ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Orlando City SC has signed forward Daryl Dike as a free agent through the 2027 Major League Sprint Season, and it has a club option for the 2027-28 season, the club announced Friday.<\/p>\n
The Lions drafted Dike with the No. 5 pick in the 2020 MLS Super Draft so this is a homecoming.<\/p>\n
The Sprint Season is the 14-game season in 2027 that serves as a transition for MLS from a calendar-year schedule to a summer-to-spring campaign.<\/p>\n
Orlando City also sent $75,000 in General Allocation Money to the Seattle Sounders for Dike’s Discovery Priority, the exclusive rights to negotiate with a free-agent player who wants to enter the league.<\/p>\n
“Daryl is a player our club and our fans know well, and we\u2019re very excited to welcome him back to Orlando,\u201d Orlando City SC General Manager and Sporting Director Ricardo Moreira said. \u201cHe brings a powerful combination of strength, speed and physical presence, and his ability to hold up play, bring teammates into the attack and finish chances gives us another important option up front. Daryl has already shown what he can do in our league and in this city, and we look forward to helping him make an impact again in purple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dike, 26, started 33 matches and made 41 appearances across all competitions during 2020 and 2021 in his first stint with the Lions.\u00a0He scored 19 goals and added seven assists, including a team-leading 11 goals across all competitions during the 2021 season.<\/p>\n
He spent five seasons with West Bromwich Albion FC in the English Football League Championship but missed some time with injuries. He has scored 43 goals and made nine assists across 138 professional matches. In international competition, Dike has made 10 appearances for the U.S. Men’s National Team. He scored 3 goals to help the United States win the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup.<\/p>\n
“I’m thrilled to be back where it all started. Orlando is where I first got the opportunity to play professionally, and returning here feels like coming home,\u201d Dike said. \u201cFrom the moment I arrived the first time, I felt welcomed, and that same feeling has only grown since I’ve come back. Everyone has been incredibly supportive, and I’m grateful to be back in Orlando.”<\/p>\n
The Major League Soccer season has been paused because of the World Cup. Orlando City resumes MLS action on July 22 in San Jose against the Earthquakes. The club will play its next home game at Inter&Co Stadium at 7:30 p.m. July 25 against Nashville SC. That game also is expected to be the home debut of forward Antoine Griezmann,\u00a0who the Lions acquired during March in a transfer from LaLiga’s Atl\u00e9tico Madrid.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Orlando City SC has signed forward Daryl Dike as a free agent through the 2027…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1238,274,28,1236,115,139,4786,141,140,2062,1241,110,1237,135,278],"class_list":["post-344091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-florida","tag-florida-sports","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-soccer","tag-spectrum-sports-staff","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344091","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=344091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}