USL Feature
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
From his view from the sidelines, the opening game of Orlando City’s preseason and the club’s first home game at the Citrus Bowl couldn’t have gone any better for Head Coach Adrian Heath.
“We were really pleased with everything,” Heath said by phone. “Obviously coming to a new city and starting fresh, the players that played did us proud. Considering we’d only been five days into preseason, regardless of the result and it’s always very nice to win 1-0, we were more concerned with the way that we played, and I was very happy with that.”
Facing Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union, Orlando City scored the only goal of the game in the 19th minute, a curling free kick by Lewis Neal delighting the team’s new supporter’s club The Ruckus. Heath was very pleased to see the following the club had already been able to build in the time it had been in Florida, with a drum troupe hailing from Trinidad and Tobago also adding to the atmosphere.
“The atmosphere in the stadium is always something you worry about in a stadium that size when there’s not a lot of people in it, but our new supporter’s club were behind the goal and they were absolutely fantastic,” Heath said. “Everyone who was in the stadium was really enthusiastic, which was a great start for us.”
It certainly helped that the Lions put in a strong opening performance, opening quite a few eyes that were seeing the team for the first time.
“It was amazing,” Orlando City CEO Steve Donner said. “We had a tremendous amount of ex-pats up in the British pub, The Red Lion, who were seeing the team for the first time and they were uniformly and unanimously had their thumbs up on the level of play. They were actually shocked by the quality of play.”
The victory against MLS competition in the Lions’ first game as a franchise strengthened USL PRO’s place as the strongest, best operated and most sophisticated North American men’s professional soccer league below MLS, both on and off the field. Donner hosted more than 500 corporate guests at the game, and was very pleased with the feedback those in attendance gave the club.
“The number exceeded our expectations, blew away the number we were expecting,” Donner said. “The number of testimonials and positive comments about the experience, the team, the goal, the atmosphere, it’s been a tremendously uplifting experience for our staff and our players to get this kind of welcome.”
“Everything that we’ve heard from the people who were invited to come to the opening event has been incredibly supportive,” Heath added. “They couldn’t believe how well it went and how good the facilities were. Everything was first class, on and off the field it was a huge success.”
Heath, of course, is more concerned with the on-field matters. The Lions get another crack at MLS competition this Thursday and Saturday at the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic, where they first meet 2010 MLS Cup runner-up FC Dallas and then will face either Toronto FC or the Houston Dynamo in their second game.
“Our preseason is very ambitious, but I think it sets the tone for what we expect from our team and our organization,” Donner said. “We want to be competitive in our league, we want to have a good showing in the Open Cup and be able to compete on the field with MLS teams and international teams that come [for exhibitions].”
With a strong group of players that includes Jamie Watson, Keiron Bernard and USSF Division 2-Pro League Rookie of the Year Max Griffin returning from the USSFD2 side that finished with the second-best regular season record and the addition of players like Neal and Jamaican international Demar Stewart, the Lions look like a side that will be among the contenders for the USL PRO championship and that could make a run in the U.S. Open Cup.
Heath doesn’t want to look that far ahead, but he’s certainly optimistic about the potential his side has for the upcoming summer.
“I think the one thing that came through from Saturday night was the level of performance,” Heath said of the Lions’ victory against the Union. “I think the shape of the team, the commitment of the team and the way we went about the game I think was first class. I don’t want to get carried away because it is only one game, but I’m very excited about what this team can achieve this year.”