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Meet Our Staff


Michael Citro – Managing Editor

Michael is the founder and managing editor of The Mane Land, which he started as a free WordPress website in September of 2014. He was invited to move The Mane Land to SBNation just a few months after starting the blog. In December of 2014, he created The Mane Land PawedCast and has been the regular host ever since. Michael also publishes a multimedia music outlet called Michael’s Record Collection, which includes a newsletter, podcast, and video channel. He received his degree in journalism from The Ohio State University in 1996 and has written for publications such as the Amarillo Globe-News, Toledo Blade, Palm Beach Post, and Deseret News. He spent five years with the NHL’s Florida Panthers, managing the club’s publications.

Sean Rollins – Senior Columnist

Sean has been with The Mane Land since December of 2014, when it was still a free WordPress site. He remained on staff as a senior columnist throughout the site’s eight-plus years at SBNation. Sean has covered Orlando City B since its inaugural season in 2016 and the Orlando Pride since 2021. Additionally, he has contributed to Orlando City match coverage, breaking news, and feature stories for the site. Prior to joining The Mane Land, Sean earned a degree in English from Clemson University.  Aside from our founder, Sean is the longest tenured member of the TML staff.

David Rohe – Senior Columnist

David has been with The Mane Land since June of 2015, starting as a staff writer and working his way up to senior columnist. In November of 2016, he became the co-host of The Mane Land PawedCast. David’s work includes Lion Links, feature stories, and match coverage of both Orlando City and the Orlando Pride. A graduate of Stetson University, David received his bachelor’s degree in English. He is the president of Olde Fields Battalion, the supporters group for Tallahassee Soccer Club (NPSL). In addition to his wife and children, he loves the Mailbagbox. 

Marcus Mitchell – Editor/Senior Columnist

Marcus joined The Mane Land in October 2016 as an editor but he also contributes as a writer. His contributions include Lion Links and match coverage. Marcus earned his bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tampa and served as the sports editor and a writer for the school newspaper, The Minaret, for three years.

Ben Miller – Senior Columnist

Ben joined The Mane Land as a staff writer in August of 2017 and worked his way up to a senior columnist role. He has been the primary writer of the site’s popular Intelligence Report pieces and contributes Lion Links, feature stories, and game coverage. Ben received his bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Towson University and has worked as an athletic trainer at the high school level since 2018.

Dan MacDonald – Photographer

Dan joined The Mane Land staff in May of 2018 and contributes feature and action photos to the site, covering Orlando City, the Orlando Pride, as well as national team matches at Exploria Stadium. His work has provided TML readers with standout photo galleries since he joined the team. Dan’s talents also helped bring this new TML website to life.

Joshua Taylor – Staff Writer

Joshua Taylor joined The Mane Land staff in February of 2020. He primarily contributes to Lion Links but has also worked on game coverage during his time with the site. Joshua graduated from the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting at Full Sail University in April 2021. He served as a game-day operations intern with the Orlando SeaWolves in 2018-2019 and has covered the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup for TheCup.us. After moving to Chicago, he worked with the NISA’s Chicago House AC, planning and producing video content for the club’s digital media needs. He also managed the broadcast operations for the club’s home matches and wrote weekly previews, recaps, and press releases.

Ryan Smith – Staff Writer

Originally from Tennessee, Ryan became an Orlando City season ticket member while living in nearby Melbourne. While looking for team coverage, Ryan found The Mane Land PawedCast and joined The Mane Land in March of 2022 as a staff writer. He played competitive soccer for 16 years, traveling throughout the Southeast at the club and collegiate levels. He later transitioned into coaching and has helped lead his teams to numerous state championship tournaments. He now resides with his wife and dog in Lexington, KY, where he is the director of operations for a world-class, rock-climbing facility. His contributions to the site include Lion Links and match coverage.

Nic Josey – Staff Writer

Nic joined The Mane Land staff in November of 2022 after relocating to Central Florida from Michigan in 2020 and becoming an Orlando City season ticket member. An emergency physician by day and an avid sports fan by night…well, also by day…his contributions include feature stories and match coverage.

Sam Denker – Staff Writer

Sam joined The Mane Land as staff writer covering the Orlando Pride in 2024 after several years as a season ticket member. Sam has been frequenting Pride matches since moving to Central Florida for his day job as an engineer at the Kennedy Space Center. Having grown up in Minnesota, his favorite MLS club is, unfortunately, Minnesota United, so he will stick to NWSL coverage.

S. Andrew DeSalvo – Staff Writer

Andrew joined The Mane Land staff in June of 2024 and contributes analysis pieces on both Orlando City and the Orlando Pride. He is a lifelong soccer fan and played competitively at the club and interscholastic level for 15 years and coached for four years while working as a high school mathematics teacher. Andrew earned his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Rollins College and his master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Central Florida, and resides in Oviedo with his wife and two children. His whole family knows that when it comes to soccer, Florida is purple.

Our History


Our Story (So Far)

The Mane Land began as a free WordPress site in September of 2014 (it’s still on the web!). In just a few months, SBNation extended an invitation for us to join their network of team-specific sports blogs. We jumped at the chance to have a better-looking site with its own dedicated domain and the branding and support services that SBN offered.

We went live on SBN on Nov. 24, 2014 with our site content migrating over on that date and we officially announced our departure from our original site to SBN on Dec. 5, 2014. That same December, we published the first episode of The Mane Land PawedCast.

Our original PawedCast logo (2014-2023)

In March of 2015, just before Orlando City kicked off its inaugural MLS season, we published UpRoar, which was supposed to be the first episode of a monthly video series. Due to the time demands on our producer, a second episode never happened, so we never got to smooth out some of the rough edges, including the awkward “studio” format we had. Take a look:

Yeah, some of that content didn’t age well, but at the time we felt really great about it!

In addition to Orlando City, we provided regular updates on then-affiliate Louisville City. We then broke the story on June 30, 2015 that the two clubs would end their affiliation agreement after the 2015 season and OCSC laid the groundwork for what became Orlando City B. We have covered all iterations of OCB — USL, USL League One, and MLS NEXT Pro — ever since.

In October of 2015, we began covering the Orlando Pride, as the NWSL announced the club would become the league’s 10th team the following season. With three teams to cover regularly, we were busier than ever!

There were many highlights during our eight-plus years at SBNation. Seeing Orlando City move into its own soccer-specific stadium was certainly one of those. We covered a smattering of away matches, as well as all home games, plus international friendlies, World Cup qualifiers, the Copa America Centenario, the SheBelieves Cup, the Women’s College Cup, the NWSL Championship, the Leagues Cup, the Concacaf Nations League, Concacaf Champions League, and even a U.S. Open Cup championship victory for Orlando City!

SBN announced in January 2023 that it was ceasing support to our blog, effective at the end of February. That was ultimately extended through March and our last day on the network was March 31, 2023. We made a lot of great friends across MLS and the NWSL blogosphere during our time at SBN and those relationships continue today as many of our colleagues have gone to independent sites or Substack newsletters to cover their various teams.

We wanted to continue, and to try to keep our users’ experience as close to the previous site’s as possible but to improve upon what we had there. However, we were in no financial position to start a new, independent site. Members of our community vowed to do whatever they could to help us continue, and in March of 2023, they came through with an overwhelming show of support through our crowdsourcing campaign. We were blown away by the response!

On March 24, 2023, SBNation released The Mane Land PawedCast to us and we joined the Fans First Sports Network (FFSN), banding together with many of the other podcasts that lost their support from SBN. The folks who contributed now have a permanent place on our site as our Founding Members. We hope we’ve made you proud with this website. We plan to add features as resources allow, and we welcome all feedback on potential improvements. Thanks to our Founders, we can continue telling the story of Orlando City, the Orlando Pride, OCB, and all things soccer-related in the City Beautiful through this site and our podcast episodes.

One of our newest offerings debuted after our move to this independent site. We debuted a new Orlando Pride-specific podcast, SkoPurp Soccer: An Orlando Pride PawedCast, on April 11, 2023.

The Mane Land All-Time Staff Members


Complete TML Staff History

Click to open for a comprehensive list of all the folks who have officially contributed to The Mane Land since its inception (bold indicates current staff member).

Special thanks to all who have contributed to The Mane Land over the years!

  1. Michael Citro (Sept. 2014-Current) – Founder, Managing Editor
  2. Andrew Marcinko (Oct. 2014-July 2015) – Writer, Editor
  3. Joseph Morgan (Oct. 2014-Dec. 2014) – Writer
  4. Kevin Mercer (Nov. 2014-Oct. 2015; Feb. 2017-Nov. 2018) – Writer
  5. John Rey (Nov. 2014-Feb. 2015) – Writer
  6. Austin David (Nov. 2014-Aug. 2017) – Writer
  7. Jeff Milby (Nov. 2014-Oct. 2016) – Writer
  8. Casey Moore (Nov. 2014-Dec. 2014) – Writer
  9. Jeff Leadbeater (Dec. 2014-May 2015) – Comments Moderator
  10. Sean Rollins (Dec. 2014-Current) – Writer
  11. William Crawford (Jan. 2015-Feb. 2015; March 2017-April 2017) – Writer
  12. Austin Siegel (Jan. 2015-Sept. 2016 ) – Writer 
  13. Andrew Harrison (Jan. 2015-Oct. 2016; June 2017-Sept. 2017) – Writer
  14. Wade Williams (Feb. 2015-Nov. 2016) – Writer
  15. Joshua McKinney (Feb. 2015- May 2016) – Writer
  16. Nick Leyva (March 2015-Aug. 2019 ) – Photographer 
  17. Matthew Rosado (March 2015-March 2015) – Writer
  18. Cole Kellogg (March 2015-April 2015) – Writer
  19. Scott Crumbly (March 2015-Sept. 2019 ) – Writer, Editor
  20. Mike Levin (April 2015) – Writer
  21. Kyle Foley (April 2015-March 2016) – Social Media Manager, Writer
  22. Austin Warren (May, 2015-Jan. 2017) – Photographer 
  23. Ryan Randall (June 2015-July 2015) – Writer
  24. Gavin Ewbank (June 2015-Oct. 2017) – Writer 
  25. Allen Etzler (June 2015-Dec. 2016) – Writer
  26. David Rohe (June 2015-Current) – Writer 
  27. Brent Petkus (June 2015-Aug. 2016 ) – Writer 
  28. Daniel McGann (July 2015-Oct. 2016) – Writer 
  29. Rich Shock (July 2015-May 2016) – Editor
  30. Robert Vega (Nov. 2015-May 2016) – Writer 
  31. Richard Paolillo (Nov. 2015-Jan. 2016) – Social Media Manager
  32. Luis Hernandez (Nov. 2015-Aug. 2016 ) – Writer  
  33. Brad Newton (Nov. 2015-Aug. 2016) – Writer 
  34. Meg VanDyk (Nov. 2015-Feb. 2017 ) – Writer
  35. Lindsay Harrison (Nov. 2015-June 2016) – Writer 
  36. Daniel Byrd (Dec. 2015-Aug. 2016) – Writer 
  37. Eric Ely (Jan. 2016-March 2016) – Writer
  38. Gianluca Lia (Feb. 2016-May 2016) – Writer 
  39. Logan Oliver (March 2016-Dec. 2018) – Writer
  40. Matt Starkey (March 2016-Aug. 2016) – Photographer 
  41. Josh Green (April 2016-Aug. 2016 ) – Graphic Artist
  42. Nick Morales (May 2016-Sept. 2016 ) – Writer 
  43. Jeremy Croston (June 2016- Oct. 2016) – Writer 
  44. Carlos Romero (June 2016-Sept. 2020) – Photographer 
  45. Tiffani Hubbert (June 2016-Jan. 2017) – Social Media Manager 
  46. Robby Torrence (June 2016-Sept. 2016 ) – Social Media Manager
  47. Saul Garcia (Oct. 2016-Nov. 2016 ) – Writer
  48. Marcus Mitchell (Oct. 2016-Current) – Editor/Writer
  49. Bryan Nelson (Oct. 2016-May 2017) – Editor 
  50. Adam Dupere (Nov. 2016-June 2017 ) – Writer 
  51. Tommy Leinenweber (Nov. 2016- Dec. 2016) – Writer
  52. John Adair (Nov. 2016-Feb. 2017) – Writer 
  53. Guilherme Torres (Dec. 2016-July 2021) – Writer
  54. Jorge Gallardo (Dec. 2016-June 2017) – Graphics/Video 
  55. Michael Neiemeier (Dec. 2016-July 2017) – Writer
  56. Scott Carnevale (Dec. 2016-July 2021) – Writer
  57. Braeden Mueller (Jan. 2017-Feb. 2017) – Writer 
  58. Alfredo Martinez (Jan. 2017-April 2017) – Writer
  59. Daniel Turcios (Feb. 2017-April 2017) – Writer 
  60. Alex Mohr (Feb. 2017-April 2017) – Editor/Writer 
  61. Dan Garza (Feb. 2017-July 2017) – Writer  
  62. Jonathan Foreman (Feb. 2017-Aug. 2017) – Writer
  63. Ben Sundock (March 2017-April 2017) – Writer 
  64. Bill Johnson (March 2017-Aug. 2017) – Writer
  65. Ryan Nagel (April 2017-June 2017) – Writer 
  66. Matt Clark (May 2017-June 2017) – Writer
  67. Ben Miller (Aug. 2017-Current) – Writer 
  68. Tom Saunders (Aug. 2017-March 2020) – Writer 
  69. Mike Spillane (Aug. 2017-Nov. 2017) – Writer
  70. Brandon Turton (Aug. 2017-Sept. 2018) – Writer
  71. Gabbi Feulner (Aug. 2017-July 2018) – Photographer
  72. David Gray (Jan. 2018-March 2018) – Writer
  73. Ethan Smith (Feb. 2018-Sept. 2018) – Writer
  74. Alek Pierce (March 2018-March 2020) – Writer
  75. Dan MacDonald (May 2018-Current) – Photographer
  76. Jennifer Warren (Feb. 2019-Aug. 2019) – Writer
  77. Jenn Glasheen (Feb. 2019-Jan. 2021) – Writer
  78. Andrew Sharp (Feb. 2019-Oct. 2019) – Writer
  79. Pablo Pinedo (March 2019-June 2019) – Writer
  80. Mushtaq Nizamdin (July 2019-Aug. 2019 ) – Writer
  81. Elliot Evans (Feb. 2020-July 2020 ) – Editor
  82. Joshua Taylor (Feb. 2020-Current) – Writer
  83. Daniel Finton (June 2020-May 2021) – Writer
  84. Christopher Adams (Nov. 2020-Jan. 2021; April 2021-Nov. 2021) – Writer
  85. Adrian Barragan (Nov. 2021-Aug. 2022)  – Writer
  86. Mike Kennedy (Nov. 2021-June 2022 )  – Writer
  87. Ryan Smith (March 2022-Current) – Writer 
  88. Josh Munsey (March 2022-Oct. 2022) – Writer
  89. Michael Rice (March 2022-June 2022 ) – Writer
  90. Nic Josey (Nov. 2022-Current) – Writer
  91. Mike Gambill (March 2024-March 2024) – Writer
  92. Sam Denker (April 2024-Current) – Writer
  93. Andrew DeSalvo (June 2024-Current) – Writer