Luiz Muzzi Departs Orlando City

In a surprising move, Orlando City SC announced today that Luiz Muzzi is leaving the club. Muzzi was the architect of a team that holds the league’s longest streak of playoff appearances (6) and won the 2023 U.S. Open Cup.

The former FC Dallas executive joined the club ahead of the 2019 season and helped usher in an era of success on the pitch in the City Beautiful while beefing up what had been a disappointing academy.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that the man who built Orlando City into a winning team that included the club’s first major trophy of its MLS era, warranted only two brief paragraphs in OCSC’s announcement of his departure. That statement from the club reads (in its entirety):

Orlando City SC announced today that Luiz Muzzi is stepping down from his role as Senior Advisor to Ownership, Global Soccer Ventures. This transition follows conversations that began several weeks ago and reflect a personal decision to pursue new professional opportunities.

Muzzi departs with the full appreciation and support of Ownership and the Club, who extend their deepest gratitude for his contributions to both the organization and the Orlando community over the past seven years.

That’s simply a bizzarely short and terse announcement given what Muzzi’s tenure has meant to the organization. While it’s not productive to speculate about whether Orlando City’s dive into ninth place and quick playoff exit raised tensions between ownership and the front office, it’s not hard to imagine that might happen. But it’s equally plausible that Muzzi’s role as senior advisor might not have been what he’d envisioned.

Orlando City hired Muzzi as executive vice president of soccer operations on Dec. 21, 2018. He added “general manager” to his title when the club extended his contract on Jan. 13, 2022, just prior to the season in which the Lions captured the club’s first U.S. Open Cup trophy. The club promoted Muzzi to senior advisor to ownership, global soccer ventures on April 24, 2025, elevating Ricardo Moreira to the post of general manager and sporting director at that time. That seemingly put all the personnel decisions on the pitch in Moreira’s hands.

The Lions finished 11th out of 12 teams in the Eastern Conference in 2019, but Muzzi rid the club of some bloated contracts and unproductive players, quickly turning Orlando City’s fortunes around. He brought in Head Coach Oscar Pareja ahead of the 2020 season. He also brought in key players such as Pedro Gallese, Junior Urso, and Robin Jansson. His MLS U22 Initiative signings include Cesar Araujo. He made a few ambitious signings over the years, such as Nani in February of 2019, Mauricio Pereyra in July of 2019, Facundo Torres

Under Muzzi, Orlando City drafted players such as Daryl Dike, Duncan McGuire, Yutaro Tsukada, and Joran Gerbet. Further, the team has developed young players such as Alex Freeman, Zakaria Taifi, Gustavo Caraballo, Colin Guske, and Justin Ellis, who all seem to have bright futures with the club.

What It Means for Orlando City

Losing an executive of Muzzi’s caliber is never a good thing, but the soccer personnel decisions now reside with Moreira, whose name has come up for general manager spots all over soccer in recent years. Orlando City did well to keep both men around when they were in high demand, but now it falls on Moreira alone to ensure the quality of the squad and the academy doesn’t drop.

Moreira has likely already made the club’s off-season personnel decisions, although those have not yet been announced. He’ll have to replace any outgoing players, improve upon the current squad, and prepare for the 2026 MLS SuperDraft.

It will be interesting to see what type of role Muzzi accepts at his next job. His tenure at Orlando City, however, can only be seen as a successful one. He set the club on a path to sustained success, even though it hasn’t quite gotten over the hump to win an MLS Cup. The team has had its five most successful seasons in Muzzi’s six years with Orlando City, and that is worthy of more than the two paragraphs his departure got from the club in today’s announcement. It’s worthy of being remembered as a critical period in Orlando City history.