Lion Links: 5/19/18

Hello, Mane Landers! There are no Orlando soccer games on today, but you can catch the FA Cup final, or the Royal Wedding. I will be spending today out in the rain, so I unfortunately will not catch anything. I hope everyone else in central Florida gets to stay dry! Now for some links:

Orlando City Falls to Toronto...Again

The Lions just can’t get past Toronto FC. The Reds are 7-1-1 in the all-time series after beating Orlando City, 2-1, last night at BMO Field. No Jozy Altidore, no Sebastian Giovinco, no problem. The Lions fell behind as usual, but battled back through a Cristian Higuita goal to knot things up. Just a few minutes from a road point, disaster struck as Ryan Telfer found a game winner.

• Michael Citro has your match recap.
• Brandon Turton has the player grades and Man of the Match.
• The view from the other side comes from our friends at Waking the Red.

And stay tuned later for our bearded guy’s five takeaways from the match.

Pride Building Momentum

“I think we’re starting to click better as a team and the goals are coming easier now. With North Carolina, it’s a huge game, we know how big of a game it is and all our focus is on that right now. It’s nice that we have a while now to prepare for it and we’ll be ready to go.”

That is what Rachel Hill said to ProSoccerUSA as she looks towards Wednesday’s match against North Carolina. Hill was dominant in the W-League this summer but has just two starts this season. Her limited minutes have only allowed her to find the back of the net once, and she should hopefully be getting involved more often.

Pride’s USWNT Players to Miss Seattle Match

Should Alex Morgan and Ashlyn Harris get called up for two upcoming friendlies against China, they’ll be forced to miss the June 3 match in Seattle against the Reign. Despite the first friendly not taking place until June 7, Jill Ellis has asked that players report by June 1. This will affect all NWSL games involving USWNT players who are called up during the weekend of June 2-3. The NWSL is a growing league, and the top flight in the U.S. To deprive the domestic league of its star players could hurt attendance and seems to be counterproductive to growing women’s soccer in the United States.

More Garber Bucks

In a league already filled with GAM and TAM, why not add some YTF? MLS is getting ready to roll out a Youth Transfer Fund that will be used “to identify and sign young international players who could be sold at a profit in the future,” according to Paul Tenorio. There will be a $3 million budget for teams until 2022, and it can only be used on players under 21. We’ll let Paul tell you more about it.

U.S. Gold Cup Venues Finalized

The venues for the 2019 have been announced. While the international tournament will not make its way to Florida, it will come to iconic stadiums like the Rose Bowl and Children’s Mercy Park. In addition to the 15 stadiums in the United States, the Gold Cup will also make its way down to Central America and the Caribbean.

Free Kicks

• U.S. is in a sad state right now, but what is the most upsetting?
• Worse than the above might just be the president of UEFA admitting he “did a little trickery” to get a Brazil-France World Cup final in 1998.
• It turns out that pay-to-play is not a great thing. Who would have thought that?
• On to happier stories now. Below is an overview of Nick Pope’s life in the past 12 years and how he went from a milkman to part of the England Men’s National Team World Cup roster.

• Diego Maradona to get his own docuseries.
• The FA Cup is today and here is everything you need to know about it, as well as Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho’s relationship, Lukaku injury updates, and bingo.
• Since it’s been awhile since the Pride have played, and will be another four days, here is a video to help you cope.