[Updated] According to Irish Right Back Tom Gaston, Portland Timbers Sign Irish Right Back Tom Gaston

UPDATE: Stumptown Footy has been told by team sources that Gaston will be an academy player.

UPDATE 2: Gaston has updated his Instagram post to reflect his signing with the Timbers Academy.

So far information about the Portland Timbers’ offseason pursuits has been hard to come by. To date, the only firm pieces of information to come from the team are that Gavin Wilkinson and Giovanni Savarese have been to Europe and that they are close to signing a young right back to serve as the understudy to Jorge Moreira.

Now we finally know who that right back is.

On Saturday morning, 18-year-old French-Irish right back Tom Gaston posted a photo to his instagram account from the Timbers’ locker room captioned, “very happy and honored to have signed a new deal with such a great club @TimbersFC”.

Previous to his apparent signing with the Timbers, Gaston played for French side FC Girondins de Bordeaux, making appearances with their U19 side. Gaston has also managed a handful of appearances for the Ireland U19’s, getting three match at center back and right back for the youth national team.

How Gaston would fit into the Timbers’ set up remains to be seen, but it seems likely that the youngster would spend most of his time with T2, particularly with the Timbers’ stated goal of retaining the services of Moreira past the end of his loan from River Plate in June.

Gaston’s signing has not yet been made official by the Timbers. It is unclear if he has signed with the first team or with Portland Timbers 2, as well as whether or not he has signed a full contract or has come on loan.