Ronaldo Damus joins Legion on loan

The Legion announced today that it has reached a loan deal with GIF Sundsvall of Sweden for Ronaldo Damus to play in Birmingham for the 2025 season with an option to buy him out.

This is a big win for the Three Sparks. The signing is at least as significant as the pickup of Neco Brett back in 2020, and probably more so. He fills the hole at striker we discussed yesterday and then some. Ronaldo has spent most of his career in the USL with multiple clubs (North Texas in League One, Orange County, San Diego Loyal and most recently the champion Colorado Springs Switchbacks in the Championship) with a brief stint with Sundsvall in 2022, all after starting out with Real Hope in his native Haiti.

He is a prolific scorer. In 162 professional appearances over 6 years he has logged 72 goals (47 in 99 appearances in the Championship). That includes 14 in 37 games last year, including one in the USL Championship final. That was good enough for 6th equal. He is also still pretty young at just 25 and has quite some time yet to play. At 5’11” he’s also not small and so represents a double threat. All told, he’s a major talent.

For whatever reason Sundsvall have not really used him much. He played 22 games for them in 2022 after being transferred from Orange County, scoring a somewhat modest 5 goals. He was loaned out to San Diego and then Colorado Springs the past two seasons. It’s not as if Sundsvall is brimming over with players though; they play in the Swedish second tier and this year barely avoided relegation via a playoff.

Whatever. He is clearly a true USL Championship talent. His scoring rate of 0.47 GPG is among the best in league history. He’s also a proven winner: in 6 seasons in the US:L he has won 3 championships (with North Texas in 2019, with Orange County in 2021 and with the Switchbacks in 2024). With this signing the Legion is serving notice to the rest of the league that it really does mean business in 2025.

(12/6/24: updated to correct some data points and add additional detail)