Charlotte FC waives attacking midfielder Titi Ortiz

Charlotte FC has waived midfielder Titi Ortiz, the club announced Tuesday.

The club made the move seven months after signing the attacking midfielder on loan from Liga MX’s Club Tijuana. The Argentine midfielder played in 15 Major League Soccer matches for CLTFC.

Ortiz arriving in Charlotte in January was good news for the fledgling club. There was a time when he scored twice in as many games in April, looming large in CLTFC’s first U.S. Open Cup win at Greenville.

Perhaps he’ll be best known for (almost) scoring the first goal in club history. In the club’s inaugural match, the midfielder sent the ball into the net against DC United and celebrated in front of the traveling Charlotte crowd, but video-assisted referee later determined he was offside and no goal was awarded.

Oritz told The Charlotte Observer in April that his goal for Charlotte’s first season is to make the MLS playoffs, which begin in October.

“Our goal is to get to the playoffs and eventually win the Cup,” Ortiz told The Observer in April. “We are prepared for that. We are on a good path, and we need to continue down that path to clinch a playoff spot, so why not dream about winning the Cup?”

This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 9:49 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.