Orlando City’s season continues to be something out of a fever dream, but at least Orlando City B won this weekend and we have the Orlando Pride to look forward to. This weekend will be the first time all three of Orlando’s soccer teams are in action for competitive matches in quite some time, so hopefully it won’t be all be doom and gloom. That’s just how probability works, right? Let’s get to the links.

Orlando City and Oscar Pareja Part Ways

Oscar Pareja’s time as Orlando City’s head coach has come to an end after a mutual agreement between the two to part ways after six seasons with him at the helm. The decision comes amid three consecutive losses to start the season, including a 5-0 defeat to New York City FC on Saturday. The Lions won the 2022 U.S. Open Cup and also made the playoffs in all six years of Pareja’s tenure, which is the longest active streak in the league.

Martin Perelman will take over as head coach in an interim capacity, with OCB Head Coach Manuel Goldberg becoming an interim assistant coach and Julian Vergara now serving as OCB’s head coach. Given Wilfried Nancy’s availability, Orlando fans may need to keep fingers crossed for a Frenchman other than just Antoine Griezmann.

Kay Rawlins Announces Retirement

Orlando City SC Founder and Senior Vice President of Community and Social Impact Kay Rawlins stated that she will retire from her role on Friday. She co-founded the club alongside Phil Rawlins and has been with the club through it all, including the creation of the Orlando Pride and the opening of the club’s very own stadium. Along with her role in the front office, Rawlins has made a strong impact in the community through the Orlando City Foundation as well. We wish her nothing but the best in retirement!

Orlando Pride 2026 Roster Revealed

The Orlando Pride released their start-of-season roster for the 2026 NWSL campaign Wednesday, and there’s a decent mix of veteran starters and young depth players. Defender Hailie Mace is the most notable addition to the roster from this off-season and other new faces include rookie forwards Solai Washington and Seven Castain. Center back Emily Sams is gone after her trade to Angel City FC and forward Ally Watt is with Denver Summit FC, so we’ll see how well the Pride do at filling the voids left by their departures. Hopefully the triumvirate of Marta, Barbra Banda, and Jacquie Ovalle can have the offense firing on all cylinders.

Concacaf Champions Cup Roundup

The round of 16 of this year’s Concacaf Champions Cup is underway and the competition has been stiff over the course of the first legs. Nashville SC and Inter Miami battled to a scoreless draw and will settle things in the second leg in Miami on March 18. LAFC was held to a 1-1 draw against Costa Rican club Alajuelense, with goalkeeper Washington Ortega making 10 saves. The Philadelphia Union have a tough game ahead of them after falling 1-0 to Club America at Subaru Park. In the only matchup of this round that pits two Mexican clubs against each other, Cruz Azul beat Monterrey 3-2 thanks to a late goal from Nicolas Ibanez. The late games Wednesday on the west coast featured the LA Galaxy hosting Jamaican side Mount Pleasant FA and San Diego FC hosting Liga MX side Toluca.

Free Kicks

• Orlando City Academy players Zorion Civil and Maxi Alvarez were called up for the United States U-15 National Team’s training camp in West Palm Beach this month.
• American midfielder Gianluca Busio signed a contract extension with Venezia that will last through June of 2028.
• Bay FC traded forward Penelope Hocking to the Kansas City Current for a sum of $350,000 in intra-league funds. The 26-year-old scored six goals with Bay FC last season.
• Iran’s sports minister, Ahmad Donyamali, stated that the nation cannot take part in this summer’s World Cup. Iran is scheduled to play its group games in the U.S. in a group with Belgium, New Zealand, and Egypt.
• The LA Galaxy signed center back Jakob Glesnes to a contract extension through the 2028-2029 season.
• Federico Valverde scored a hat trick in the first half of Real Madrid’s 3-0 victory over Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League. Elsewhere in the tournament, Bodo/Glimt beat Sporting CP 3-0 in Norway and Paris Saint-Germain crushed Chelsea 5-2.

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday and rest of your week!

The Oscar Pareja era in Orlando City — the club’s most successful period since joining Major League Soccer — is over. The club announced today that it has “mutually agreed” to part ways with the veteran coach who has compiled by far the most wins of anyone in team history. While the Lions are off to their worst start in club history, the 2026 MLS season is only three weeks old and Pareja has had to field a team with one of the worst back lines in the league while down a Designated Player — not exactly a recipe for success.

Assistant Coach and former OCB manager Martin Perelman will lead the team in the interim.

“I want to thank Oscar for the dedication, leadership and professionalism he brought to our club,” Orlando City General Manager and Sporting Director Ricardo Moreira said in a club press release. “He delivered one of the most significant moments in Orlando City’s history with the 2022 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup and helped establish the competitive foundation that has propelled us forward, highlighted by our active club-record run of six straight playoffs appearances, which is currently the longest streak in MLS. At the same time, we believe this is the right moment to take the club in a new direction as we look to the next phase of our growth and ambitions. We are grateful for everything Oscar has contributed and wish him nothing but success in the next chapter of his career.”

The club hired Pareja as its fourth full-time MLS head coach on Dec. 4, 2019, succeeding James O’Connor. Pareja compiled a record of 103-69-65 in 237 games at the helm across all competitions, and if our numbers look different from other places, we are not counting shootout losses as losses from Leagues Cup league phase games (because that’s dumb) or the matches for which Pareja was suspended, like the 2025 home match against the Chicago Fire in which Diego Torres — who leaves Orlando City along with Pareja — led the team. Pareja led the team to the 2022 U.S. Open Cup championship, the club’s first major trophy, and had led the Lions to the postseason in every year he’s been in charge. He also led Orlando to the MLS is Back Tournament final as well as the final four of the 2025 Leagues Cup.

City extended Pareja’s contract through 2028 just 11 months ago, and although the club faded down the stretch in 2025, the insane amount of travel for the Leagues Cup knockout stages and heavy legs from the club’s thinner roster areas a year ago forced a lot of extra miles onto some of the team’s most important legs — Marco Pasalic, Martin Ojeda, Jansson, Eduard Atuesta, and others. Pareja, for his part, never looked for excuses or threw his players under the bus in the same way that former OCSC coach Jason Kreis did during his tenure. He accepted the blame for every on-field mistake, whether he could control it or not, including his club’s performance after Maxime Crepeau’s ridiculous red card on Saturday at New York City FC.

“I want to express my sincere gratitude to the club’s players, staff, and supporters for the trust they’ve given me over these last several years,” Pareja said in the club’s release. “Together, we shared moments that will stay with me forever. While it is the right time for both me and the club to move in new directions, I leave proud of the work we did and with deep appreciation for the people who made it possible. Orlando will always have a special place in my heart, and I wish the team nothing but success in the future.”

“Oscar’s impact on our club and community will always be remembered,” said Mark Wilf, Orlando City SC Owner & Chairman. “He helped elevate Orlando City on and off the field, guided us through milestones that reshaped our trajectory and represented our crest with integrity. We are grateful for all he has given to the organization.”

Perelman coached OCB in 2022 and 2023 before joining the MLS side’s staff as an assistant coach in 2024. OCB is also losing its coach at this time, as Perelman’s replacement with the reserve squad, Manuel Goldberg, will become an interim assistant with the MLS side. Goldberg served as Perelman’s assistant with OCB for two seasons before replacing him. Julian Vergara will be OCB’s interim manager.

What It Means for Orlando City

Reading Moreira’s statement, it’s hard to imagine what direction the club is choosing to go from here. Without significant upgrades to the roster, this does not look like a playoff team in a highly competitive MLS Eastern Conference. The back line, made up of an underachieving David Brekalo, rookie Nolan Miller (splitting time with teenaged new arrival Iago), the unconvincing Adrian Marin, and the recently arrived Griffin Dorsey, has been abysmal to start the year in the absence of injured captain Robin Jansson. While time may help that group gel to some extent, it is not a defensive group that opposing teams will lose sleep over.

The roster has suffered heavy losses along the back line, losing starters Rodrigo Schlegel and Alex Freeman as well as key backups Kyle Smith and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson. Additionally, the club moved on from starting goalkeeper Pedro Gallese. While upgrades were needed across the board, it’s hard to argue that any of those positions have even maintained their previous quality, let alone improved. Marin at least has a chance to provide an improvement at left back, as he’s finally been through a full camp and had time to integrate. It hasn’t helped that he picked up a knock early in this season.

Orlando City appears content with simply trying a new voice, and there’s nothing wrong with that (Pareja was the second-longest tenured coach in MLS behind Seattle’s Brian Schmetzer), but any new voice will need a back line, a goalkeeper who doesn’t get unnecessarily ejected, and a third Designated Player. That voice will also need the MLS U22 Initiative kids to grow up quickly, because they represent the depth of a team that sorely needs some. It’s clear that the club believes the roster is good enough for the moment, but three games have shown that it is not, unless Pareja was making things more complicated than the players could handle.

Pareja has been a good soldier for the club his entire tenure. He has routinely put every failure on his own shoulders and has given all credit for successes to his players and the organization. The Colombian has stoically led Orlando City to its highest highs. It is hard to imagine a way forward this season regardless of who takes over unless some changes come to the roster.

Welcome to Wednesday, Mane Landers. The Orlando Pride are finally back in action this weekend, and we’ll get to watch it — unlike the preseason. It’s a good thing too, since Orlando City has been hard to watch. Speaking of the Pride, you won’t want to miss this week’s episode of SkoPurp Soccer: An Orlando Pride Podcast and our special guest. Until then, let’s get to the links.

Trio of Missing Lions

Crepeau, Jansson & Gerbet sounds like a law firm specializing in personal injury cases. That is definitely the case when it comes to Robin Jansson and Joran Gerbet, as the two work back from their respective injuries. Fortunately, there’s some progress on that. Both are training off to the side. Hopefully, their recoveries go well and they can return to help Orlando City.

Maxime Crepeau will be absent from Orlando City’s next match thanks to the red card he earned against New York City FC Saturday afternoon. He was also fined by the MLS Disciplinary Committee for not leaving the field in a timely manner. I’d like to say he had a good argument against the sending off, but I can’t, and I’m not the only one.

NWSL Season Approaches

We are days away from the Orlando Pride season opener — and the rest of the NWSL will kick off over the weekend as well. That means it’s time for speculation about the various clubs and how ambitious each was based on its off-season moves. The Pride were not very ambitious, but perhaps the club did not need to be. Despite the supposed lack of ambition, the Pride are still a team to watch, even if others don’t consider the club “must watch” tv.

U.S. National Team Player News & Notes

The fact that there are USMNT players competing in the Champions League is great news in a World Cup year. Johnny Cardoso’s Atletico Madrid beat Tottenham Hotspur 5-2 with some help from a guy name Antoine Griezmann. Mauricio Pochettino said he also respects MLS players like Sebastian Berhalter. Speaking of Berhalters, former USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter said the USMNT is poised for success in the World Cup. We know the team won’t be wearing the denim kit despite Adidas bringing it back.

Free Kicks

• The Lions are not at the bottom of the ESPN MLS power rankings. I am pleasantly surprised.
• Orlando City and the Orlando Pride have renewed the sponsorship with Publix to a new multi-year deal.
• The club also announced a series of single match ticket promotions.
• The Premier League’s new financial rules have others in UEFA a little nervous. It’s not surprising in the arms race for the top players in the world.
• The NWSL announced the formation of the NWSL Health Advisory Council that will take a holistic approach to player health and wellbeing.
• MLS Next has announced a host of new clubs will be joining both tiers of the league.
• Former USWNT player Lauren Holiday is calling for the various women’s leagues to align their seasons much like MLS is doing with the rest of the world.
• The Houston Dynamo are bringing back Ibrahim Aliyu in a trade with the Columbus Crew.

That will do it for today. Check back as we get you ready for the Orlando City and Orlando Pride matches this weekend. Vamos Orlando!