THE NASL’s Tampa Bay Rowdies announced that the club has signed Guyana international defender John Paul . Rodrigues to a two-year contract, with the second year being a club option.

Rodrigues (6-1, 175) is a familiar face to Rowdies fans: He played for the Rowdies during the 2011 and 2012 seasons, and was a key contributor for the Rowdies’ 2012 NASL Soccer Bowl Championship team, starting 23 regular season matches and 4 playoff matches.
Rodrigues also played for Miami FC and Major League Soccer’s D.C. United. The defender represented Guyana with 26 international caps, including qualifying matches for both the 2010 and 2014 World Cup. Among his long list of individual honours, Rodrigues was named to the MILS All-Rookie team in 2008.
“I’m so excited to return to the Rowdies,” said Rodrigues. “Tampa Bay is my home, and it’s an honour and a privilege to have an opportunity to bring the second Soccer Bowl Championship in the past three years back to Al Lang Stadium. We still have a lot of work to do, but with the talent-level on this team and NASL’s ‘rowdiest’ fans, we’re all anticipating an unforgettable season.”
Rodrigues, who has also seen action with Guyana’s national team since 2006, played collegiately at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee from 2002 to 2005, and earned the honour of Atlantic Sun Conference Defender-of-the-Year in his final season. The 30-year-old is a Tampa native who was a star soccer player at Land O’ Lakes High School.