Top Stories

Orlando City add Alvarez as second MLS player signing

Yordany Alvarez

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

By DAN KARELL

Orlando City Soccer Club have brought back a former club hero to be their second MLS player signing.

Former Orlando City midfielder Yordany Alvarez has agreed to sign with the club for its inaugural Major League Soccer season. The Cuban native will play with Orlando City this coming season in USL Pro on loan from Real Salt Lake before moving up to MLS with the club in 12 months. In exchange for his signing rights, Orlando City sent RSL their lowest fourth round selection in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft.

“We’re obviously delighted to have Yordany back,” Orlando City head coach Adrian Heath said in a statement. “We have an MLS-calibre player returning to us. I’m really excited to have him with us again and looking forward to the future with him on the squad.”

After defecting and obtaining asylum in the United States in 2008, Alvarez spent two seasons with the USL-1 Austin Aztecs before moving with the club to Orlando in 2011. That season, Alvarez helped lead the club to the USL Pro title and was named league MVP. The 28-year-old midfielder spent more than two seasons with RSL, making a total of 44 appearances in all competitions and scoring a goal.

—–

What do you think of this news? Like the signing? Think that Alvarez can dominate USL Pro this season?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

    • Orlando City will play in USL PRO in 2014, and join MLS in 2015. Alvarez will join Orlando City as a loan from Real Salt Lake in 2014, before officially joining Orlando in 2015.

      Makes sense?

      Reply
  1. I will sure miss the fun he brings to the field when RSL plays next year. There is nothing more exciting than wondering if his ridiculously late and reckless challenge will be straight red or whether the ref will let him have one more whack at it before putting us a man down for the rest of the game. Hopefully, Wingert will be able to pick up the slack for him in that area.

    Seriously, good luck to him and I hope he has the same impact on Orlando in the future.

    Reply
    • You hit the nail on the head. Alvarez is an ankle busting red card accumulating 11 man team terminator. His trade from RSL is addition by subtraction.

      Reply
    • Dan Karell!! You are a professional sports journalist, and you committed a cardinal sin. You misspelled a team’s name. A sin compounded as you also violated the sacred trust of trademark spelling created as a nod to the Great State of Texas.

      Reply
  2. I don’t think he can enforceably pre-sign outside of 6 months for “the next team,” and he has a contract with RSL, so the loan is a workaround. All these pre-signings are a mess because OC is still a minor league team and when they get promoted it will be a new business entity as OCFC + a MLS contract.

    Reply
      • It’s an interesting philosophical issue, not so much a factual prediction. The rules limit pre-signing to 6 months. Alvarez’s ownership progression is going to be a tad convoluted because he’s a MLS contract player on loan in USL who will then be playing for MLS again but for a new team. It’s not forecasting, it’s presently interesting and convoluted.

      • Pre-signing rule doesn’t apply. His contract will still be with mls, just like his current one is, he’s just moving teams.

      • Except the article describes it as “signing” with Orlando. You’re taking a player who owes MLS time, signing them to an Orlando deal for next season, then pre-signing them to Orlando MLS a year ahead of time.

        The real reason it’s no issue is everyone signed on. It’s their little arrangement. But FIFA has their rule so that a player can’t undercut their current contract by signing up years in advance.

        I’d also complain if I was a recent expansion team because they were not able to play this kind of game and accumulate talent ahead of time. Orlando is being allowed to take advantage of their quasi-promotion where teams like TFC and Chivas has to start fresh.

      • Also say he’s being loaned from RSL to Orlando for the 2014 season. So he’s signed a contract extension with MLS that will allocate him to Orlando. Chivas and TfC were not existing teams being reconstituted as MLS teams. Nycfc might have a legitimate complaint here.

        And MLS is considered one team by fifa, players can play for multiple teams in MLS a season and then another team in another league.

    • This is one of the situations where the league’s singly entity system is beneficial because MLS holds the contracts for all players in the league and not the individual teams. Alvarez’s contract is essentially and extension with the league but he will be loaned to an outside entity Orlando City (USL Pro) this upcoming year. Next year he will be returning to the parent entity that hold his contract (MLS) where he will be assigned to Orlando City (MLS).

      Reply

Leave a Comment