American athlete participates in exchange program with U-18 Women's Team
Olivia Marie is a Flamengo fan and will spend a month training with the red-black team.
By Mariana Sa - in
Flamengo's U-18 women's team is welcoming a special visitor next month. Olivia Marie de Moraes, 19, is half-Brazilian and half-American and will be participating in an exchange program with the Flamengo team before their debut in the Brazilian Championship. She currently plays for UCLA, the University of California, Los Angeles, and is the first to participate in the club's program aimed at developing the sport.
Born in Los Angeles on May 18, 2000, Olivia began her career with AYSO at age 5. Shortly thereafter, at age 8, she began playing for FRAM, an LA club, winning titles and scoring numerous goals. The forward moved on to the Palos Verdes Exiles (now the Los Angeles Galaxy) at age 11.
Two years later, she had the opportunity to join the SoCal Blues, considered the best team in the United States in her age group. Competing in the 2015 ECNL National Championship against more than two thousand teams, Olivia Marie won the national championship as a center forward and was also selected for the US Olympic Development Program.
Thanks to her increasingly better performance on the field, individual awards and trophies on her resume, she was called up to the Brazilian U-17 team in 2016, playing in the South American Women's Championship in Venezuela, finishing as runner-up.
Currently playing for UCLA, a university that is one of the top in the sport, Olivia will have the opportunity to train with Flamengo, a club she says she has been a fan of since she was a child.
She has been working with the red-black group since Monday (1) at CEFAN. The player will remain with the group until the end of the month. It is worth remembering that Mais Querido debuts in the Brazilian Under-18 Women's Football Championship on the 14th, when it faces Vitória-BA in Pernambuco.
