Pedro Ribiro is from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He played his college at Coastal Carolina, where he won a lot of accolades for the college. Every year he was at the college, he took them to the NCAA tournament. Pedro was ranked 11th on career goals, 6th for assists and 9th for points while at Coastal Carolina. After he left the university he was drafted 15th overall by the Philadelphia Union in the second MLS SuperDraft. The Philadelphia coach, Jim Couch, stated that Pedro was going to be part of the club for a long time, but when Orlando City SC came in to the league the Union had to protect 11 players and Ribiro wasn’t one of them. Couch said the 2014 season was successful, but unfair to Ribiro because he was playing a position that he was not use to. Couch wanted to develop Ribiro into a start over the next four to five years.
Ribiro grew up idolizing his teammate Kaka. Ribiro gave up trying to play soccer professionally at 18 and wanted to get an education, so he had to look at Kaka from afar. He never dreamed that he would be playing a superstar like Kaka, let alone playing alongside him. The Orlando coach, Adrian Heath, put Ribiro next to Kaka in the locker room to make things a little easier for both of them. Ribiro at first was just trying not to be star-struck being next to Kaka, but it seems like things are playing out very well for the both of them. They hooked up for a goal and an assist to each other when they played against Montreal Impact. Let’s hope that these two will keep up that teamwork for the rest of the season especially the next game tonight against DC United.
