Orlando City B announced the roster status of its players following the 2024 MLS NEXT Pro season. Most of the team was made up of players on first-team and academy contracts, so little of the squad will change. However, the club has updated the status of players on MLS NEXT Pro deals.

Of the 10 players on MLS NEXT Pro contracts in 2024, six saw their deals expire at the end of the year. Those players include forwards Wilfredo Rivera and Yeiler Valencia; midfielders Imanol Almaguer and Diego Pareja; and defenders Manuel Cocca and Nabi Kibunguchy.

“First, I want to start by thanking all of the players who are leaving us at the end of this year. Their hard work and dedication has continued to push this club even further forward, and we are grateful for all they’ve done,” Orlando City SC Vice President of Soccer Operations and Technical Director Ricardo Moreira said in a club press release. “This was another year of progress for Orlando City B with the team qualifying for the playoffs for the second-straight year, and we saw a lot of growth among the players, especially in their own individual development, which is our ultimate goal. Heading into 2025, we have high goals for OCB and are excited to reset and begin the work to reach the next steps in this project.”

While the majority of the players are out of contract, three are still under MLS NEXT Pro deals for 2025. Those players are midfielders Gustavo Caraballo and Jhon Solis and defender Zakaria Taifi.

Additionally, the club announced earlier today that Colin Guske — who was also on an MLS NEXT Pro deal — has signed a Homegrown Player contract with the first team. He’ll likely be a regular with OCB next season.

What It Means for Orlando City B

While the contracts have expired on six players, that doesn’t mean their time in Orlando is over. Rivera was on a first-team Homegrown contract in 2023 and the club didn’t pick up his option. He was subsequently signed to OCB for the 2024 season. He’s only 21 years old and has signed short-term deals with the first team, so he could still return next season.

Rivera is one of the more likely players out of contract to return in 2025. Perhaps the least likely to return is Kibunguchy, who will be 27 when the 2025 season starts. Almaguer took over the captaincy in 2024 after the departure of Juninho, and the club could keep him around for his leadership qualities. However, OCB could also make the same decision it did after 2023 and hand off the armband to someone else, possibly Solis.

Regardless of the decisions made on these players, the 2025 OCB roster will be made up primarily of players on first-team contracts and academy players. The youngest probably won’t be signed to professional contracts, allowing them to maintain their college eligibility. As a result, the majority of the roster will return and we’ll see new up-and-coming talent next season.

Post-2024 Orlando City B Player Contract Statuses

(Current club players in italics)

• Imangol Almaguer — Out of Contract

• Gustavo Caraballo — Under Contract

• Manuel Cocca — Out of Contract

• Colin Guske — Signed to First Team

• Nabi Kibunguchy — Out of Contract

• Diego Pareja — Out of Contract

• Wilfredo Rivera — Out of Contract

• Jhon Solis — Under Contract

• Zakaria Taifi — Under Contract

• Yeiler Valencia — Out of Contract

With both teams finishing 11-8-9 this season, the only difference between the 2024 Orlando City B and Chicago Fire FC II regular seasons was that the Fire went 5-4 in their penalty shootouts, while the Young Lions went 4-5 in theirs. That one extra point gave Chicago home-field advantage in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals for the matchup between the teams.

As a result, the two sides met at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, IL, where they battled to a hard-fought 1-1 draw through 90 minutes and extra time, before the hosts won a penalty shootout — 5-4, naturally — to send OCB home.

The Young Lions could have claimed their first-ever postseason victory thanks to a goal by Jack Lynn in the first half, but a massive mistake allowed David Poreba to equalize just before halftime.

The Fire’s lone goal should never have happened. Leading by a goal on the road — and already in first-half stoppage time — OCB center back Nabi Kibunguchy made an ill-advised decision to take a rare foray up the field, where he turned the ball over, leading to the transition goal that ultimately forced extra time and penalties.

OCB Head Coach Manuel Goldberg fielded a strong lineup, with Carlos Mercado in goal behind a back line of Luca Petrasso, Thomas Williams, Kibunguchy, and Alex Freeman. Imanol Almaguer and Colin Guske started in central midfield behind an attacking line of Yutaro Tsukada, Jhon Solis, and Shak Mohammed, with Lynn up top.

The first half was nearly all Chicago, as the Young Lions struggled to connect passes and break through the Fire’s pressure. The few times OCB got forward, the play broke down due to poor passes or heavy touches.

The first half chance fell Chicago’s way in the sixth minute on a cross in from the right. Luka Prpa did well to get his head on it but Freeman did enough defensively to prevent a clean header. Prpa’s effort sailed over the bar. Two minutes later, Kibunguchy did well to block a shot by Christian Koffi, deflecting it out for a corner. Mercado misplayed a high cross in on the set piece, but the heavy service sailed beyond everyone and bounced out for a goal kick.

The Fire put together a string of corner kicks in the middle of the opening half but OCB dealt with them, eventually using one of them to get forward in transition. The clearance of a corner kick led to a long ball forward for Tsukada. After a wayward touch, Tsukada tracked the ball down, patiently waited for support, and then sent a beautiful pass to Lynn as he was reaching the last defender. That put the striker in behind and he calmly chipped Fire keeper Jeffrey Gal to give OCB a 1-0 lead against the run of play in the 24th minute.

The goal was Lynn’s first-ever professional postseason strike and just OCB’s second playoff goal ever. It was also OCB’s first shot attempt of the match.

Seconds after the goal, Mercado got run into by Poreba after scooping up a deflected cross. The OCB goalkeeper needed several minutes of treatment before continuing. Poreba was booked for the unnecessary foul.

The goal allowed OCB to finally settle into the game more. The Young Lions started to see more of the ball, and even had some brief spells of possession in the attacking third. Freeman sent Mohammed down the right side of the box in the 34th minute, but the winger’s centering pass was deflected by a defender and dribbled in for Gal to collect it.

Omari Glasgow blasted a shot wide of the left post after an OCB turnover in its own defensive half, as no one closed him down about 25 yards out.

Mohammed sent a weak shot right at Gal in the 37th minute. OCB then couldn’t pay off a couple of set pieces. Solis had an excellent opportunity to double the lead in the 44th minute, working his way into the top of the area on the right. He blasted a shot with his left foot, but sent it right at Gal, who caught it and hung on. That missed opportunity was costly, as it allowed the Fire to pull level moments later.

Chicago pulled even just before the break on a play that shouldn’t happen in a pickup game, let alone in the playoffs. Kibunguchy decided to go wandering forward in possession and then got himself into traffic. That allowed the Fire to dispossess him from behind and break forward in transition with numbers. The ball ended up on the left with Koffi, who centered it MLS NEXT Pro Golden Boot winner Poreba, who blasted his first touch past Mercado to make it 1-1 in the first minute of first-half stoppage time.

It was an inexcusable error for a veteran defender to make and gave the Fire a goal on their first shot to hit the target.

The Young Lions got forward quickly after the restart and won a free kick near the right sideline. A player was knocked down after the delivery into the box while the ball was pinging around amongst the bodies, but the referee wasn’t interested in making a call and the Fire broke the other way. Guske ended up with the ball in his own end with plenty of space to pass back to Mercado. Instead, he seemed to think the ball might go out for a goal kick, but the young midfielder was dispossessed and compounded the problem by committing a foul, giving the hosts a dangerous free kick.

Prpa played the set piece short to Koffi in the box. Koffi quickly blasted a shot that hit the woodwork and bounced out, nearly giving his team the lead at the death of the first half. A few seconds later, the whistle for halftime blew.

At the break, Chicago had the advantage in shots (7-4), corners (6-0), and possession (56%-44%). OCB passed slightly more accurately (88.3%-87.7%) and put more shots on target (3-1).

Chicago resumed its possession dominance out of the break and fashioned a great chance in the 49th minute. Koffi had the ball on the left and sent a good ball across to Glasgow at the back post. Glasgow, who shook free from an inattentive Petrasso, blasted a shot on the volley but sent it wide of the right post.

Freeman got into the box moments later but tried to play through two defenders with an open Mohammed to his left. His first shot was blocked and the fullback’s second effort was deflected out for OCB’s first corner of the match, but the young Lions could do nothing with it.

Guske toe poked an off-line pass back to Almaguer in the 54th minute, giving the midfielder a look at goal. Almaguer blasted the shot but Jean Diouf blocked it in front. A few minutes later, a promising attack started by Petrasso ended up with a cross to Mohammed, who turned down an open shooting opportunity to try to force a pass to a well-covered Lynn. The ball was knocked away but only to Freeman, who won a corner. Kibunguchy got a head to the high service but got well under it in the 58th minute.

Chicago created some nervy moments for the OCB defense just past the hour mark as a couple of fortuitous bounces led to a shot from a bad angle that went wide and a dangerous cross that was eventually cleared. Second-half sub Wilfredo Rivera then was fouled from behind in midfield without a call, allowing the Fire to break in transition, where they won a corner. The initial set piece cross was cleared but Diego Konincks got his head to the recycled cross, flicking it well wide of the left post in the 67th minute.

Freeman won another corner in the 71st minute with a shot from a tight angle that may have been going wide, but Gal made sure. On the set piece, Gal absolutely robbed Lynn on a header in front, getting across to knock it onto the roof of the net.

The game opened up after that and each team was forced to make huge saves. The ensuing corner was cleared and Chicago broke in transition. The Fire had numbers and took a shot from the right inside the box that seemed to change directions, but Mercado made a vital save to keep the game tied.

The Fire won a corner in the 74th minute and generated two chances from close range, including a diving header by Konincks, but the OCB defense cleared both shots off the line at the near post.

A minute later, OCB broke down the left on a good play to spring Petrasso. The Young Lions had favorable numbers but Petrasso had no path to get the ball to Lynn. Instead, he cut inside onto his right foot and sent a shot on target that hit Gal’s foot and trickled wide of the left post. Gal didn’t know much about the save, looking for the shot to to to his left, but it was an important one in the 75th minute.

The Young Lions again did nothing with their corner, allowing Chicago to counter. Glasgow had space outside the area and fired wide.

In the 83rd minute, Koffi got forward on the left, cut inside, and sent a good shot toward the near post. Mercado was able to make the save.

Favian Loyola got free for a shot in the first minute of stoppage time but blasted his shot right at Gal. Two minutes later, Tahir Reid-Brown had a chance from outside the area but it was blocked by the defense.

OCB could do nothing with a couple of late set pieces, and the game headed to 30 minutes of extra time.

Chicago had the advantage in shots (18-14), passing accuracy (86.9%-84.1%) and corners (9-8). The Young Lions put more shots on target through the 90 minutes plus injury time (8-5).

The pace of the game slowed in extra time, with both teams seeming to tire but also fearing making a mistake. After a couple of speculative balls into the box from both teams, the first good look of the extra session fell to Guske on the left. The OCB midfielder tried an inside-out shot but sent it just wide of the left post and into the outside netting in the 97th minute.

The best chance of the first half of extra time fell to Chicago after a poor giveaway in the OCB end gave the Fire a transition chance. Koffi cut inside from the left onto his right foot and the Chicago winger sent a blast off the outside of the left post in the 102nd minute.

That was it for the scoring opportunities in the first 15 minutes of extra time.

After the restart, the Young Lions survived a scramble in the 111th minute after another defensive zone turnover. Chicago sent a dangerous cross through the area but OCB was able to clear.

Yeiler Valencia won a free kick near the right corner of the box in the 112th minute, giving OCB an opportunity. Loyola went for goal with a left-footed blast, but he missed the target completely. OCB was similarly wasteful with another set piece in the 116th minute. Opting to go for goal from 30 yards out, Rivera sent a bouncer on target but with little pace on it, the shot didn’t trouble Gal, who made an easy save.

Neither side mustered much more than that in the second half of extra time, and the match went to penalties to determine who advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

OCB shot first and Freeman was the first to step to the spot. David Poreba answered for Chicago, blasting it into the right bottom corner. Valencia also used a stutter-step approach and sent Gal the wrong way, restoring OCB’s advantage. However, Harold Osorio leveled the shootout again, making it 2-2 after two rounds.

Rivera pushed OCB back out in front with another goal. Mercado then guessed correctly on Peter Soudan’s attempt, but it got under his diving effort at the post to make it 3-3. Reid-Brown made it four out of four for OCB, but 16-year-old Vitaliy Hlyut held his nerve and answered, essentially sending the spot kicks to sudden death.

Loyola’s stutter-step approach turned out to be one too many for the Young Lions, who nearly all tried some kind of tricky runup rather than using precision, as his jump-stop-kick attempt hit the right post. Diouf scored to give Chicago a perfect shootout and a spot in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

OCB had its chances, and could have won this match, but Gal made some big saves and the Young Lions made a critical error at a key point in the game to give the hosts some help.

That concludes OCB’s 2024 season. It was a good second half, but the team had been one of the league’s best clubs down the stretch, so a quick playoff exit is no doubt going to sting for a while.

Among the major men’s sports leagues in the United States, soccer is unique in that the best league in our country is not the best league in the world. This fact makes the entry process into MLS different than what most of us are accustomed to from following other sports, where every youth and adult player in our country and around the world is working towards playing in the NFL, NHL, NBA, or MLB. When it comes to soccer, however, players mostly have a dream of playing in one of the leading European leagues, which makes looking at players on affiliated teams like Orlando City B a little different than looking at players in minor leagues like the NBA’s G League, minor league baseball or any of the minor league hockey leagues.

That said, while reaching MLS may not be the longterm goal of some, or even all, of OCB’s players, for most, their immediate short-term goal will be to be first-team players for Orlando City. And by players, I mean players who play, and not just players who are on the first-team roster. One player who has already slightly kicked the door open on this goal is Alex Freeman, the right back who made brief cameo appearances in 2023 and this season for Orlando City but has played the majority of his minutes during the last two seasons for OCB.

Here is a table of Freeman’s stats from 2023 and 2024, using data from the MLS NEXT Pro website as well as fotmob.com:

I want to start by reiterating that Freeman primarily plays right back, because that number 17 in the goal contributions column for OCB in 2024 just jumps off the page, and even more so when you think about the position he plays. He is averaging 0.69 goal contributions per 90 minutes for OCB this season, and here is the complete list of every Orlando City defensive player who has ever averaged at least 0.70 in a season at the MLS level: (null set).

Cue Simon & Garfunkel playing “The Sound of Silence.” Or maybe don’t actually play it, because then it would not actually be silent, but think of the song as a metaphor. I majored in mathematics, not English; no Orlando City defender has ever averaged at least 0.70 goal contributions per 90 minutes. Let’s move on.

That silence would also have existed had I changed the value to 0.60, 0.50, or 0.40, and it is not until I looked for Orlando City defenders averaging more than 0.30 goal contributions per 90 minutes in a season that names like Dagur Dan Thórhallsson, Ruan, and Scott Sutter finally showed up. The are good players, beloved by Orlando City fans, but approximately one goal contribution per every three games is not an elite attacking player. Freeman’s 0.69, however, is more akin to someone like…2024 Facundo Torres, who in fact is averaging nearly exactly that in MLS play this season (14 goals + 6 assists across 2,552 minutes = 0.71). A right back who contributes to goals like Torres? That sounds like someone who needs an entourage. Now, would that be something you might be interested in?

Yes. Hi, I’m Andrew, and I am quite interested.

Now, I know the level and the style of play is not the same in MLS NEXT Pro as it is in MLS, but it is also not so different either. MLS teams average about 1.53 goals scored per game, and MLS NEXT Pro teams average about 1.73 goals scored, so the average MLS NEXT Pro team scores around 13% more goals per game than the average MLS team. That is more, but not substantially more. OCB averaged 1.89 goals per game this season and Orlando City is averaging 1.67 goals per game with one game remaining, so OCB is averaging…wait for it…13% more goals per game than its MLS counterpart. Scoring is slightly up in MLS NEXT Pro as compared to MLS, but when taking this back to look at Freeman’s goal contributions per 90 minutes it is not like he is playing in a league or on a team that has dramatically more scoring.

Freeman himself was quoted after the Young Lions’ last match as saying, “It’s good that I’m able to go forward and I think I’m more clinical now. I’m able to go score goals and I’m feeling really good.” He had been asked specifically about his recent run of goal-scoring form, but the clinical part also applies to his passing ability and the improvements he has made there as well.

Going back to the data I showed earlier, Freeman has also improved his passing completion percentage from 76% to 79% to 86% during the past three seasons, and considering how much attacking he has been doing this season, it is not like he is just standing in the back and completing safe passes to other defensive players to jack that percentage up.

In fact, only 33% of his completed passes were short passes, so therefore, two out of every three passes completed were medium or long passes. And with an overall completion rate of 86%, that means he was indeed as clinical as he said, since it takes technique, skill, and precision to complete such a high percentage of medium and long passes. It’s almost like someone in his family may have passed on a thing or 86 about how to complete a pass.

The final item from Freeman’s statistics that might have jumped out was his “FotMob rating,” and the corresponding MLS NEXT Pro Rank. Freeman is now up to third in this rating, across all players in MLS NEXT Pro. FotMob.com has a rating system that grades out players in dozens of leagues and thousands of matches every week, and that system (out of 10) has Freeman averaging a score of 7.66 for the season. MLS NEXT Pro has been around for three seasons and 901 players have played enough minutes to earn a season-long FotMob grade. Freeman’s 7.66 is tied for the 17th best mark in the past three seasons, which puts his 2024 season in the 98% percentile of all MLS NEXT Pro seasons in this metric.

What makes this even more impressive is that Freeman just turned 20 in August. MLS NEXT Pro is primarily a league of young players, but of the 16 seasons that generated a FotMob rating better than Freeman’s, none were played by a player who was in his teens for most of the season and half were played by players 22 or older. Freeman is also alone among the top players as a defensive player, as nearly every other top rated player is an attacking midfielder or striker.

Most rating systems are biased (excluding The Mane Land’s player grading system, which has zero biases or flaws and is the very model of a modern major rating system) towards attacking players, since offensive plays are generally more discretely quantifiable than defensive plays, and so some of Freeman’s standing as the only defender rated highly on a data-based rating system can be explained by the fact that the model rewards attacking defenders more than center backs. However, on the qualitative side, Freeman’s coach Manuel Goldberg was quoted after the last game as saying “The key for (Freeman’s) success this season is the defensive part he is doing. Although he is contributing a lot in the offensive part, he is doing a big, big, big and important job in the defensive part, so we are happy for that for him.”

Mannie Fresh never mentioned “defensive play real big” on his list of items that were, surprise surprise, real big on his creatively named 2004 song “Real Big,” but if Goldberg were recording a 2024 remix, I feel like a line about Freeman’s defensive contributions may be included since he emphasized them as not big; not big, big; but big, big, big. He did not define whether big, big, big is defined as three big or big cubed, which hurts my feelings as a mathematician, but either way it is clear that Freeman’s play on the offensive side is not the only thing that has caught notice of his coach, and that he is contributing on both offense and defense.

With only three seasons worth of MLS NEXT Pro history, it is hard to use past seasons as concrete precedent for what an elite season could lead to, but in looking at 2022’s top 10 MLS NEXT Pro performers in FotMob rating, we can see that half of the players went on to play 500+ MLS minutes in the each of the next two seasons after their strong performance that year. The other five are split between three who are still in MLS NEXT Pro (light blue, third tier of soccer in the U.S.), one who moved to the USL Championship (light purple, second tier of soccer in the U.S.), and John Denis, who sadly has had to step away from soccer due to a cancer diagnosis.

At only 20 years old, and with three seasons of year over year improvement in MLS NEXT Pro, call-ups to the U.S. U-19 and U-23 national teams, and a few brief appearances already for Orlando City, I believe that Freeman is the best prospect the Lions have ever developed. The outside back depth chart ahead of him includes primary starters Thórhallsson and Rafael Santos, with Kyle Smith as a versatile player who can play on either side. Santos and Smith have contracts that expire at the end of the season, with Smith out of contract and the club holding two option years on Santos. While it would not surprise me if both are back next season, I think they and Thórhallsson are going to be pushed very hard for minutes by Freeman, and it could even result in one of the players changing positions, since all four have versatile skill sets and are comfortable attacking and defending. I am very bullish on Freeman, and I think he will approach 1,000 minutes played for Orlando City in 2025 across all competitions.

Before next season arrives though, there is still the matter of the MLS NEXT Pro playoffs, and Freeman and OCB will take on Chicago Fire FC II on Sunday. Playoff soccer is much more stressful than regular-season soccer, and I am looking forward to seeing how the Young Lions, and Freeman in particular, perform on the road at Chicago in their toughest test of the season. Freeman has six goals and three assists in his last six matches. Here’s to hoping that those numbers increase during the first round of the playoffs and that OCB advances through to the next round.

Vamos Orlando!