Crucial Off-seasons Ahead for Orlando City, Orlando Pride

Far sooner than any of us would have liked, the 2025 campaigns for Orlando City and the Orlando Pride have come to an end. As with the end of any season, that means that players need to be kept or moved on, contracts might need to be restructured, new deals handed out, and transfer targets need to be identified, pursued, and (hopefully) landed. Those are all ordinary tasks on the checklist that both teams have undergone many times.

What isn’t ordinary is the backdrop against which those things will be happening. Each team has unique circumstances surrounding it that make this off-season a vitally important one if the two sides want to maintain the level of competitiveness that we’ve come to expect in recent years.

Let’s begin with Orlando City. First, there’s the obvious point that a 2025 season which showed promise at times ultimately can’t be considered a successful one. No silverware was won from any of the three competitions the Lions were in, no Concacaf Champions Cup berth to be had, and a team that arguably should have been in the MLS Cup final last year found itself bounced from the postseason in the play-in game after having let a spot in the top seven slip through its fingers.

There are many reasons we can point to as why those things happened, whether it be roster construction, tactics, team selection, the short end of the scheduling/travel stick, or individual player performance. Ultimately, whether its due to underperformance, the expiration of contracts, or an inability to agree on a new contract, several key players from Orlando City’s 2025 team are already out the door, and a couple more may still follow. Starting goalkeeper Pedro Gallese will need to be replaced, as will starting defensive midfielder Cesar Araujo. Wilder Cartagena being re-signed potentially mitigates the Araujo hole, but there’s no telling how the Peruvian will look coming off a torn Achilles tendon, and more needs to be done to address the position with Joran Gerbet likely to be out for much of next season as well.

Moving to the back line, while Robin Jansson is in negotiations over a new contract, more help is needed at center back and fullback. The big Swede isn’t getting any younger, and the Lions need to improve the strength of that area anyway. David Brekalo can’t play both center back and left back, and while I love Rodrigo Schlegel, someone faster and more positionally disciplined is probably needed next to Jansson, assuming he returns.

Looking to the cadre of attackers and we see that while Luis Muriel and Ivan Angulo are still with the team due to the former being under contract, and the latter having his option picked up, they probably shouldn’t be on this roster next year. I love each of my Colombian brethren for different reasons; when Muriel is on form, his passing vision and dribbling is lethal, while Angulo’s speed and work rate makes him a great defensive winger.

But Muriel faded badly after a hot start, as he had just three league goals and three assists after the month of May, after having six goals and two helpers from the beginning of the season to the end of May. Then there’s Angulo, who didn’t score in the league and had just one goal in all competitions despite playing in 42 total games. He did have seven assists in MLS play, as well as one in the U.S. Open Cup and another in Leagues Cup, but considering how many times he had chances on the break and failed to convert, those numbers just aren’t good enough.

If new homes are found for those two, then you can add a striker and a winger to the winter shopping list, and don’t forget that Ramiro Enrique already needed to be replaced after his departure in August. Tyrese Spicer looked pretty good in the limited minutes he had after arriving in the summer via trade, but the Lions could and should look to bring in competition at the left wing spot. There have also been rumblings of Marco Pasalic attracting interest from Europe, and if the price is right, then the Lions will need to start looking for a new right winger as well.

Looming over all of those decisions is the fact that Orlando City’s front office looks different now than it has in quite a long time. Luiz Muzzi departed the club in October after coming on board nearly seven years ago, and while he was no longer running the soccer operations side of things after a promotion to a senior advisor to ownership role back in April, the void of his knowledge and experience is always going to take some adjusting to. This will be Ricardo Moreira’s first off-season as the Lions’ general manager and sporting director, and he’s got a tricky task ahead of him. The Eastern Conference is an absolute meat grinder, and a talented one at that, and if this roster isn’t upgraded, then the team is in real danger of breaking its streak of six straight postseason appearances. Make no mistake, Moreira’s first off-season as the lead decision maker is not going to be easy, and it’s one that OCSC can’t afford to get wrong.

That brings us to the Orlando Pride. It would have been difficult to match the heights of 2024’s double-winning season, but finishing with 25 fewer points than the previous campaign won’t have left anyone satisfied when the regular season came to a close. Yes, missing Barba Banda during the back half of the year is a huge factor that can’t be discounted, but the Pride’s offense had looked disjointed and out of sorts before she went down. Even so, the regular season inconsistencies would have been forgiven if the team had managed to make the NWSL Championship, even more so had the Pride managed to win the whole damn thing.

That wasn’t to be though, and its hard to argue with the 1-0 home loss to Gotham FC that ultimately ended Orlando’s championship defense. Seb Hines’ team created more chances and more dangerous chances than Gotham did, totaling 10 shots (one on target) and 1.43 expected goals compared to five shots (one on target) and .13 xG for the visitors. But Orlando’s finishing (or lack thereof), and shaky goalkeeping was what ultimately doomed the team, and those have been recurring issues throughout this year.

Pricey summer acquisition Jacquie Ovalle was guilty of missing the team’s two best chances of the game, and with one goal and two assists in 10 league games since joining the Pride, this wasn’t the first time we’ve said those words. Then there’s Anna Moorhouse, who for awhile now has vacillated between being a brick wall in goal and making the sort of errors that a goalkeeper on a championship-caliber team simply shouldn’t make. When she’s at her best, she’s brilliant, but too often you get the very best and very worst of her in the space of one game. Her positioning and execution on Jaedyn Shaw’s game-winning goal flat out wasn’t good enough, and it was even more glaring when contrasted against Ann-Katrin Berger’s 100th-minute, game-saving stop on Oihane’s header.

The Ovalle signing was a good one in theory, and she may yet catch fire for the Pride once she has a full off-season under her belt. But the decision to transfer Adriana to Al Qadsiah FC (for an admittedly club record fee) without signing a proven replacement put too much attacking responsibility on a 39-year-old Marta, especially once Banda was no longer available. The combination of Ovalle, Marta, and a healthy Banda could end up being a great one, but the Mexican’s arrival came too late. Marta will also turn 40 in February, and like it or not, planning needs to start for life after the undisputed GOAT hangs up her boots.

The heart of midfield could also use some strengthening. Simply put, the Pride’s roster also has plenty of areas that need to be addressed if the team is going to remain competitive, much less get back to the top of the NWSL’s mountaintop.

The added difficulty for the women’s side comes in the form of Haley Carter stepping down from her positions as vice president of soccer operations and sporting director earlier this week. Carter pulled off the Banda and Ovalle signings, helped build the team that won the double last year, and kept the team’s core together while also working admirably well with Pride Head Coach Seb Hines. She is not going to be an easy person to replace, and whoever does step into her role is going to have to get some important decisions right in a smaller window of time than would be normal.

Just like with the men’s team, those decisions need to be nailed. The NWSL is growing and changing, with more money flowing into the league and teams able to field improved squads as a result. If the Pride don’t make the right moves to remain competitive in the present while also planning for the future, then they could quickly find themselves sitting in the wrong half of the table.

Every off-season is important and comes with big decisions that need to be made, and this one on the surface is no different for Orlando’s two senior teams. But the states of each roster, combined with key front office departures and leagues that seem to be getting stronger by the month mean that the off-seasons for Orlando City and the Orlando Pride are of critical importance. If you get them wrong then it could take several seasons to fully recover from. But if you get them right, then both teams could get back to seriously competing for trophies for more than just the short term. Here’s hoping for the latter.

Vamos Orlando!