Lion Links: 7/11/19

Happy Friday eve, Mane Landers! We only need to get through today and tomorrow and it’s the weekend again! Both the Old and Young Lions were in action last night, so look for those recaps below in addition to some good news for two of the men in purple and a story about the newest Lion. Time to get to it.

Orlando City Advances on Penalties after Drawing NYCFC

The first-team Lions returned home to Exploria Stadium Wednesday evening — after playing in Philadelphia late Sunday afternoon — for a quarterfinal Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup match against New York City FC. The teams couldn’t decide it in 90 minutes, nor in 120, so on to penalties the match went after finishing 1-1. When the supporters saw that NYCFC had chosen to kick toward the south end of the stadium, there was a mass exodus from The Wall to the other end to support the Lions. Once it went to spot kicks, Adam Grinwis stole the show, stopping two penalties to lead the Lions to a 5-4 shootout win and into their first appearance in the semifinals.

Former Orlando City center back Amro Tarek sent his support to his old squad hours before the game.

Check back later today for David Rohe’s five takeaways from the epic battle as well.

Lions Acquire 24-Year-Old Winger Robinho from Columbus

While most fans were still celebrating the final Adam Grinwis save last night, The Mane Land and Massive Report co-broke a transfer story. Sources told TML that Orlando City has agreed to a deal with the Columbus Crew that will send Brazilian winger Robinho to Orlando in exchange for $50,000 in 2019 Targeted Allocation Money — a total that could be augmented by $70,000 in 2020 TAM if the 24-year-old meets certain performance criteria. The two SB Nation blogs had pieces of the story and worked different ends of the deal and shared information, finally breaking the news together after last night’s match. Teamwork is fun.

OCB Hosts Chattanooga Red Wolves SC

For the second match of a two-game home stand, the Young Lions of Orlando City B, forced a very late 1-1 draw against the Red Wolves of Chattanooga Wednesday evening at Montverde Academy. Down 1-0 at the half because of this Jose Sito Seoane goal, OCB saw the game’s first 90 minutes conclude down a man and with the same score. Another long period of stoppage time allowed the home club to find a goal and earn the point. A recap of the match by our Sean Rollins will drop later this morning. (Sorry, but Sean was at the USOC game.)

2019 MLS Homegrown Game Roster Revealed

Orlando City SC Development Academy director Marcelo Neveleff will lead a group of 22 players from the U.S. and Canadian youth national teams in this year’s MLS Homegrown Game. The match, part of the MLS All-Star festivities, will be on July 30 at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, and sees the MLS team facing Chivas de Guadalajara’s Under-20 squad. Rookie Lions’ forward Benji Michel and long-time Orlando City Homegrown Player Mason Stajduhar were chosen to represent the club. Congratulations guys! See the entire roster here and start planning to get out there to support our boys.

USWNT Celebrates World Cup Championship in NYC

The United States Women’s National Team, including Orlando Pride’s Ashlyn Harris, Ali Krieger, and Alex Morgan, were honored for their 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup championship with a parade through the streets of New York City Wednesday morning.

Morgan also made certain that everyone knew it was tea time.

Meanwhile, FOX Soccer named the top five goals of the WWC and offered up this remembrance to “those souls we lost.” Though most of the country, and a large part of the world, spent the last month buzzing about the tournament, FIFA certainly isn’t to thank for that. Also, I think this article about the pets of the USWNT may be my favorite WWC news ever. Yay for including all of the kitties! Oh, and then the whole team jumped on a plane and flew to Los Angeles for the ESPY Awards.

Free Kicks

• American Soccer Analysis provided performance breakdowns for Lions’ forwards Tesho Akindele and Dom Dwyer.
• In true Major League Soccer fashion, the Disciplinary Committee issued an additional one-game suspension (immediately before the kickoff of last night’s Cup match) to Orlando City midfielder Sacha Kljestan after reviewing the red card he picked up against the Philadelphia Union last Wednesday. He’ll miss Saturday’s game against Columbus.
• It’s safe to assume that the Pride really, really missed the legendary Marta.
• Speaking of both the USWNT and the Orlando Pride, Alex Morgan was nominated for Best Athlete in a Sport and Best Female Athlete at last night’s ESPYS awards. The ceremony saw Morgan nab the ESPY for Best Female Athlete. Congratulations on another trophy, Alex! See the full list of ESPY winners here.
• Toronto FC is looking to trade Jordan Hamilton and an international spot to Columbus Crew SC in exchange for Patrick Mullins.
• Head Coach Bruce Arena is continuing his work to improve the New England Revolution with the signing of Designated Player Gustavo Bou.
• Philadelphia Union manager Jim Curtin inked a two-year contract extension.
• Twenty years and one day ago, Brandi Chastain showed off her sports bra. Oh, and the USWNT 99ers won the 1999 Women’s World Cup.
• Concacaf unveiled the new qualifying structure for the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar.
• Liverpool FC’s Champions League hero Divock Origi signed a new long-term contract with the club. In even better news, his teammate Daniel Sturridge got his beloved dog Lucci back!
• Does Brazil want former USWNT Head Coach Pia Sundhage for its national team?
• I know it’s VfL Wolfsburg day — and I’ll get there next — but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Frank Lampard’s first match in charge of Chelsea FC. Unfortunately, the squad only managed a 1-1 draw in the preseason friendly.
• The dates for the first six Bundesliga fixtures of the 2019-2020 season are out. The Wolves kick off the campaign on Aug. 17 by hosting FC Koln.

And that’s a wrap for me today. Enjoy the rest of Thursday and keep counting the hours until the weekend. Go City!