Glamour Shot of Rafael.

D.C. United announced this morning that they’ve come to terms with Brazilian Série A side E.C. Bahia on a one-year loan for 20-year old striker Rafael. United’s latest acquisition will come on board as a Young Designated Player, meaning a large chunk of his salary (anything over $200,000) will be exempt from the team’s salary cap. The loan, which Bahia actually announced on January 3, bolsters a front line that’s already seen the loss of Maicon Santos and Josh Wolff, and will likely end up losing Hamdi Salihi as well.

“We are very excited to have reached a deal to bring Rafael to D.C. United,” said the team’s General Manager Dave Kasper. “He is a young, talented player with solid experience with the Brazilian Serie A club Bahia. We believe Rafael has all the qualities to be a successful striker in Major League Soccer, and we look forward to having him join us in pre-season 2013.”

Rafael—his full name is Rafael Teixeira de Souza, if you’re into that sort of thing—has managed 10 goals in 36 career appearances for Bahia (known to their fans as “The Steel Squadron,” which sounds like a Stallone movie but is still undeniably awesome.) Last year saw him find the back of the net four times in 637 minutes of action (largely off the bench) across all competitions.

Whether Rafael is the answer up top remains to be seen. United experimented with several different pairings at forward last year, finally settling on playing mid-season acquisition Lionard Pajoy as a lone striker (with little success). The impression given by Olsen on this morning’s call is that Rafael will compete directly against Pajoy for the starting spot up top. That having been said, he was also quick to set the bar fairly low for his new DP: “I’m not gonna put crazy demands on this guy. We’ve got firepower.”

The move is United’s most high-profile personnel grab in what’s been a relatively quiet off-season. While some fans of the black-and-red are probably growing impatient, the first half of the 2013 off-season has played out much like it did in 2012, when Ben Olsen told us at the team’s first training session “Don’t worry guys, we’ll have a team.” Olsen elaborated a bit more earlier today: “It’s been widely reported that this we’ve been quiet this off-season. I like that. I like what we have right now.”

As for Salihi, the club has continued to explore their options. Kasper told DCist that the team is in contact with his representatives. “Those discussions are ongoing. We’ll announce news accordingly.” He also commented on last month’s speculation that the team was pursuing Brazilian international Luis Fabiano, noting that there was no truth to that rumor at all. Joked Olsen: “If he wants to come here and play for the league minimum, I’ll take him.”

Here’s a highlight video someone out there put together of Rafael. It’s got all the qualities I look for in an internationally-produced homemade highlight reel: horrible music, random jump cuts to Atari games, etc. I gotta admit, though—his trademark “Gladiator” goal celebration is pretty solid.

UPDATED: A busy news day for United and MLS in general. A couple of other tidbits: The Post’s Soccer Insider is reporting that Dwayne De Rosario will count this year as a designated player. United had paid his salary down last year with allocation money to avoid classifying him as such …. The full MLS schedule was also just released. You can view United’s slate right here. They’ll play 11 nationally televised games, including an unprecedented two regular season games on NBC’s main network – their encounter with New York in March and their season finale against Houston in October.