Lion Links: 8/8/15

Happy match day, Lions Nation!

Winter is here. Not the season, we don’t get that in Florida. But winger Adrian Winter arrived in Orlando and trained in full with Orlando City on Friday. He may or may not be available to play tonight against Philadelphia, but he’s certainly a welcome addition to a team that has struggled to find playmakers on the wing.

Welcome to Orlando Adrian. You’re the only Winter we will ever have. Let’s get to some links. Today we got Adrian Heath upset over the death of a (real) lion, Cyle Larin is still staying humble, a former Lion signs with Colorado, USL teams loaning players to their MLS partners, Chicharito turning down Galaxy and a couple of other signings around the league.

Larin Staying Humble

Cyle Larin has burst onto the MLS scene as one of the predominant goal scorers in the league as a rookie. But as Yahoo! writes, the rookie is staying humble despite being a player who has experienced success at every level he played at. Even when he was playing in basketball shoes. The scariest part is that Larin is still pretty green

Head coach Adrian Heath said:

"We believe that we’ve picked the best player in the draft. Cyle has incredible potential, and we’re looking forward to working with him."

That's a coach calling potential one of the best things about a player who is one of the top goal scorers in the MLS. Scary.

Head Lion Roaring Over Cecil's Death

Last week I joked about Orlando City naming the new stadium after Cecil the Lion. While that was a joke, it was heartwarming to see one of the top Lions in Orlando, Head Coach Adrian Heath, comment on the death of the African Lion.

“I thought it was disgraceful — disgraceful!” Heath said during his weekly appearance on our Open Mike radio show. “I just find it incredible in this day and age where wildlife is evaporating so quickly that people think this is a sport to go kill (big-game) animals.”

Sometimes sports does collide with other aspects of the world, and while this is just a small example, Heath took a stand and showed that he is not just a soccer coach, he is also a human being. And he disagreed with something that happened in the world and spoke up. Kudos.

Rapids Sign St. Ledger

After being released by Orlando City last week, Sean St. Ledger has landed with the Colorado Rapids. St. Ledger was waived after a "serious breach of club policy," and we hope whatever happened with St. Ledger is a one-time thing and wish him nothing but success. The Rapids also inked Maynor Figueroa, according to the team's Twitter account.

That's a good haul for the Rapids on a day that also saw the Sounders sign Nelson Valdez, and Toronto FC land Herculez Gomez.

USL Teams Can Loan to MLS Teams

LA Galaxy is breaking down all kinds of walls this season. They somehow brought up three players from their USL team on loan in an unprecedented move that most teams did not know could even happen. We doubt MLS knew this could happen.

YOUR RULES MAKE NO SENSE, MLS.

Chicharito Turned Down Galaxy?

Speaking of Galaxy, there were reports yesterday that Chicharito turned down an offer to join the club during the transfer window. Personally, I’m a little tired of Chicharito news, but you guys keep clicking on it, so here you go.