Orlando City
Orlando City Announces Roster Update Following 2025 MLS Season
The club has announced the roster decisions and contract statuses following the 2025 campaign.
Orlando City has finally released the club’s roster status update and let us know the decisions on contract options following the 2025 campaign — the Lions’ 11th season in Major League Soccer. The biggest news had mostly already happened with the departures of goalkeeper Pedro Gallese and midfielder Cesar Araujo, who were both out of contract after the season. The writing had been on the wall in terms of both departures.
The most surprising news from today’s announcement is that the club declined the option year on captain Robin Jansson’s contract, but the club is in negotiations with both the veteran center back and out-of-contract defender/midfielder Kyle Smith.
Orlando City already had 14 players currently under contract for the 2026 season: forwards Duncan McGuire, Luis Muriel, Marco Pašalić, and Nico Rodríguez; midfielders Gustavo Caraballo, Colin Guske, and Dagur Dan Thórhallsson; defenders David Brekalo, Adrián Marín, Tahir Reid-Brown, Rodrigo Schlegel, Zakaria Taifi, and Thomas Williams; and goalkeeper Javier Otero.
Additionally, the Lions exercised the contract options on Iván Angulo, Tyrese Spicer, and Yutaro Tsukada; midfielders Eduard Atuesta, Joran Gerbet, and Martín Ojeda; and defender Alex Freeman. The club declined Jansson’s option year, as well as options for three players who were regulars for OCB: goalkeeper Carlos Mercado, midfielder/forward Shak Mohammed, and midfielder/forward Favian Loyola.
Smith is out of contract, along with Gallese and Araujo, but it’s not surprising that the Lions are trying to bring him back as he is a versatile depth player who can fill in at a number of spots.
Midfielder Wilder Cartagena was to be out of contract as well, but he signed a new contract five days ago that will keep him in Orlando through 2026 with an option in 2027.
What It Means for Orlando City
If Jansson isn’t re-signed, the Lions will have to go shopping for a top-notch center back. Jansson may have lost a step this season, but he was still the best and most consistent defender on Orlando City’s back line when he was in the lineup. Entering 2026 with a plan to start Schlegel and Brekalo is at best a lateral step to what the club had in 2025, which wasn’t good enough, as the Lions did not record a clean sheet after June 14. The back line wasn’t solely to blame, as Gallese and the central midfield have to shoulder some of that burden, but the critical breakdowns defensively in 2025 occurred more often than in previous seasons.
The biggest surprise to me was the club picking up Angulo’s option. The Colombian didn’t score a single goal in MLS for the first time since 2022, when he only appeared in nine games at the end of the season. It’s not as if Angulo didn’t have multiple golden opportunities to score, as he failed to finish on multiple clear-cut breakaways with only the goalkeeper back throughout the season. At more than $500,000 in annual base salary, the club can afford a defensive-minded player scoring five goals a season — as he did in both 2023 and 2024 — but cannot afford to have a left wing who can’t score a single goal, given the opportunties his speed affords him.
Tsukada and Gerbet are promising young players who are coming off serious injuries, and it’s nice to see the club make a commitment to helping them get healthy and continue their development. Atuesta’s return was made more important by Araujo’s departure, and although Cartagena signed a new deal, more depth will be needed in central midfield.
The club’s biggest off-season need right now is to replace Gallese in goal.
Post-2025 Orlando City Roster Status (Current club players in italics)
- Iván Angulo: Option exercised – Under contract through 2026
- César Araújo: Out of contract
- Eduard Atuesta: Option exercised – Under contract through 2026
- David Brekalo: Under contract through 2027, with a club option in 2028
- Gustavo Caraballo: Under contract through 2027, club option in 2028
- Wilder Cartagena: Signed new contract through 2026, club option in 2027
- Alex Freeman: Option exercised – Under contract through 2026
- Pedro Gallese: Out of contract
- Joran Gerbet: Option exercised – Under contract through 2026, club options through 2028
- Colin Guske: Under contract through 2027, club option in 2028
- Robin Jansson: Option declined – In negotiations
- Favian Loyola: Option declined
- Adrián Marín: Under contract through 2026, club option in 2027
- Duncan McGuire: Under contract through 2027, with a club option in 2028
- Carlos Mercado: Option declined
- Shak Mohammed: Option declined
- Luis Muriel: Under contract through 2026
- Martín Ojeda: Option exercised – Under contract through 2026, club option in 2027
- Javier Otero: Under contract through 2026, club options in 2027 and 2028
- Marco Pašalić: Under contract through 2027, club option in 2028
- Tahir Reid-Brown: Under contract through 2027, club option in 2028
- Nico Rodríguez: Under contract through 2027, club option in 2028
- Rodrigo Schlegel: Under contract through 2026, club option in 2027
- Kyle Smith: Out of contract, in negotiations
- Tyrese Spicer: Option exercised – Under contract through 2026, club option in 2027
- Zakaria Taifi: Under contract through 2026, club options through 2029
- Dagur Dan Thórhallsson: Option exercised – Under contract through 2026, club option in 2027
- Yutaro Tsukada: Under contract through 2025, with club options in 2026 & 2027
- Thomas Williams: Under contract through 2026, club options in 2027 and 2028