When were you founded, by who, and what is the mission statement?
The club in it’s current form was founded in late 2018 by myself and my colleague Eddie Loyola. After years of noticing the skill level of amateur players in Orlando, I wanted to develop the club to become an NPSL side to provide opportunities for local players, coaches and students to develop within the beautiful game. Our mission is just that, To Provide professional development opportunities for local players, coaches, and students within the game.

What city or community do you play in? Do you connect with your community outside of soccer?
We are based in Orlando, Florida with home games just north in Altamonte Springs, FL. Currently, our connection with the community is through soccer particularly with our internship programs and relationships with secondary educational institutions. If money and time were not an issue (being our season is just in the summer), we have a whole deck of programs we want to explore to really engage with the community. We have also had elevated discussions with other professional soccer teams that we hope to be able to explore further in the future.

Where do your players come from; college players? Local talent? Are you connected to a youth program?
We are a melting pot of players. We have three players that are still Juniors in high school, we have strong relationships with both Florida Kraze Krush and Orlando City Youth Soccer, local amateur players from the Central Florida Soccer League, some from other amateur leagues at that level, collegiate players who return home to Central Florida and more. We have developed a very strong relationship with many colleges and universities that have been very proactive in having us look at players.

Currently, I see you're in the NPSL Sunshine Conference; how did you finish last year? And what is your goal for 2022?
We finished in 5th place last season in one of the toughest conferences in the nation, but the standings isn’t where we find our success. We find out success in the opportunities and platform we have provided to the players, coaches and students. Since our inaugural season, we have had 5 players sign professional contracts, a player just got called up to represent his national team at the upcoming Concacaf Nations League, a student intern strength and conditioning coach in 2019 got hired by an MLS side, another coach has been working towards his USSF A license, developed relationship with the Haiti National program, and four other interns got hired in the media industry as news anchors, sportscasters, producers, and more. That is where we find our success and why we are so proud of our mission.

A lot of teams at your level sell merchandise like scarves or kits to help pay the bills; do you have any merch for sale?
We do not yet sell merchandise at this time. We do custom orders but with the pandemic keeping stadiums shut, this season we are finally able to welcome fans but the scheduling has been difficult with important Orlando City fixtures at the same time. Our sponsors have been amazing throughout the process and there are many sponsorship opportunities available as we have a ton of ideas to continue our great mission throughout the year.

Surely you have a rival - who are your biggest matchups and who do you love to play against?
We enjoy playing all of our opponents and I don’t think a “rival” in that sense of the word has surely developed. I will say that it seems when we play both Miami United and Naples United, those games are very fun to watch for the fans. When we play both of those teams, those are hard fought battles that go right to the end.

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NOTE: Lorenzo Amaral, on June 18 set the record for the youngest player to ever play for the Panthers in an NPSL game at 17 years and 74 days. He set the record broken earlier the season by teammate Ryan Avallone who was 17 years 268 days when he made his debut on May 28. Additionally, we have the youngest roster in our conference with an average age of 21 years and one of the youngest rosters in the NPSL.