Stuart Baxter, who included Lourenco in the Bafana Bafana squad for the 2018 African Nations Championship (Chan) qualifiers in 2017.
However, Lourenco did not feature for South Africa as they eliminated Botswana in the qualifiers under coach Baxter, who resigned as Bafana head coach in August 2019.
Lourenco was released by Pirates in June 2019 along with Jackson Mabokgwane, Abbubaker Mobara, Ayanda Nkosi as well as Thabo Qalinge.
He left the Houghton-based giants without playing a single competitive match for the club's first team.
Galaxy posted a video of Lourenco in his first training session with the team on Thursday:
