Lion Links: 2/23/15

It was a busy weekend. Plenty of basketball, the Northern Open Trust, the Daytona 500 and of course, the Oscars. However, the most important event might have taken place in South Carolina …

In case you didn't get to watch it…

Here’s the full match between Orlando City SC and New York City FC from the Carolina Challenge Cup on Saturday night. The commentary might make you eat your own hand, so I suggest streaming some good music and providing match commentary of your own in your head (that’s how I play FIFA).

If you want to skip the rest of the match and watch Kaká score over and over again, go here. For those keeping score at home, it’s Kaká 1, David Villa 0 (assists don’t count). Also, there’s a good highlight package here by the MLS site for the game. March 8 can’t get here soon enough.

The CONCACAF U-17 Championship begins this week

At least one member of the Orlando City Youth Academy — Nathaniel Adamolekun — is playing in the youth tournament, which begins Friday. The young striker will take the field for Jamaica’s U-17 side in Honduras. Four of the 12 teams in the tournament will qualify for the U-17 World Cup in October.

Jamaica was placed in Group A alongside the United States. The U.S. is looking to win its first CONCACAF U-17 Championship since 2011, which happens to be the last time the States qualified for the U-17 World Cup.

Louisville City wraps up first week of practice

Louisville City FC finished its first week of practice. City put together a nice highlight video of the team's practice. Snow forced them indoors, where Head Coach James O' Connor tried to keep the intensity high.

The anticipation for the USL club's debut is building. They open up the season March 28 at Louisville Slugger Field against Saint Louis FC. #selloutslugger

Graham Zusi scores in return

Zusi hasn't seen a lot of training time lately due to a stress fracture in his foot, so his goal against the Seattle Sounders is highly encouraging. He's missed the past three months of training, including the U.S. winter camp.

The plan is to ease him into regular minutes to get him ready for Sporting KC’s opener against New York Red Bulls and the signs are encouraging both for Sporting and USMNT.

That's all we've got for today. Happy Monday, everyone!