“It’s not fair to say they don’t spend": Luiz Muzzi plays down criticism of Orlando City's ownership | OneFootball

"I suppose one criticism that's rightly or wrongly been levelled against them is that they don't spend enough money on players or that they lack that real ambition to reach the very top. You've obviously worked closely with them for a number of years, so I'd like to know your take."

I think it's fair to say that Mark, Zygi, and Leonard Wilf have overseen a dramatic upturn in performances on and off the field ever since they completed the purchase of Orlando City, Orlando Pride, and all related soccer assets from Flávio Augusto da Silva four-and-a-half years ago.

Three championships later, the soccer scene in Central Florida has never been in better shape. At the same time, though, our ownership group have never been too far from criticism, especially since neither the men's team nor the women's team have seemingly been able to capitalise on their breakthrough seasons in Major League Soccer and the National Women's Soccer League, respectively. To a lot of supporters, our on-field results and off-field player transactions over the past two seasons have instead hinted at an organisation just content with our current trajectory, rather than willing to do whatever it takes for more success.

Now, I'm not stupid, I always knew there'd be very little chance of Luiz Muzzi responding with some earth-shattering revelation concerning his relationship with his long-time employers when I decided I'd bring up this criticism one day prior to our recent conversation. He's a professional, first and foremost, and if the success the two parties shared is anything to go by, then they probably enjoyed something of a positive working relationship, too.

Even still, there was no way I'd pass up the opportunity to test the waters.

A flash in the pan?

“Okay, so I think that there are things that I agree with. There are things that I do not. I’ll tell you one thing. When they came in and they did the whole, ‘What’s our mission? What’s our values? What’s our vision?’ All of that. There’s five pillars, and one is a commercial pillar. Another one is a community pillar. Another one is... Whatever the five pillars are, right? And above everything, there’s this horizontal line here which says, ‘Winning championships’. That’s their main goal. That’s what they want to do, right? I think that it’s a little bit of unfair criticism to say that they don’t spend money. They came in, they got Facundo Torres right away, which was the highest transfer fee that the club had ever paid.”

Our new owners certainly did hit the ground running in their first full season. The 25-year-old was, and still is, our record purchase, and stepped up as our star man as we inaugurated the new era in the best possible fashion, lifting the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. The foundations were also being set for another championship run that same off-season, with Anna Moorhouse, Julie Doyle, and Kerry Abello all arriving in Central Florida and Marta being retained on an initial one-year contract extension.

One of the more eye-opening insights to result from our conversation was that, two seasons ago, both the men's team and the women's team were supposed to win it all. Looking back, with the core of the men's team all entering the twilight of their careers, it's pretty easy to visualise that plan.

But, when one half of that plan failed to play out as hoped, it all started to go a bit wrong.

A balancing act

“It’s not fair to say they don’t spend because they not only spend quite a bit of money, they are also losing money every year and they keep putting in money. And they’re also spending quite a lot of money on Orlando Pride [...] I think that they do spend money.”

I mean, it's pretty difficult to argue to the contrary when our owners are coughing up record transfer fees in the women's game for global stars like Barbra Banda and Lizbeth Ovalle.

Of course, I'd love for them to show similar ambition with the men's team, but we are in a pretty unique situation. Of all the thirty ownership groups in Major League Soccer, only three of them simultaneously own a sister franchise in the National Women's Soccer League.

For want of fairness, though, all three of these men's teams have actually won championships since their respective owners took control of all soccer operations. It is ultimately their decision to own and operate both, so it should never be used as an excuse.

A fair comparison?

“Could we go in a different model? Could we say we’re not going to spend any money of transfer fees and we’re just going to get free players and pay better salaries? We could try that, alright. But I don’t think that’s the model we work on because we like to get some of those young, upcoming, talented players like Facundo [Torres], even [Marco] Pašalić who is only twenty-five, turning twenty-six this year. Or [Martín] Ojeda when he came in, he was twenty-four. So I don’t think Orlando will go out and spend a lot of money on five older players. It may be somebody else’s model. It’s not Orlando’s model. Now, there may be one or two players. And we tried to do with [Luis] Muriel and it didn't work, alright. But it didn't work for different reasons.”

The biggest problem with packing your team with young players is that, well, they're young. Yes, they may be cheaper and they may have huge potential, but they're inexperienced at the highest level for the most part.

This coming season, judging by the appearance of our current roster, could be a bit of a rude awakening. We'll just have to hope that, with time, our young team can grow into something special.

“I think that comparing ourselves to [Inter] Miami is not fair either. One, because Miami are doing things and nobody knows how they’re doing it. But if you compare it to someone else like Atlanta [United], for example, they spent $50 million last year on players. Did it work? They didn’t make the play-offs. So spending money, it has an impact for sure, but it’s not a guarantee that you’re going to succeed. There are other things that you have to do. And every club is different. Some clubs, like Philadelphia [Union], they want to have their academy kids playing, and they won the Supporters’ Shield with their model last year, right?”