Orlando City Center Back Antonio Carlos Transfers to Fluminense FC

The winds of change continue to sweep through the Orlando City roster this off-season. After parting ways with captain Mauricio Pereyra and declining the option on midfielder Junior Urso, the Lions parted with another veteran player today by transferring center back Antonio Carlos to Fluminense FC in Brazil’s Serie A. The Rio de Janeiro native returns home to play for his hometown club after serving four seasons with Orlando City. Details of the transfer were not disclosed.

“Antonio brought passion and fight every day, whether it was a cup final or day of training and helped build our team into one of the most difficult to play against,” Orlando City Executive Vice President and General Manager Luiz Muzzi said in a club press release. “We’ll miss his energy and intensity, and thank him for everything that he has given to our club and its fans. On behalf of the entire organization, we want to thank Antonio for his commitment to the club and wish him the best of luck in this next opportunity.”

The announcement comes just 15 days shy of the four-year anniversary of Orlando City officially announcing on Dec. 30, 2019 that Carlos was signed on a one-year loan from Palmeiras with a club option to buy. Just under a year later, on Dec. 1, 2020, Orlando City announced that it had secured Carlos on a permanent transfer and signed him through the 2023 season with a club option for 2024. The Lions exercised that option following the 2023 season but announced at that time that the club was in negotiations to transfer the center back.

So, today’s news wasn’t unexpected but it is a bit sad for fans of the club, who have seen Carlos pair with Robin Jansson on the Lions’ back line since the 2020 season, when he replaced departing starter Lamine Sane next to the Swede.

Carlos played in 88 MLS regular-season games with Orlando City (80 starts) and logged 7,082 minutes. He scored four goals in his MLS career and added four assists, attempting 51 shots and getting 14 on target. He passed at an 86% rate with eight key passes. Defensively, Carlos closes his Orlando City career with 148 interceptions in MLS play, a 61.5% success rate in duels and a 53.2% headed duel rate, helping the Lions keep 21 clean sheets. He committed 80 fouls, suffered 52, was booked 20 times and was sent off once.

The Brazilian played in seven career playoff matches, starting four, and amassed 449 minutes played in the postseason. He did not score a goal or assist on one, firing four shots but putting none of them on target. He was an 80.4% passer in the playoffs without a key pass. Defensively, he posted 19 interceptions, a 57.7% successful duel rate and a headed duel rate of 46.3%. He committed five postseason fouls, drew five on the opposition, and earned three bookings, all of which were yellow cards.

Carlos helped Orlando City win the 2022 U.S. Open Cup and was a clutch performer during his career in purple. In four shootouts across all competitions, the Brazilian defender showed a deft touch and killer instinct from the penalty spot, converting all four of his spot kick opportunities.

The Mane Land staff recently awarded Carlos a season rating of 7 out of 10 for his 2023 season, after awarding him a 7 last year, a career-high 8 for 2021, and a 7.5 for 2020. He started the 2022 season on absolute fire, looking like an MLS Best XI center back and potentially a league defender of the year favorite until being injured in a loss against LAFC. He didn’t quite reach that same level of form after his return, and his last two seasons have seen the 30-year-old’s number of games and minutes decrease due to injuries, so perhaps the writing was on the wall when he was not able to wrestle the starting job back from Rodrigo Schlegel at the end of the 2023 MLS campaign.

What It Means for Orlando City

Since his arrival, and when healthy, Antonio Carlos has been Orlando City’s most dynamic center back since the club joined Major League Soccer. He’s tall, athletic, can jump out of the stadium, and understands the game well. He doesn’t take a lot of risks, but is capable of starting an attack from the back with a well-timed long ball or through pass and he generally does enough to put the league’s top strikers off a bit, even when they’re in good position. As with just about any MLS defender, he had moments where he would get caught on occasion, but he’s been as solid as they come for the most part. Carlos and Jansson have combined to serve as Orlando City’s best center back pairing ever and one of the league’s best tandems over the last several years. They are a large part of why the Lions have been to the playoffs four straight seasons.

Simply put, the Lions must find a suitable replacement for Carlos and, if possible, an upgrade. MLS, especially the Eastern Conference, keeps improving and drawing more and more dangerous attacking talent to these shores. Improving the back line to deal with that is important.

Although Schlegel played well down the stretch in 2023 and has earned the right to compete for the starting spot opposite Jansson, it seems he’ll always be a high-risk, high-reward player. Against Columbus in the Eastern Conference semifinals, we saw the high-risk part of Schlegel’s game bite Orlando City, as an unnecessary early yellow card turned into a sending off later, when the Argentine felt he had no choice but to commit a tactical foul on Diego Rossi. Schlegel is also more prone to defensive lapses than Carlos has been over the years. That part may improve with more experience and more starts, but the league has gotten too good to rely on “may.”

I would expect Orlando City to be on the lookout for a starting caliber center back to add to the roster, using either Targeted Allocation Money or potentially a Designated Player slot if the club can find someone worthy of that kind of commitment. Carlos’ departure clears some room, as he earned a base salary of $900,000 in 2023.