Lion Links: 4/21/17

So 4/20 was a fun day, folks — and NOOOOOOOOOO, it wasn’t because of reasons you might be thinking.

Thursday was a fun day because #MartaWatch was in full effect as the Orlando Pride’s newest signing arrived at Orlando International Airport last night to be greeted by dozens of fans at the gate.

The five-time World Player of the Year will join her new club on the field for the first time this morning following an official introductory press conference. Even after arriving less than 48 hours before the Pride kick off against the Washington Spirit on Saturday, Marta is expected to be available and in the lineup for Tom Sermanni’s side.

Oh, and it looks like Orlando City Stadium will host this year’s NWSL championship game.

But anyway, hello all! I’m excited to be back in the Links machine. But before we get to the links, I’d like to wish a happy birthday to a pair of Pride players! Happy 26th to midfielder Maddy Evans and happy 30th to defender Monica Hickman Alves. Party hard, you two (but not tonight because there’s a game tomorrow). Now, let’s kick off this decent Friday morning with some links, shall we?

What? Kreis is Evolving!

MLSSoccer.com contributor Simon Veness wrote a good piece on Jason Kreis yesterday, using Will Johnson to talk about Jason Kreis as a coach and how he has evolved since his early coaching days when he was with Real Salt Lake.

Here’s a piece from Johnson:

“Over time at RSL, it evolved into something special, with a good home-field advantage, and that’s similar to what we’re trying to build here with a brand new stadium,” Johnson explained. “We want to ensure everybody knows how important it is to us that we defend our home field with everything we’ve got.”

Kreis took over the club last summer, and has the Lions off to their best start in team history with four wins and 12 points through their first five games.

“I’m Not Superstitious, I’m Just A Little Stitious”

Alicia DelGallo had a pretty fun story for the Orlando Sentinel about how she apparently put a curse on Antonio Nocerino before the New York Red Bulls game, and asked other players if they had any superstitions. Some said no, others said yes.

I, personally, was never that superstitious when I played baseball growing up. I know baseball was one of those sports where people got really superstitious, but I don’t know that there was anything I was crazy about. If anything, I was one of those people that whenever I did something good, I just did the exact same thing next time to see if I could find that luck again.

Alex Morgan Is Enjoying France

Over to the Pride now and back to the Sentinel, Alicia took a look at Alex Morgan, who seems to be enjoying herself during her time in France. Meanwhile, back at home, the Pride are still 100 percent expecting that Morgan will rejoin the club when her loan with Lyon comes to an end.

“We fully expect Alex to come back,” Orlando City general manager Niki Budalic told the Orlando Sentinel. “That was one of the challenges last year, trying to find the best way to build around her, and we’ve found the perfect player in Marta.”

Free Kicks

Don Garber thinks MLS is getting closer to winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League…we’re all hoping for the best for Zlatan right now…D.C. United looks to extend Bill Hamid…and finally, Fiji is getting a $7 bill to honor its rugby team.

Play Me Out

It’s been a while since I last hosted Links, and I’ve listened to a lot of good music over the course of that time. So I’m just going to go with what I’ve been listening to most recently, which comes from the German folk group Milky Chance, who released a new album last month that is, in my opinion, pretty damn good. I’m not normally a folk guy, but I liked this set of tunes.

There you go, that’s the news you need, and I hope you have a good Friday. Until next time, kiddos.