Manchester United to Sign Colombian Teen Orozco for £1m

Manchester United are poised to sign 17-year-old Colombian midfielder Cristian Orozco from Fortaleza, with the player scheduled to arrive in the United Kingdom in the coming days to finalize the transfer. The deal, confirmed by transfer expert Fabrizio Romano, involves a fee of approximately £1 million.

Orozco, a defensive midfielder capped 13 times by Colombia's youth teams, will sign his contract during the visit to Manchester but will not officially join the first-team squad until next summer, after he turns 18 in July. He remains with Fortaleza for the 2025-26 season, having joined the Colombian club only this past summer without making a senior debut. United's recruitment, led by technical director Jason Wilcox, has focused on the teenager as part of a broader strategy to identify and develop overseas talent early.

The player has drawn comparisons to Chelsea's Moises Caicedo, another Colombian who rose through South American ranks. United held talks to sign Caicedo in January 2021 from Independiente del Valle but abandoned the pursuit amid agent complications and a £5.5 million asking price, which the club deemed too high at the time. Caicedo later transferred to Chelsea...