Lion Links: 1/15/19

Happy Tuesday, everyone. I hope you all had good weekends. Mine was fantastic until I got locked out of my apartment on Sunday and had to pay a locksmith $65 to get me back inside. That certainly put a damper on things. But, life goes on, and another day means another round of news to talk about. Let’s have at it.

Pride Announce New Head Coach

Yesterday the Orlando Pride named Marc Skinner as the team’s second ever head coach. Skinner comes to Orlando by way of Birmingham City FC, where he began with the Youth Centre of Excellence before working his way up the club infrastructure head coach of the women’s first team.

It was widely reported last week that Skinner was the new hire, but as new Pride General Manager Erik Ustruck said during the NWSL College Draft, no announcement could be made until after the conclusion of the draft due to contractual obligations with Birmingham City. Skinner takes the reins from Tom Sermanni and will reportedly name his staff at a later date.

Orlando City Communications Manager Jackie Maynard sat down for a Q&A session with the new boss, which you can find here.

The Lions Select Scott DeVoss

Orlando City’s final move of the MLS SuperDraft was to select center back Scott DeVoss in the third round (more on that later). The University of Denver product is the second center back that the Lions selected in this year’s SuperDraft.

During his time at Denver, DeVoss logged over 7,000 minutes and won a number of awards while setting several school records along the way. He also spent time with the Colorado Rapids U-23 team in the Premier Development League, making 12 appearances over the last two summers. DeVoss was Orlando’s final selection of the SuperDraft as the Lions elected not to make a fourth-round selection in a rather curious move. The fourth-round pick was acquired in exchange for Harrison Heath’s departure to Atlanta United, and while there typically isn’t much value found that late in the draft, it still wouldn’t have hurt to take a chance on someone anyway.

U.S. Soccer Partners Up With Volkswagen

Yesterday, U.S. Soccer announced a partnership with Volkswagen of America, making the car maker the “presenting automotive partner to the Federation.” The stated mission of the partnership is to help the federation grow and increase U.S. Soccer’s presence in America. The immediate impact of the partnership is that Volkswagen now has branding on all U.S. Soccer national team training tops (whoop-de-doo!) but the stated goals of the partnership do run much deeper. Volkswagen will help fund programs that will develop female coaches in the United States, a worthy cause if ever there was one.

Free Kicks

• Almost-U.S. international Giuseppe Rossi is training with Manchester United for some reason.
• David Wagner is no longer the manager of Premier League cellar-dwelling Huddersfield Town.
• Much like the phantom of the opera, Paul Pogba has declared that he was “in the shadows” when Jose Mourinho was the manager at Old Trafford. But now that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has arrived, he’s spread his wings and become a beautiful butterfly. Or something like that.

That’ll be all for me today. As always, keep it here for all of your Orlando soccer news. Ciao.