Anyone else see this? I saw it last night while at the USOC match (credit: PenaltyKick Orlando's Twitter): Apparently OCSC are closing a deal with a "...major European club...", but which one? Let's start the bidding: (purely at random) - Stoke City? That wouldn't fit the description "...major European club..." and any connection to Stoke would be through Mr. Rawlins, not Mr. DaSilva. - Tottenham? Only mentioned due to the very old connection between Spurs ownership and their very large (even larger as of yesterday, 5/14) real estate holdings in Orlando; plus, Spurs also don't entirely fit that "...major European club..." description. - AC Milan? Maybe it's some kind of quid pro quo sorta thing in which they (AC) hafta let go of Kaka' due to his contract stipulation that he can opt out early if AC miss UEFA CL qualification and he wants to come to OC (amuse your neighbors and cousins with the new parlor game: "Say AC to OC three times fast"), but AC want at least something out of the transaction and choose to leverage the scenario by entering this "deal" with a new MLS club and thereby get more entry and presence in both MLS and soccer in the US in general by forming this deal with an actual MLS club, instead of merely playing those preseason friendlies each summer in the US prior to the opening of the various national leagues across Europe. *After these I'm empty. It couldn't be presented as this "...major European club..." but then turn out to be a refreshed relationship with newly promoted Burnley derived from the relationship between OC ownership and Burnley. And it can't be some sort of paper-only kind of pseudo "partnership" such as Salt Lake (no offense to RSL, of course) have with Madrid, presumably, since Mr. DaSilva described it as an "unheard of" "deal" "for an American club," but that kind of non-"deal" would indeed not be unheard of since MLS for a few years now has been lousy with this sorta claptrap: - Rapids and Arsenal - Quakes with Spurs - RSL with Mardid Anyone else have any ideas who this "...major European club..." will turn out to be?
Could be. They're here for the friendly, although they're already here as part of their off-season and related deal with Disney WWoS.
I glanced at this again over lunch today and noticed a couple of other interesting bits: - the relationship is described as a partnership and even taking into account that that's from the translated version from Portuguese to English, that's still a connotation of a more substantive connection than some kind of publicity-driven fluff piece masquerading as a "strategic agreement" cliche. - the piece also said Mr. DaSilva's sale price for his language schools was £877 million, which in USD would be close to three times the $500 million amount mentioned in the news last year. Is it possible our majority owner actually made about one and a half billion, instead of a third of that? [Note: the news reports in February 2013 seemed to have been careful to use the phrase "...his company was valued at..." and included a figure of about $450 million, but never stated what he actually sold the company for, and/or whether a figure of about $500 million was, for example, his share of the sale proceeds and perhaps that actual full sale price might actually have been £877 million/$1.4 billion USD.]
I can't wait for the haters to start bashing us for our dirty language-learning-schools money owners. We're really challenging Man City for riches ill-acquired.
I checked the Brazilian sites a year or so back and I found that a lot of that became stock in the purchasing company. The cash he gets will be in three payments of about 100 million. The first payment went towards the expansion fee. The second will probably still go to the team. He doesn't really need to much though. Orlando has a nice set of sponsors already. He's still CEO of the company that is now a division.
Way too hilarious not to spread around a bit: http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/orlando-city-mls-2015-player-thread.1997156/
http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/...ons-to-leave-ac-milan-with-sights-on-orlando/ A report in La Gazzetta dello Sport says that lawyers for Robinho are currently in talks with AC Milan CEO Adriano Galliani to mutually void the rest of his contract. Robinho’s goal, according to the report, is to team up with AC Milan teammate and fellow Brazilian Kaka who has been in negotiations with expansion club Orlando City FC, which will join Major League Soccer in 2015.
Mon. 6/9/14 at noon: "BENFICA AND ORLANDO CITY SC ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC COOPERATION AGREEMENT" Link: http://orlandocitysc.com/news/?article_id=1895 "Orlando City SC announced today an innovative strategic partnership with Portuguese first-division side SL Benfica, which is one of the largest clubs in Europe."
Either this news got blown away by the beginning of opening week of the World Cup, or the soccer-news-commentary-sphere wasn't impressed enough to even post a few short, brief blurbs about it. None of the usual suspects has even one report about it. Ordinarily this is the kind of news that would be followed by at least a minor feeding frenzy given that it involves a soon-to-be MLS club and one of the global/UEFA name-brand clubs hooking up. Oh well... OCSC stadium imagery later this morning. Brazil v. Bosnia Thursday afternoon.
Yeah, agreed, but these days there's so many blogs and sites and Twitter feeds and whatnot else that nibble at anything just to feed the pageviews monster. You'd think a bit of moderately substantive, actual news that allowed them to toss in the name of a big Euro club would have appeared somewhere. Go figure.
Time to predict the average attendance for OCSC in 2015? http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/predict-orlando-city-sc-2015-attendance.2009646/
Spinning off from the thread on NYCFC 2015 Attendance, with the big-name (albeit aging) signings by the 2 expansion sides in 2015 (NYCFC: Villa, Lampard; OCSC: Kaka), expectations are likely to be sky-high for both teams. Am wondering if any of them may actually win trophies/conference during their first season(s) of play (the kind of blazing starts that Chicago/Seattle have enjoyed in 1998/2009-11, respectively). Let's vote via the following link!! http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads...the-east-and-or-any-trophies-in-2015.2009647/
He has been a big player for Orlando this year no doubt and belongs in MLS next year. But is a big time signing, which I think is what I was referencing when I posted earlier. As I said, let's see what happens next year.
As far as I know he isn't a DP, just on of thirty that will be on the roster next year. Seems worthy of that, for sure.
He has gone overseas each of the last three years to dip his toes in the water. The MLS signing will keep him home this winter and he will get his 60K and be happy for 24 months.
not exactly sure where to put this...so I will apologize to everyone in advance. Just wanted to take a moment and say this Dallas NSHOF project looks really good on paper: http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/...t-has-big-plans-new-national-soccer-hall-fame
Miami Vice 2022: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/soccer/20180124_ap_86035719e7ec4419a110e6697b13984c.html