Real Salt Lake Sign Fidel Barajas From Charleston Battery In USL Championship

Real Salt Lake continues to value the USL Championship to MLS pipeline. RSL have acquired Mexican-American youth international midfielder Fidel Barajas from the USL Cup runners up, Charleston Battery. The 17 year old Barajas comes to Real Salt Lake following a season in which we saw Diego Luna star in MLS after coming from the USL Championship. Barajas is a USL Championship Young Player of the Year, USL Championship All League 2nd Team Player, and CONCACAF U-17 Champion with Mexico. In 37 career games for Charleston, Barajas has scored 5 goals and recorded 13 assists in 2,463 minutes. His combined youth international career (Mexico U17s & US U17s) has seen him play 30 games, score 8 goals, and record 7 assists.

I don’t expect to see Barajas play major minutes for RSL in 2024, if he follows in the same path that Diego Luna did for the club. Barajas will have countless youth international competitions over the course of 2024 that I am sure he will want to participate in as well. However, I do think we see him get close to 1,000 minutes over the course of the 2024 season. Barajas is a big time talent, and that was clearly shown as he was dominating at the second division level as a teenager. Now, let’s see how the kid adjusts to the top division level here within the United States. I am very excited to see the Luna/Barajas combination click!