Connect with us

Orlando City

Orlando City at Houston: Player Grades and Man of the Match

Published

on

It was a game that is best just forgotten. A 4-0 loss in Houston and a game where there were no standout players. Three games in the last eight days had a drastic effect on the Lions and they seemed fatigued and slow the entire game.

Let’s see how each player did, but, just a warning, it is not pretty.

Starters

GK, Joe Bendik, 3 — This may just have been Bendik’s worst ever performance with Orlando City. He got beat near post on the first goal from a shot from distance. The second goal he let in went through his legs and trickled into the back of the net. There is not much he could have done with the last two goals, but the first two went in because of his mistakes. After that, the defense pushed up and the Lions got caught on the break. If Bendik takes care of those first two goals, they don’t go down 2-0, and Orlando does not push forward. 

D, Donny Toia, 4 — Alberth Elis got the better of Toia all night. Defensively, Toia was slow and got beat way too often. On the first goal, he did not put much pressure on Elis, and Elis took advantage of it. He got beat in a two-on-one situation that led to a cross into the box and the second goal of the game. He picked up a yellow late in the game, as he took out Elis from behind on a restart. All in all he looked slow and tired throughout. 

D, Tommy Redding, 6 (MOTM)— It is weird to give a defender the Man of the Match in a four-goal loss, but none of the goals were much to do with Redding. He made some crucial clearances in the box and, as always, was comfortable on the ball and distributed it well, which is reflected in his 87% passing accuracy. He was caught up the field on Houston’s final two goals, but the entire team was pressing to attempt a comeback. 

D, Jose Aja, 5.5 — It was his first game back from injury but you could never tell it. In a game that his team let in four goals, Aja played well all night, especially when considering that he was not fully match fit. He was caught ball watching on the second goal and slow to get over to cover Mauro Manotas. Other than that it was a solid game from Aja.  

D, Scott Sutter, 4.5 — Sutter simply looked exhausted all night long. His touch was spot on and he seems to always find an open player. He also had numerous defensive stops and was an offensive threat on the right hand side, but defensively he was too slow. It seems as if this 270 minutes in the past three games got the better of the Sutter, and he will do some good with a week of rest. 

MF, Antonio Nocerino, 5 — Lasting 58 minutes, Nocerino was on the bad end of a turnover that led to Houston’s second goal. He was triple covered and tried to dribble out of harm’s way, but lost the ball and Houston scored on the play. He was caught in no-man’s land on Houston’s first goal, although it did not have an effect as Elis took the ball himself and beat Toia. Defensively, he made seven clearances and recoveries, his passing was overall good. 

MF, Will Johnson, 5 — With Kaká on the bench and Jonathan Spector not in the 18, Johnson was the leader on the Lions and could be seen directing his teammates. He was one of the Lions to bring down Mauro Manotas in the 11th minute to draw the penalty. The penalty seemed harsh, but Johnson definitely made contact. His overall performance was exceedingly average, not doing any spectacular or awful, as he returned from an illness in the midweek that kept him out against Toronto. He had a chance to tie the game in the 47th minute as a ball fell to his feet on the top of the box. He did not get enough power on the volley, though, and it was a training ground save for Willis. 

MF, Luis Gil, 5 — Gil had some pretty nice moments. First, half of Orlando City’s shots on target and 33% of the total shots came from Gil. He had a few nice dribbles, runs, and passes that broke Orlando City out into the attack. However, he also had some bad turnovers that led to Houston going on the counter. Most notably was his turnover in the 65th minute that led to the Dynamo going on the counter and scoring their third goal. 

MF, Matias Perez Garcia, 5 — MPG was all over the field and was a workhorse all night. It seemed Houston had a game plan of stopping MPG no matter what it takes and the Argentine won five free kicks for the Lions. His set pieces were poor connecting on none of his three attempts. Just like most of the rest of his team, he had a few bad turnovers. While MPG did not have a terrible game, he will want to put it behind him and not look back.  

F, Giles Barnes, 4.5 — In his first game against his old team, Barnes was substituted after 58 minutes in a disappointing outing. His only shot attempt of the game came in the 56th minute. It was a half-volley off a nice flick from Larin, but it was on his weak foot on a half volley and Barnes did not get his hips around, skewing it off target. He had 11 total passes — four of which came in the final third and all four were unsuccessful. 

F, Cyle Larin, 4.5 — Larin did not necessarily have a bad game; he simply was invisible most of the time. It could be said that the reason for this was that the midfield failed to get him the ball, but that is not a good excuse at this level. He only managed to get one shot that was easily saved by Willis, and a few defensive stops around midfield. Other than that it was as if the Canadian was not even in the game. 

Substitutions

M, Kaká (58’), 4.5 — When he came in Orlando City seemed re-energized, but it did not last long. He had only 16 passes and  one shot (wide) in a little over 30 minutes. Orlando needed some flair off the bench and Kaká tried but failed to deliver. After the fourth Houston goal, Kaká did not do much at all and the game seemed all but over. 

F, Carlos Rivas (58’), 4 — Rivas’ 44% passing accuracy is  simply awful. Same as Kaká, he failed to provide flair off the bench and the team did not look much better from when he entered the game. 

M, Cristian Higuita (71’), 5 — By the time Higuita got into the game, the ending was already written. He was pushed up the field almost the entire time, and was not impactful in the defense. Offensively he was good at distributing but it was all in the middle third of the field. 

That’s how I saw it. What did you think? Vote for your City MotM below and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Polling Closed

PlayerVotes
Matias Perez Garcia5
Tommy Redding30
Jose Aja1
Luis Gil0
Anyone who watched the full 90 minutes123

Orlando City

Orlando City Relies on Starters More Than Any Other MLS Team

An analysis of Óscar Pareja’s early lineup choices and substitution patterns and how that compares to the 2024 season.

Published

on

Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Legendary swordsman Inigo Montoya, a man who is not lefthanded, once opened a conversation by asking the Dread Pirate Roberts if, by any chance, he had six fingers on his right hand. Nobody will need to prepare to die by the end of this column, but I will ask a similar question: I don’t mean to pry, but did you by any chance happen to realize that we are already more than one-sixth of the way through the MLS regular season? Six fingers, one-sixth of the season…close enough. Let’s go.

Time flies when you are having fun, and somehow Orlando City has already played 540 minutes of MLS soccer this season. I consider 500 minutes played to be a cutoff amount when looking at player and lineup performance, and with the conclusion of the most recent game in Los Angeles, the team has now surpassed that 500-minute threshold.

In looking at the opening 540 minutes, I was surprised to see how much continuity I found in the minutes played, considering how many injuries the Lions have had to work around during these first six games. In just the first six games, Orlando City has already had full games missed due to injury by César Araujo (1), David Brekalo (2), Robin Jansson (2), Duncan McGuire (3) and Nico Rodriguez (5). Brekalo and Pedro Gallese both missed a game for international duty as well. McGuire was not expected back during the first set of games, but all of those other players, with the possible exception of Rodriguez, were expected to contribute during the early part of the season.

These absences led to games where the substitutes list was full of players who will play big minutes for Orlando City B this year, but not players who Óscar Pareja was likely to turn to off the bench unless the game was out of hand or he was absolutely desperate. According to Opta’s tracking through the opening six games, Orlando City ranks last in MLS in the average minutes played by its substitutes, as the average amount of time per appearance for the players off the bench for the Lions is only 12 minutes. For context, 16 teams have an average amount of time per substitute appearance of 20 minutes or greater, and Inter Miami and Toronto are tied with a league-leading 27 minutes per substitute appearance.

The interesting thing about those two teams, Miami and Toronto, is that Miami leads the league in points per match with 2.6 and Toronto is second from the bottom with a scant 0.33 points per match. I think a lot of this data will even out over time, as right now there are several teams, including Miami, that are playing in multiple competitions and trying to keep players fresh for all of their matches.

When it comes to Orlando City, however, that is not the case, and thus far there has just been the standard one game per week on six consecutive Saturdays. The players are rested for each game. The issue has just been that Pareja has not had the depth and variety of players he thought he would have to bring off the bench to protect a lead or chase a deficit.

We often joke in articles or on The Mane Land PawedCast about how “Óscar gonna Óscar,” and once he finds a lineup he likes, he sticks with it. Even with all the injuries he has somehow managed to do this again this season, as you can see from the chart below. I started tracking lineup data last season, and even though the 2025 season is only six games old and there have been so many absences from key players this season, it was striking to see that the 11-man lineup that has played the most minutes together this season already outranks all but two lineups from the entire 2024 MLS season (including the five playoff games!):

Now, it is a little unfair to the one 2025 lineup on the above chart that it has such a negative goal differential per 90 minutes, because if it is only the 10 field players, with goalkeeper excluded, then that lineup has played 215 minutes together and has a +0.84 goal differential per 90 minutes. That group is +4 with Javier Otero in net in 74 minutes together, and removing the goalkeepers from the calculation turns that negative goal differential into a positive.

What that also tells us, however, is that when it comes to the 10 field players, Pareja has played the same unit in the field for 40% (215/540) of the team’s minutes already. Granted it is early in the season, but after six MLS games last season, the lineup that had played together the most had played a grand total of 74 minutes together (14% of all minutes). The top five most used lineups in last season’s opening six MLS games combined to play 302 minutes, or 56% of all minutes, and in 2025 it is 402 minutes, or 80%. My math, and everyone else’s math, says that is a much higher percentage and indicates that the team is focused on continuity early.

That continuity thus far this season has paid dividends, with the Lions earning 10 points from the first six games, twice as nice as last season’s five points after the first six games. Last year, the team was balancing midweek Concacaf Champions Cup games in addition to injuries and an international break during the opening weeks of the MLS season, so there were some good reasons for the lineup rotation and the slow start. This year’s squad will have to navigate two upcoming cup tournaments in the coming months, and so we likely will see a lot of new lineup configurations or more rotation once the U.S. Open Cup starts in May and then again when Leagues Cup starts in July.

Thus far though, Pareja has been able to stick with his starters deep into matches, and has only given playing time to 20 players, which is tied for third fewest across all of MLS. Fan bases often clamor for the coach to “play the kids,” but while Pareja has had young and inexperienced players on the senior roster for every game, he really has only given significant minutes to Alex Freeman from the group of players that could be referred to as “the kids.” Gustavo Caraballo has played nine minutes, which is incredible for a 16-year-old (15-year-old Cavan Sullivan of Philadelphia is the only player younger than Caraballo to have played this season, and he has also played only nine minutes), and new signing Nico Rodriguez (20 years old) has played 11 minutes, but the next three youngest players to play are all at least 22 and were with the senior club last season (Otero and Ramiro Enrique) or came to the club after four seasons of college soccer (23-year-old, but nearly 24-year-old, Joran Gerbet).

The team’s record thus far shows that Pareja has been right to limit the minutes to the small group of players he trusts, and with one game per week for the next six weeks it will be interesting to see if the early trend of starters playing long minutes and only a few players getting all the minutes off the bench continues. The next match is on the road against Philadelphia, which so rudely came into Orlando and defeated the Lions 4-2 in the season opener, and my expectation is that while we likely will not see any players make their season debut in this game, I do think we will see a different starting lineup than the season opener and probably a different one than the game last weekend against the Galaxy.

No matter who the Lions go with, I am sure they will want to avenge the season-opening loss and bring three points back home to Orlando.

As we wish.

Vamos Orlando!

Continue Reading

Orlando City

Orlando City at Philadelphia Union: Three Keys to Victory

What do the Lions need to do to earn all three points on the road against Philly?

Published

on

Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Orlando City is on the road yet again, this time heading to Pennsylvania to take on the Philadelphia Union at Subaru Park Saturday night. The Lions will look to get a second road win in a row after the smash-and-grab victory against the LA Galaxy. Things don’t get any easier with the Union sitting in second place in the Eastern Conference, but a win would catapult Orlando City above Philadelphia in the standings. Here’s what Orlando City needs to do to earn all three points against the Philadelphia Union.

Tie up Tai

Tai Baribo leads the way-too-early-to-call Golden Boot race with six goals in five matches. The Union striker has taken 13 shots, putting eight on target and the aforementioned six in the back of the net. He scored a brace in the season opener against Orlando to bag a third of those goals. It’s a pretty easy call to say stopping the league leader in goals is an important part of shutting down the Philadelphia attack.

It will be up to Cesar Araujo and whichever center back pairing we get to shut Baribo down. Of course, he’s not the only one the Lions need to worry about since the Union also have striker Mikael Uhre, and midfielders Daniel Gazdag and Jovan Lukic providing goals and assists. The point is that Philadelphia is second only to the Lions in offensive production with 13 goals compared to Orlando City’s 15 goals.

Formation Change

In the last match against the LA Galaxy, the Lions struggled to get things going with Luis Muriel up top, Ojeda at the No. 10 spot and Ivan Angulo on the left. Once Duncan McGuire came on, Muriel shifted back, Ojeda went wide, and Angulo subbed off. That really opened up the attack and allowed the Lions to get the two goals needed to secure the victory.

Perhaps Oscar Pareja could start things off like that against Philadelphia. Angulo hasn’t been great the last few matches, and perhaps some time on the bench will get his head straight. McGuire is still early in his return from injury, but Ramiro Enrique can start up top with Big Dunc coming in later as he has the last few matches. I think making this change could help Orlando City get an early goal on the road.

Vengeance is Thine

When the two teams met on opening day, the Union dropped four goals on Orlando City in Inter&Co Stadium. You would think it a completely dominating performance, but the Lions actually had more shots, more shots on target, and more possession than the Union. Philadelphia simply put each of its four shots on target past Pedro Gallese. That type of luck is unlikely to happen again.

Since that time, the Orlando City defense has stiffened — at least a little bit — and the team has been more difficult to break down. I’m not saying the defense is as stalwart as last season, but it has improved. Orlando City needs to use that four-goal drubbing at the hands of the Union to galvanize the defense to enact revenge with a multi-goal victory of its own.


That is what I will be looking for Saturday night. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Vamos Orlando!

Continue Reading

Lion Links

Lion Links: 4/3/25

Martin Ojeda in the MLS MVP mix early, Orlando Pride players won’t play for Zambia this window, Tierna Davidson out for the NWSL season, and more.

Published

on

Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

How’s it going, Mane Landers? I hope this week has been going well for you as we gear up for a busy Saturday filled to the brim with soccer to enjoy. Despite my blender’s protests, I’ve finally figured out how to make frozen coconut mojitos and plan on having those get me through the rest of the week. Before we dive into today’s links, let’s all wish a happy 28th birthday to Orlando City legend Rodrigo Schlegel!

Martin Ojeda’s MVP Credentials

Orlando City’s Martin Ojeda placed second in Sacha Kljestan’s MLS MVP power rankings this week. With four goals and three assists so far this season, Ojeda leads the league in goal contributions and is a major reason why the Lions have scored a league-high 15 goals. It’s great to see the 26-year-old take the reins of the offense after Facundo Torres’ departure. Inter Miami’s Luis Suarez tops Kljestan’s rankings, despite only having a goal in five games this season. Tai Baribo, Evander, and Lionel Messi round out the top five in what could be an interesting MVP race this year.

Pride Players Won’t Join Zambia For International Duty

Zambia will be without four NWSL players when it takes part in the Yongchuan International Tournament in China this month. Along with Bay FC forward Rachael Kundananji, Orlando Pride trio Barbra Banda, Grace Chanda, and Prisca Chilufya were withdrawn from international duty, with the Football Association of Zambia stating it was due to additional travel measures by the current U.S. administration. FAZ General Secretary Reuben Kamanga expects the quartet to be available for future matches and both Banda and Kundananji played in friendlies in Zambia in February. Restrictions like this may limit the appeal of the NWSL to foreign players in the future.

Fan Banned For Hateful Language Towards Banda

NJ/NY Gotham FC announced that the fan who directed hateful language towards Banda has been banned following an investigation that included interviewing witnesses and reviewing security footage. The incident took place at the Pride’s match against Gotham on March 23 at Sports Illustrated Stadium. The fan was found to be in violation of the NWSL Code of Conduct and their season ticket was revoked as well. Gotham also encouraged fans to report inappropriate behavior through the team’s encrypted text message service to inform the stadium’s incident management team.

USWNT Defender Tierna Davidson Out for the NWSL Season

American center back Tierna Davidson will miss the remainder of the 2025 NWSL season after tearing the ACL in her left knee in the club’s draw against the Houston Dash. It’s tough news for her, Gotham, and the United States Women’s National Team, as she captains the NWSL club and featured heavily in the Olympics last year. Davidson sustained an ACL injury in her right knee back in 2022, which contributed to her missing out on the 2023 World Cup. Gisele Thompson replaced Davidson for the USWNT’s upcoming friendlies with Brazil, and Pride defender Emily Sams will likely receive more playing time as the team prepares for the 2027 World Cup.

Free Kicks

  • Orlando City received $100,000 in General Allocation Money in exchange for former academy goalkeeper Zack Campagnolo’s Homegrown Player rights. The Lions will receive another $100,000 in GAM if conditions are met, and they retain a sell-on percentage if Campagnolo is transferred.
  • San Diego FC added Milan Iloski on loan from FC Nordsjaelland in Denmark through July of this year. Iloski is a San Diego native and won the USL Golden Boot for Orange County SC in 2022.
  • New England Revolution midfielder Carles Gil won MLS Goal of the Matchday for his free kick against the New York Red Bulls.
  • El Farolito SC, which is named after a burrito chain and bar local to San Francisco, has reached the third round of the U.S. Open Cup for the second straight year. The National Premier Soccer League side took down Monterey Bay FC to reach this point of the tournament.
  • Barcelona beat Atletico Madrid 1-0 to book its ticket to the Copa del Rey final, where it will face rival Real Madrid on April 26.

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a terrific Thursday and rest of your week!

Continue Reading

Trending