Striker Daryl Dike has returned to the club that gave him his professional start. Orlando City announced today that it has signed Dike as a free agent through the 2027 MLS “sprint season” with an option for 2027-2028. The club also had to send $75,000 in 2027 General Allocation Money (GAM) to the Seattle Sounders in exchange for Dike’s Discovery Priority and could owe the Western Conference side another $75,000 in GAM if Dike meets undisclosed performance metrics.

The signing gives Dike a new start after an injury-plagued career at West Bromwich Albion.

“Daryl is a player our club and our fans know well, and we’re very excited to welcome him back to Orlando,” Orlando City General Manager and Sporting Director Ricardo Moreira said in a club press release. “He brings a powerful combination of strength, speed, and physical presence, and his ability to hold up play, bring teammates into the attack, and finish chances gives us another important option up front. Daryl has already shown what he can do in our league and in this city, and we look forward to helping him make an impact again in purple.” 

Dike, who will wear No. 9 for the Lions, returns nearly five years since Orlando City sold him to West Brom on Jan. 3, 2022, for a fee reported by The Athletic to be around $10 million.

The Edmond, OK native was Orlando City’s first-round selection with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 MLS SuperDraft. As a rookie, he started to see minutes on the pitch during the MLS is Back Tournament, making his professional debut against the Montreal Impact in the competition’s round of 16. From there, the striker out of the University of Virginia blossomed, playing in 35 regular-season matches with Orlando, including 30 starts, for a total of 2,547 minutes. He contributed 18 goals and seven assists on 63 shots, getting 27 on target. He passed well (71.1% in 2020 and 72.1% in 2021), providing 14 key passes. Dike drew 71 fouls while committing 40 and was never booked during the regular season in his time in MLS.

He also played in all three of Orlando City’s playoff games during his first stint with the club, starting all three and scoring one goal on five total shots (two on target). He suffered seven fouls and committed four, and picked up one yellow card in the 2020 postseason.

Following his rookie season, Dike went on loan to Barnsley, where he scored nine goals in 22 matches from February to May of 2021.

Dike’s play with the Lions in his first two professional seasons quickly put him on the USMNT radar and before he was sold to West Brom he made eight appearances and scored three goals for the United States at the senior level. He has added two more caps since for a total of 10.

After his sale to West Brom in the EFL Championship, Dike struggled to stay on the pitch, dealing with Achilles injuries that kept him off the pitch for long stretches. Dike managed to score 11 goals in 68 matches when healthy. He scored twice and added an assist in 24 matches in 2025-2026, starting six times, as he was finally able to get a stretch of games in.

“I’m thrilled to be back where it all started,” Dike said in the club’s press release. “Orlando is where I first got the opportunity to play professionally, and returning here feels like coming home. From the moment I arrived the first time, I felt welcomed, and that same feeling has only grown since I’ve come back. Everyone has been incredibly supportive, and I’m grateful to be back in Orlando.” 

What It Means for Orlando City

Dike fills a hole vacated by the trade of Duncan McGuire to the Houston Dynamo a week ago. It will be interesting to see where his salary slots in when the MLS Players’ Association reveals its next salary information. McGuire, who had his own injury struggles in recent years, made a base salary of $600,000 and a total guaranteed annual compensation of over $920,000.

The hope will be that Dike can both stay healthy and contribute at a higher level than McGuire was prior to his trade to Houston. The new scenery may do McGuire good and a return to familiar surroundings may similarly help Dike regain his footing. At just 26 years old, Dike is still in his prime years and there are plenty of miles left in Dike’s legs if he can stay on the pitch. Fans will remember how he tossed center backs around like rag dolls during his two previous seasons in Orlando. That kind of physicality will open a lot of room underneath for Antoine Griezmann and Martin Ojeda.

With just a year and a half on the base deal, this is a low-risk and potentially very high-reward signing for the Lions.

Happy Friday! While we’re still waiting for Orlando City to return to action, we have Orlando Pride and Orlando City B games to look forward to on Saturday. There’s also the last bit of World Cup soccer for us to enjoy this weekend as well. Between all the soccer and work this week, I’ve managed to read three books to put a dent in my reading goals this year and highly recommend “Main Characters” by Bobby Palmer. It even has a couple of soccer references. Let’s get to the links!

Toluca Reportedly Makes Offer for Martin Ojeda

Liga MX club Toluca has reportedly made a $12 million verbal offer to Orlando City for attacker Martin Ojeda. The 27-year-old has been a powerhouse for the past couple of years for Orlando, recording 16 goals and 15 assists last season and scoring 11 goals in the club’s 15 games so far this season.

In January of this year, he signed a new contract with the club that lasts through the 2028-2029 season, with a club option for 2029-2030. While a $12 million transfer fee is nothing to sneeze at, a higher amount seems appropriate for one of the club’s best players to be transferred in the middle of the season. He’s been a revelation in purple and I’ve been excited to see how he combines with Antoine Griezmann as the Lions hunt for silverware.

Tristan Himes Signed to Homegrown Player Contract

Orlando City has signed Orlando City B goalkeeper Tristan Himes as the club’s 20th Homegrown Player, with a new first-team contract lasting through the shortened 2027 season and including club options for the 2027-2028 and 2028-2029 seasons. After developing through the club’s academy, Himes made his OCB debut in July last year and has made 11 appearances for the team. He also played collegiately at the University of South Carolina and Coastal Carolina University before returning to the club. Hopefully the 22-year-old can continue to improve his game with OCB this year as the Young Lions fight for the top spot in the Eastern Conference of MLS NEXT Pro.

Orlando Pride Add Midfielder Zoe Matthews

The Orlando Pride have signed 19-year-old midfielder Zoe Matthews to a contract through the end of this season. Matthews was the youngest signing in Houston Dash history when she joined the club at 17 in 2024, making her league debut that October. She then had stints in Europe with Dux Logrono in Spain and Benfica in Portugal before returning to the U.S. to become a member of the Pride. Matthews has also represented both the U.S. and Jamaica at the youth levels.

Colin Guske Called Up for Concacaf U-20 Championship

Orlando City midfielder Colin Guske was one of 21 players called up for the United States U-19 National Team roster for the Concacaf U-20 Championship that starts later this month. The 19-year-old was signed as an Orlando City Homegrown Player in late 2024 and has made six appearances for the first team this season, starting twice. He’s been consistently called up for the U.S. U-19 team in preparation for this tournament, which will also serve as qualifying for the 2027 FIFA U-20 World Cup, 2028 Summer Olympics, and 2027 Pan American Games. The U.S. will first take on Haiti on July 25 before playing El Salvador on July 28 and Cuba on July 31.

Free Kicks

• A mural of Antoine Griezmann now graces East Colonial Drive to welcome the French superstar to the city. Artist Steven Teller knocked it out of the park in my opinion, so be sure to check it out.
• Nashville SC added Tunisian winger Elias Saad on loan from Bundesliga club FC Augsburg. Saad played for Tunisia at this summer’s World Cup and could provide some more firepower to a league-leading Nashville side.
• More details on Kai Wagner’s reported return to the Philadelphia Union have emerged, with the Union paying much more to bring him back compared to what they sold him to Birmingham City for and making him a Designated Player to boot.

• Robert Lewandowski’s MLS debut will have to wait, as the Chicago Fire’s match against the Vancouver Whitecaps was rescheduled for Oct. 6 due to poor air quality in Chicago caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires drifting south on the wind.
• American goalkeeper Gabriel Slonina will reportedly be a trialist for Strasbourg for a shot to join the French club either on loan or permanently from Chelsea.

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend!

Starting next week, all three Orlando teams will be back in season. After playing the most games (15) going into the World Cup break, Orlando City will return having played fewer games than both the Pride (will be at 16 games) and Orlando City B (will be at 19 games). MLS NEXT Pro channeled, fittingly, its inner Junior Senior and said we “won’t stop (won’t stop) won’t stop the beat” and kept playing through the break, hence OCB’s large lead in games played. The Pride returned two weeks ago, and are in the midst of a two-game week to vault them past Orlando City as well.

As of the writing of this article Orlando City had played 15 games, the Pride 14, and OCB 18, and with all teams coming back into action this felt like a good time to have a good time by talking about the most fun part of soccer — creating chances and scoring goals. Goalkeepers might disagree with that statement, but they can take inspiration by what they see when they look left and right on the goal line and pipe down.

The three charts below show every player who has scored at least one goal for any of the three Orlando teams thus far this season, using FotMob’s data for “chances created.” Chances created is FotMob’s category name for the stat also known as key passes (the MLS and MLS NEXT Pro websites track these pretty well, the NWSL’s website not so much), which are classified as the final pass that happened before a player takes a shot.

We’ll start with the Pride, using data through their game against Kansas City on July 10:

*per 90 minutes

Barbra Banda’s production continues to be prodigious. She is currently the only player in league history to play more than 1,000 minutes in a season and average more than one goal per 90 minutes (1.06). Her 12 goals accounts for nearly three out of every five scored by the Pride, and she is the only player in the league with a goal share higher than 50%, which says just as much about the rest of the Pride’s offense as it does Banda. Center back Hannah Anderson ranking in a tie for second among goal scorers is also a little concerning.

On the flip side of that concern, however, is a reminder that Marta and Jacquie Ovalle have not even played a combined 900 minutes. When they play, they create shots — in particular Ovalle, who is in the top 10 in the league in chances created per 90 minutes — and Pride fans can continue to imagine what it would be like to see a front line of Banda, Ovalle, and Marta, and to see how they would all create shots and goals for one another.

Moving from one team with a dominant primary scorer to another, Orlando City is up next:

*per 90 minutes

Martín Ojeda’s 48% goal share (it’s actually 47.8%, but I rounded all the goal shares to two digits, which is why that column does not appear to sum to 100%; you can breathe a sigh of relief, the math maths) ranks him just behind the 48.1% of Chicago’s Hugo Cuypers, and those two players are the only two players above 45% in MLS. Orlando City’s pattern looks remarkably similar to the Pride’s, with one player scoring most of the goals and everyone else at two or one. The arrival of Antoine Griezmann and the rumored return of Daryl Dike could, and probably should, change that, but we know that Duncan McGuire will not score any more goals for the Lions and Marco Pašalić is also rumored to be moving on as well, so it likely will be someone else who steps up.

Please someone step up.

When it comes to creating shots, Orlando City does not have a go-to player like Ovalle, but both Justin Ellis and Ojeda are in the top 40 in the league. As will be seen below, Ellis is already an elite creator when playing against players his own age, and in a decent sample of minutes, he has shown he has the talent to compete at the MLS level. The next few weeks will reveal a lot about his ability to continue to contribute, as teams have now had the chance to watch him play in MLS and will have him in their game plans once the season resumes. I think he will continue to excel, especially since in recent weeks he has had a chance to play alongside and learn from Griezmann.

Speaking of Griezmann, Orlando City’s newest Lion created 1.90 chances per 90 minutes in La Liga and 1.86 during Champions League play this past season, so I think it is a safe assumption that Griezmann will immediately create chances at a high level once the season resumes. The big question will be if someone will step up to complement Ojeda as a second scorer. Again, I beg someone to do so.

And now for OCB, a team with plenty of players who have stepped up:

*per 90 minutes

The Young Lions do not have a single scorer dominating the chart like the other two Orlando teams, but unlike their fellow teams, they have an abundance of players who have scored more than twice this season. Seven different players have scored three or more times and 14 players have scored at least once. As a team, OCB ranks fourth in the league in goals scored per game. No player accounts for more than 20% of the team’s goals, making OCB difficult to defend.

Another reason the Young Lions are difficult to defend is that so many players are constantly looking to set up their teammates for shots and are skilled enough to be able to do so. Four attacking players have created more than two chances per 90 minutes, including the aforementioned Ellis, during his early season games with OCB, and defender Bernardo Rhein creates more shots than almost everyone on Orlando City and the Pride.

The diversity of OCB’s attack, especially as compared to the senior Lions and the Pride, is on display in the chart below, which shows all of the players who have scored at least one goal in league play and their associated chances created per 90 minutes values. OCB’s players are in yellow, Orlando City’s in purple, and the Pride’s in light blue.

It may be subjective whether you think Florida sits on the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America, but there is also a gulf in Orlando and that is between Banda and Ojeda and the rest of their teammates.

Hopefully, by the time the regular seasons wrap up for all three teams, the gulf is more like a cove, or better yet a stream, as additional scorers have emerged like hot springs for the Lions and the Pride. OCB will be fine if it continues to flood the field with all of its attacking talent. It is the senior teams that need to look deep inside the well to find some additional scorers.

By this time next week, all three seasons will be going again, and with the games coming fast and furious in July and August, we will rapidly see if the second part of the season will look like more of the same, or if that World Cup break will lead to a sea change as the season continues.

Vamos Orlando!