Orlando City has not been afraid of thinking big.
The slogan for last year’s expansion year was “Defy Expectations,” and in a league that seems to have a ton of parity, the idea of making the Playoffs in the first year was not surprising. The Lions have always put success on the field ahead of everything.
Raising that bar has perhaps created unrealistic expectations for the season. Signing Antonio Nocerino to a $600,000 contract and seeing him struggle the way he has and the team going winless for seven games raised eyebrows. Kaka is the highest paid player in the league with a salary guaranteeing him more than $7 million.
It has been a frustrating growing process for the team. It feels like it has all the talent in the world not only to compete in the MLS but to be one of the top teams. The Lions being on the cutting line for the Playoffs and struggling to win games simply has been a bit of a disappointment.
The team has certainly felt that. Heath has acknowledged the pressure, due or undue, on his team to perform and how much they have struggled to do so. At least not consistently.
The season is long, but something does seem like it is missing with this team. The Lions have struggled to score and have struggled to keep possession in the midfield. The team has collected a lot of talent but is still struggling to pull it all together.
Heath has fought this narrative that perhaps his own franchise has created that the team is ready to compete every week immediately. And he continues to do it, perhaps bringing up a good point but still trying to spin things to give his team time to recover.
The latest is that the team is still growing, but still going through the phases of an expansion team.
Looking at some history, Heath told Gavin Ewbank of The Mane Land, other expansion teams have gone through these similar growing pains.
“I said to someone the other day, we’re a year and a little bit in — [Montreal]’s taken four years to put together. It doesn’t come over night,” Heath said after Saturday night’s match. “People have to understand that, and you’re gradually adding pieces as you go along, and it makes the team what you want it to be.
“We aren’t going to be that team in one season and 11 games — it’s impossible, the way the structure of the league is in the U.S.”
It is far from time to panic on Orlando City’s season. The team is still very much in the Playoff race and knows how quickly it can get back into the race if it strings together a few wins.
Orlando City still has a chance and is still building something. The team is far from a finished project and far from done for the season.
Still, the Lions treated themselves differently than other expansion teams. They went out and signed one of the biggest stars in the world. They brought on one of the best U.S. internationals. They went out and signed Antonio Nocerino.
Orlando City did not treat itself like a typical expansion team. It wanted to be something much more.
So far the Lions are just above that Playoff red line with 14 points. They are unbeaten at Camping World Stadium still. But have just two wins in six games.
Wednesday’s game against the Philadelphia Union represents another opportunity to right the ship and silence some doubters.
Orlando City is still an expansion team. The organization admitted some missteps in its first year — things it did not anticipate in making the transition up to MLS. This year was about being more competitive and putting the resources in the team to make the Playoffs, but correcting those errors from last year.
So far, it is hard to say if Orlando City has done so. Fortunately, it is still early in the season.
UCF Women’s hoops getting to work
UCF women’s basketball has largely been an afterthought in the scheme of athletics on campus. The team’s 7-23 record overall and 4-14 conference record was about as low as the program could get, even with a stellar scorer in Zykira Lewis.
Enter Katie Abrahamson-Henderson.
The Knights hired “Coach Abe” from Albany after her team upset the Florida Gators in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Her pressing, fast-break style is one that should help the Knights compete and change the attitude within the program.
As they tell Christopher Davis of the Central Florida Future, that mentality is already taking hold:
“She’s [coach Abe] a really good motivator,” Aliyah Gregory said. “She’s trying to change the culture, like Nyla said, ‘talking to each other lot.’ But I think the big thing is she’s trying to get us to believe in each other and believe in ourselves. She’s big on motivating everybody and making sure everybody’s confident in their abilities.”
It will be a long road for sure for Abrahamson-Henderson. This is a group that has not had much success before.
Her former players though have heaped enormous praise on her preparation and how she changed the culture at Albany, preparing players for the professional game even from that small school.
This seemed like a strong hire for an up-and-coming coach at the time. The work is already beginning to push the Knights forward.
Frank Vogel: ‘We’re going to win’
It seems like a simple directive and a simple goal. The Orlando Magic have found it hard to accomplish though in the last four years.
It is not quite a guarantee from Frank Vogel. But he was certainly selling the idea at his press conference Monday that he expects the Magic to win, win in a fun way and win immediately.
As I wrote at Orlando Magic Daily, Vogel is not simply about winning this year but about building that sustainable winner Alex Martins and the Magic have been pining for since Dwight Howard’s departure:
“Obviously this group hasn’t been to the Playoffs,” Vogel said. “If you want to look for a bar where we’re going to set the standard and our goals, we’re going to get into the Playoffs this year. More importantly to me, we’ve got to build something that we know is going to win in the Playoffs. It’s building the level of offensive sharing and passing, building the defensive toughness where you are going to defend and rebound and it’s going to be hard to score against our team. So when you get in the Playoffs you have a reasonable expectation to succeed in the Playoffs.”
Vogel seems fairly certain he will be able to accomplish this goal fairly quickly with the Magic.
The directive and the goal though remains — the Magic plan to be in the business of winning immediately. Now they will see if they have the coach that can deliver on this promise.
