At the start of the next MLS season, Orlando City will debut their own soccer-specific stadium. This has always been a part of the dream, and for Orlando City Soccer Club President Phil Rawlins, having this dream come true might be the best part of the MLS journey.
“It’s been a dream of ours ever since the beginning of the club that we’d have our own home,” Rawlins said when he sat down with LionNation. “Sometimes it’s difficult not to play in your own home. So, the benefits of having our own stadium are going to be just immense. So, can’t wait, it’s probably the most exciting part of our journey for me personally.”
The organization planned out the new stadium with careful consideration, and Rawlins had a personal hand in making sure the stadium was the best it could possibly be for Orlando City fans. “I had a very personal hand in designing this stadium,” Rawlins said. “We looked at a lot of stadiums. We looked at several stadiums in Europe… We looked at many EPL stadiums, but also we looked at stadiums in MLS, what had been built recently here in the States… We’ve been to many, many different stadiums… took what we thought was the best of those stadiums and brought them to our home here in Orlando.”
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“Really, first and foremost, the design criteria is to make a traditional soccer specific stadium that our fans could really call their home and make very loud and very passionate,” Rawlins said with a smile. “We want it to be a very passionate base, a very exciting place to come, a great place for our players to play and a horrible place for the opponents to play. So our design criteria is really built around that.”
Rawlins understands that most American soccer fans have not visited a soccer-specific stadium. Stadiums built for soccer are very different than a bowl, like Camping World Stadium, or any other open sports venue in the United States. “We’re talking about a stadium that’s very vertical, very erect, very upright. It’s on top of the field,” Rawlins said. “That creates a different feeling. I want people’s bones to rattle when they walk into that stadium.”
“I think opening day of the stadium will be even more emotional than opening day of MLS because as I’ve said it’s the final piece of the jigsaw so the last piece to put in place,” Rawlins said. “For me, it carries a lot of emotion. And the fact that we can give our fans a great, great home that will be theirs for decades to come. We’re not a tenant anymore, this is our place.”
