Richard Odada

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Richard Odada (born 25 November 2000 in Nairobi) is a Kenyan footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for UTA Arad in Romania’s Liga I and for the Kenya national team. He is 1.90 m tall.

Odada began his youth career at Lasier Hill Academy, then moved to Leopards in 2018. In 2019 he earned trials with European clubs and joined Red Star Belgrade in Serbia, initially with the youth teams.

To gain playing time, he was loaned to Grafičar Beograd in February 2020, making his debut on 29 February 2020. He played for Grafičar across the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons. He returned to Red Star in January 2021 and made his Serbian SuperLiga debut later that month.

For the 2021-22 season, Odada was loaned to Metalac Gornji Milanovac, appearing regularly (27 games, 17 starts). After that season, plans for another Grafičar loan were made, but he changed agents in July 2022 and joined Philadelphia Union in August 2022 on a 2.5-year contract.

In 2023-24 he was loaned to AaB in Denmark, playing 21 league games and scoring 4 goals. He moved to Dundee United for 2024-25, making 13 appearances, and in 2025 he had a loan to OFK Beograd (6 appearances). He then joined UTA Arad in 2025, where he has since made several appearances.

Internationally, Odada played for Kenya U20 in 2018, scoring once in two appearances. He debuted for the Kenya senior team on 2 September 2021 in a World Cup qualifier against Uganda (0-0). He scored his first international goal with a penalty in a 2-1 win over Rwanda on 15 November 2021.