Lions’ Beast hopes to return in 2017
Retirement is not on Júlio Baptista’s mind. Not yet.
The decorated Brazilian striker aka “The Beast” celebrated his 35th birthday Oct. 1 and is one of the oldest players in MLS, but he feels he still can contribute on the pitch.
“My plan at the moment [is,] I stay here,” Baptista said. “But, I need to talk with the club. I think the club will tell me what it wants of me. I just [have to] wait. I’ve played on good teams with players 34, 35, 36 and the most important thing is the mentality.
“I said to myself, ‘When I don’t have [desire] to come to the pitch for training, it’s time to finish my career. Or, if my body doesn’t work.’ But that’s not now. I feel very well. I think I could play one or two more years, I don’t know. Maybe this next year is a good year to know if I stop or if I go one more year. When you can’t give more than you have, then I think it’s time to leave, but at the moment, no.”
There are plenty of MLS players older than Baptista still competing at a high level. For example, Montreal’s Didier Drogba is 38, as is NYCFC’s Frank Lampard, whose teammate
Andrea Pirlo is 37. They all finished this season among the league’s best in either goals or assists.
Perhaps the best example is NYC’s David Villa, who turns 35 Dec. 3 and finished second in the league for goals scored with 23, one shy of the Golden Boot winner Bradley WrightPhillips, 31, of the New York Red Bulls.
Baptista played in 23 games for Orlando City this season for 729 minutes and had five starts. His only 90-minute game was a 2-2 draw with New England April 17. He was used mostly as a super sub, pulling off late goals or drawing penalties in the box — as witnessed in the Lions’ season finale, a 4-2 win Sunday against D.C. United during which Baptista netted the final goal in the 89th minute.
Despite limited playing time, Baptista was fourth on the team in goals (6) and assists (3), making him the most productive player per minute for Orlando City. The official stat to measure that is goals per 90 minutes played, of which Baptista scored 0.74. Leading scorer
Cyle Larin came in second at 0.51, followed by Kevin
Molino and Kaká with 0.43 and 0.41, respectively.
No new GM
It has been almost a year since someone held the title of Orlando City general manager. Fomer GM Paul
McDonough left last December after ownership brought in Armando Carneiro to assume many of McDonough’s duties as chief soccer officer. McDonough’s departure was described as a mutual agreement and he soon joined expansion side Atlanta FC as director of soccer operations. A month after Carneiro joined Orlando City, he too left for “personal reasons.”
The turmoil raised concerns and questions surrounding who the club would name as its new GM. The answer? No one. During the past year, Orlando City president Phil Rawlins and assistant general manager Niki Budalic together assumed those responsibilities — and that isn’t changing, yet.
“No, we won’t be hiring a GM,” Rawlins told the Orlando Sentinel this week. “We have two GMs already; we have Niki Budalic and myself working full-time on this. There’s no point in hiring a GM because we have that role covered already. What I think you will start to see happening is Niki will start to take over the full-time role of the GM, which he’s doing now, but he’s just carrying the assistant title. So, we’ll probably take that away and promote him to the full GM in the course of the next few months.”
Rawlins also again confirmed there is no reason to speculate about his own departure from the club. He is not going anywhere, he said, and is in the process of building a new house in the area.
Lake Nona
While Orlando City’s new stadium is on schedule and set to open at the beginning of 2017, the club will have to wait a bit longer to move into its future training facility in Lake Nona.
The 23-acre campus, estimated to cost the club more than $20 million, will not open until late next year, according to Orlando City officials.
“We expect it to be late next year because, obviously, we put so much emphasis and so much of our resources and energies behind getting the stadium ready and open for 2017,” Rawlins said. “So, as that starts to wind down, we’ll start to refocus our energies on the training complex and hopefully get that up and running by the end of 2017.”
The training complex will be home to Orlando City, OCB and the pro academy. The move will open Sylvan Lake Park, where the Lions currently train, to become the permanent home of the Orlando Pride. The women’s team shifted around between four different training locations during its inaugural season, but Rawlins said that won’t be the case next season even without the Lake Nona facility.
“They’ll have a permanent home and stop bouncing around like they had to this year,” Rawlins said.