{"id":190352,"date":"2026-03-13T16:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190352\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T16:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:27:07","slug":"four-names-to-consider-in-orlando-citys-coaching-search-the-mane-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190352\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Names to Consider in Orlando City\u2019s Coaching Search \u2013 The Mane Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday brought the news that Oscar Pareja is no longer the coach of Orlando City.<\/a> Martin Perelman has the job on an interim basis, and while it\u2019s always possible that he ends up with the fulltime job a la Roberto di Matteo after leading Chelsea to the 2011-2012 UEFA Champions League trophy, it\u2019s more likely that the club brings in an outside hire sooner or later. As far as who that person should be, I\u2019ve provided several names that I think should be considered in the search for the club\u2019s fifth full-time head coach as an MLS team.<\/p>\n

Filipe Luis<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re going to make a change, why not aim high with your next hire? The Brazilian was in charge of Flamengo from September 2024 to March 2 (more on that in a bit), and during his time in the big job, he guided the Brazilian side to the 2025 Copa Libertadores title, the Brazilian Serie A title, the Brazilian SuperCup trophy, the Campeonato Carioca (the Rio de Janeiro state championship), and the Copa do Brazil (the Brazilian U.S. Open Cup). They won four trophies in 2025 alone with him leading the team. A poor run of form to start the 2026 season left him suddenly and rather spectacularly without a job, as he was fired the day after the team finished off an 11-0 aggregate win in the semifinals of this year\u2019s Campeonato Carioca. Regardless of recent circumstances, he\u2019s rightfully regarded as a bright young coaching candidate, and his Flamengo team attracted global attention with a convincing 3-1 win over Chelsea at last summer\u2019s FIFA Club World Cup before being knocked out 4-2 by Bayern Munich despite putting up a good fight.<\/p>\n

His teams were built on pressing aggressively to win possession and quickly attacking once they did so. It would bring a more offensive style and would be exciting to watch in theory, but there would be questions about his ability to adapt to some of the league\u2019s roster-building requirements and how the adjustment would be in moving from the most successful Brazilian team this century to a team in a smaller market with the restraints that come with it. On the other hand, I don\u2019t have to tell you how deep Orlando City\u2019s Brazilian connection is, so on the face of things, he\u2019d certainly be a cultural fit. There\u2019s also the fact that he played a number of seasons alongside Antoine Griezmann at Atletico Madrid. If the powers that be remain set on signing the Frenchman, why not bring in the man he won the 2017-2018 Europa League with?<\/p>\n

Wilfried Nancy<\/p>\n

Nancy spent two seasons in charge of CF Montreal, and another three leading the Columbus Crew. He guided the Crew as they lifted MLS Cup in 2023 and won Leagues Cup in 2024 and built a reputation for fielding attacking and free-flowing teams that saw players swapping positions and popping up in unexpected places in the attacking third. He parlayed that success into taking the Celtic job in December of 2025, but wasn\u2019t able to replicate his MLS success as he lasted just 33 days before being fired.<\/p>\n

While the firing alone isn\u2019t cause for concern, as it was always going to be difficult to try to implement his dynamic and rather complicated style in the middle of the season, the circumstances in which he\u2019d be taking the Orlando job are concerning. It would basically be the same as the Celtic job: taking over a struggling team in the middle of the season without the benefit of an off-season to fully coach your players on the way you want things to look. On the other hand, his familiarity with the league is certainly a plus, and when his preferred method of play works, it\u2019s an absolute joy to watch. If you want someone with a proven track record of success in MLS, along with the trophies to boot, he\u2019s your guy.<\/p>\n

Eric Ramsay<\/p>\n

Continuing the theme of coaches who recently became available, we have Ramsay, who is on the market after being fired by West Brom in late February. Before that though, he led Minnesota United to back-to-back Western Conference semifinal appearances in 2024 and 2025 and the semifinals of the 2025 U.S. Open Cup. Minnesota scored the sixth-most goals in the West in 2025 while conceding the second-fewest, and the team finished eight points back of the Supporters\u2019 Shield-winning Philadelphia Union. Like Nancy, he wasn\u2019t able to translate that success in Europe, as he only managed West Brom for nine games before getting his marching orders.<\/p>\n

Also like Nancy, while that truncated spell in charge doesn\u2019t concern me in and of itself, he\u2019d be walking into a similar situation with OCSC, and that\u2019s worrying. Would he have better luck implementing his ideas on the fly with Orlando? It\u2019s difficult to say. That said, he does have a built-in familiarity with the league, which might help. Another point in his favor is his ability to have success with Minnesota, which like Orlando is a team from a less-heralded market. Only four teams had smaller payrolls than Minnesota in 2025, and the hope would be that he could provide similar results to an OCSC team that splashed some cash in the off-season but is still operating with less resources than the league\u2019s heaviest hitters.<\/p>\n

Jim Curtin<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a minute since we last saw Jim Curtin in the dugout as a coach. He concluded a 10-year stint with the Philadelphia Union after the 2024 season, in which Philly failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2017. While he went out on a low note, the Union were generally successful with him at the helm, winning the Supporters\u2019 Shield in 2020 and finishing as MLS Cup runners-up in 2022 and U.S. Open Cup runners-up in 2014, 2015, and 2018. Of course, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but there\u2019s still something to be said for the way Curtin almost always managed to field competitive teams despite the Union\u2019s steadfast commitment to operating with a budget that could perhaps best be described as shoestring. With that in mind, it could be very interesting to see what he could do when it comes to an Orlando team that would be operating on an increased budget from what he was accustomed to.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are caveats here. Curtin was talking to the New England Revolution about their coaching vacancy in September of last year but walked away from the process<\/a> citing family reasons, so is he even looking to get back into the game right now? There also aren\u2019t strong recent results to lean on in the way there are with the three aforementioned names. That said, he knows the league and has demonstrated an ability to not just win, but win with limited resources.<\/p>\n

When all is said and done, I\u2019d probably rank the options in that order, although I\u2019d be willing to swap Filipe Luis and Wilfried Nancy. On one hand, bringing in the Brazilian would show an exciting degree of ambition and belief, but it would be fair to have concerns about the potential whiplash from being at a club where you\u2019re the biggest fish in the sea, to one where you\u2019re more in the middle of the food chain. Nancy has won trophies and overseen scintillating soccer while doing it, but there\u2019s a potential that he\u2019d be set up for failure due to attempting to install a complicated playing philosophy on the fly. Ramsay also has a strong recent resume in the league and did so with a small payroll, but the same questions with Nancy apply to him. Curtin is more of an unknown due to the time that he\u2019s spent away from the game, but he kept a miserly Union organization consistently competitive, and there\u2019s something to be said for that.<\/p>\n

There are likely plenty of candidates being considered by the club, and with it being so early in the process, it\u2019s truly impossible to guess which way they\u2019ll eventually decide to take things. There are certainly promising pieces on this roster, and if everyone stays healthy and gels, then who knows what this year will bring? Based on how things look at this exact moment though, whoever gets brought in is going to have a challenge ahead of them, and they\u2019ll need to be up for the fight. Whether a hire is made sooner or if the front office takes its time, the only way out is through. Vamos Orlando.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday brought the news that Oscar Pareja is no longer the coach of Orlando City. Martin Perelman has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-190352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}