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Orlando City

Orlando City vs. Atlanta United: Final Score 1-0 as Villalba’s Strike Spoils Good Performance

The Lions played well but couldn’t find a way to put a ball past Brad Guzan and Hector Villalba scored out of nowhere in the second half to give Atlanta the win.

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Carlos Romero, The Mane Land

Orlando City played well overall but offensive finishing continues to be an issue. The Lions’ lack of final product allowed Atlanta United to hang around and win the game, 1-0, on a late wonder strike from Hector Villalba in the 86th minute in front of a raucous crowd of 25,527 at Orlando City Stadium.

Villalba’s goal came out of nowhere off a throw-in to spoil what was otherwise a strong showing — even without the aforementioned offense — by the Lions. Orlando City (8-8-5, 29 points) missed a golden opportunity to jump ahead of expansion Atlanta (10-7-3, 33 points), despite out-firing the visitors by a 14-8 margin and looking like the better side much of the night.

“Obviously very disappointed with the result but this is one where I would say I’m really pleased with the performance,” Head Coach Jason Kreis said after the match. “This is the tough job about being a professional soccer coach is that nobody remembers the performance except for the coaching staff and the players. When you lose, you lose, so really disappointed to have lost this one, especially the way in which we lost it.”

It was a cagey first half with both teams getting a few decent chances but nothing clear cut. Orlando got a couple of near chances early with Carlos Rivas getting to the end line but losing the ball over the end line off a heavy touch two minutes in. Kaká had a nice cross into the box cut out in the sixth minute as the Lions probed for an early breakthrough.

Jonathan Spector returned the favor by cutting out a cross from Anton Walkes at the 15-minute mark. The first real shot came from Giles Barnes in the 17th minute but he hit his effort just wide. Three minutes later, Kaká’s cross for Barnes was cut out by desperate Atlanta defending. Jose Aja flicked a header wide off a corner at 22 minutes, as the Lions sought the game’s first goal.

Scott Sutter nearly found Barnes with a beautiful cross in the 25th minute off an equally lovely long ball from Aja, but a bit of last-ditch defending forced a corner kick. At 27 minutes, a nice give-and-go between Kaká and Barnes went unrewarded as the English-Jamaican’s pass for the captain was a tad off line and erased by Leandro Gonzalez Pirez.

A shot finally hit the target in the 32nd minute when Barnes fired from distance right at Brad Guzan, however, he ignored a good run from Rivas that could have had the Colombian in alone on goal. Four minutes later, Rivas got into the box and blasted a shot, but it was right at Guzan.

Meanwhile, Atlanta tried to make something happen in the offensive end with an endless series of flicks, dummies, and creative runs that didn’t quite come off, either by a pass off line or an offside call. The visitors weren’t missing those opportunities by much, showing why they’ve got one of the most prolific offenses in the league.

The Lions got their best chance of the half in the 39th minute when a long free kick from Kaká found Spector’s head. His flick on was kept out at the last second by a diving stop by Guzan. That almost came back to haunt Orlando at the 41-minute mark, when a horrific back pass by Will Johnson fell to Miguel Almiron. He wasn’t able to get his shot off and the follow by Yamil Asad was weakly hit at Joe Bendik. The half ended seconds after Bendik stopped Almiron’s shot from the top of the box.

Atlanta held most of the possession in the opening period, but Orlando held a 7-3 edge in shots (3-3 on target) and looked to be the more likely team to score.

The second half looked much like the first, with the exception of Orlando seeing more of the possession and Atlanta fashioning a few more shots off the counterattack. The Lions held 52.6% of the ball in the second period.

After a strong build-up by Barnes in the 55th minute, Donny Toia ran onto a bouncing ball, but his half-volley shot was delivered well off target from just above the box. Two minutes later, Rivas tried to turn the corner on Michael Parkhurst and sent in a cross that appeared to deflect off the Atlanta defender’s arm but shouts for a penalty went unheeded. Atlanta had their own penalty shout when Bendik came off his line and collided with Villalba in the box but referee Jose Carlos Rivero ruled that Joe got a touch and awarded a corner.

Guzan again robbed Spector in the 63rd minute on a long-range set piece. The Lions’ defender got his head to a well-placed delivery and got his shot on target but Guzan got down in time to make a sprawling save.

Second-half sub Brandon Vazquez forced a near-post save by Bendik in the 70th minute on a quick Atlanta counter. Two minutes later, Kreis sent on Cyle Larin, who had been playing with Canada 24 hours prior in Arizona, looking to steal the game late.

The introduction of Larin did seem to create some space for the Lions, with Cristian Higuita getting into the right side of the penalty area twice but his shots/crosses — whichever they were — were off the mark both times and the chances went wanting in the 73rd and 75th minutes.

In the 79th minute, you could cross off the free space on your Orlando City bingo card as Rivas launched one well over the net from at least 30 yards away. He nearly atoned at the 80-minute mark when he blew past Parkhurst, who pulled the Colombian down and took a booking rather than let Orlando spring the attack.

Almiron tried his luck from the top of the box in the 81st but hit his shot wide. It appeared to come off of Toia but a goal kick was awarded. Four minutes later, Bendik made a diving save to deny Almiron again as the visitors continued to look for chances off of quick counters whenever Orlando got numbers forward.

A minute after that, Villalba hit his stunner and silenced the crowd. Off a throw-in, Villalba found a pocket of space from about 30 yards out and decided to have a go. His strike was almost entirely unlike Rivas’ earlier effort, curling into the far upper 90 past Bendik’s outstretched hand.

“It came off of a throw-in, which we fell asleep for just one second. That one second will hurt you every time when you play against a quality team and quality players like Atlanta,” said Kreis.

The late goal was a body blow from which Orlando couldn’t recover, even after the introduction of Richie Laryea and Luis Gil in place of more defensive-minded midfielders. Kaká had a curling effort stopped by Guzan in the 87th minute and then hit the wall in the 90th on a set piece in a good area that Higuita won before being subbed off.

The last gasp for Orlando came in the 91st minute when Johnson found himself alone on the right side. With the defender closing in, he tried blasting it into the upper corner on the near post side but he missed his shot well off target.

“The guy was closing me down and obviously Brad’s a top goalkeeper so you have to try to get it in one of the corners, otherwise he’ll save it,” Johnson said. “I tried to go high to the near post to catch him off guard and I had him beat. Just the excitement got to me a little bit and I pushed it a little high and into our wonderful supporters’ section.”

Guzan got to a couple of crosses sent in toward Larin in the dying moments and the full-time whistle blew with the ball in the air after it was launched toward Atlanta’s penalty area.

The Lions are now winless in their last four at home (0-2-2), and despite playing better than before the break, got nothing to show for a good effort against one of the league’s most prolific offensive teams. But as long as this Orlando side continues to struggle to put the ball in the net, results will be hard to come by.

“For me it’s not so much about personnel at the moment,” Kreis said of his offense. “I think we’ve done a really good job of getting ourselves in and around the opponent’s penalty box. And then I think we’re getting the ball into some really dangerous spots. We’re talking a lot about trying to get the right number of players involved in our attacking movements and all the way into the penalty box. At the moment, we’ve got a lot of guys who are happy to hang around the top of the penalty box but not get themselves into the penalty box, and we’re going to need more options in there in order to score goals.”

“We’re trying to get numbers in the final third — more numbers — to support our two strikers. It just didn’t happen for us,” Johnson said. “It’s something we’re conscious of. Obviously we need to score more goals to give ourselves better opportunities to win games. It’s frustrating. It’s something we continue to work on.”


Orlando City will immediately get a chance for revenge, visiting Bobby Dodd Stadium next Saturday, July 29, at 5 p.m.

Opinion

Orlando City Has Been Better than Expected Halfway Through the Season

While there was plenty to worry about at the start of the season, Orlando has had a good first half of 2025.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

With 18 matches in the books, we’ve moved just past the halfway point of the 2025 Major League Soccer season, and based off my feelings before Orlando City played its opening game of the season, the Lions have performed above expectations so far. There were plenty of valid reasons to be concerned heading into the year. Orlando had sold its all-time leading goal scorer, and there were questions about whether he’d been adequately replaced. There were worries about depth at multiple positions, and the defense was coming off an uncharacteristically poor year. Here we are though, with the Lions sitting fifth in the Eastern Conference, just three points out of second place and seven points out of first. So how did we get to this point?

For one thing, Marco Pasalic has been much better than I (and I think a lot of other people) expected him to be. The Croatian has six goals and four assists across 18 matches, and is second on the team in both categories. He scored 10 goals in 49 appearances in the Croatian first division before coming to Orlando and was extremely one-footed, which was enough evidence to sow real doubt about whether he could adequately replace the impact of Facundo Torres.

So far, it’s mostly been so good. His direct style of play is a good complement to the styles of Martin Ojeda and Luis Muriel, and he’s largely hit the ground running in a league that can be difficult to adapt to. It hasn’t been perfect, as he’s still very one-footed, and can sometimes disappear if he’s stringently man marked, but on the whole there’s been much more good than bad.

Speaking of Ojeda and Muriel, they’ve also had strong years. Ojeda in particular has continued his great second half of the 2024 season and has nine goals and five assists in 18 games to show for it. He looks fast, confident, and decisive and is a far cry from the player who struggled frequently during his first year as a Lion. Muriel has cooled off a little after a scorching start to 2025, but he still has six goals and three assists in 18 matches. He looks vastly improved from last year, when he looked a little off the pace of play and quickly lost the starting striker role. He still has a tendency to not be as selfish as he needs to be in front of goal, but he’s been much better than 2024.

I mentioned depth being a big concern, and not just at one position. At the beginning of the season Orlando City was, and arguably still is, thin at striker, center back, defensive midfield, and fullback. Duncan McGuire was injured to start the year and is now injured again, leaving Orlando with two true strikers in Muriel and Ramiro Enrique. There was no true backup left back, only one reliable backup center back, and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson starting at right back meant that defensive midfield depth consisted of rookie Joran Gerbet and the Swiss army knife that is Kyle Smith.

Things have mostly worked out though. David Brekalo has supplanted Rafael Santos, meaning the Brazilian is now a proven backup option at the position, and Smith has filled in there as well. That means that in games in which Rodrigo Schlegel or Robin Jansson are unavailable, Brekalo fills in at center back, Santos starts at left back, and Smith is the backup for both positions, so it isn’t a flawless system. Gerbet has been playing better and better and got some valuable minutes when Eduard Atuesta and Cesar Araujo were unavailable. His emergence has been a crucial piece of the puzzle this year. So too has the rise of Alex Freeman, as his locking down the right back role has allowed Thorhallsson to fill in at defensive midfield, attacking midfield, and right back. The situation isn’t perfect, as a couple untimely injuries to the wrong guys would leave the Lions looking pretty threadbare, but so far it’s just about worked.

Another big concern was the defense. The Lions conceded 50 goals in the regular season last year, which was tied for the second-most of any Eastern Conference playoff team and fourth-most of any playoff team. With no defensive signings and the aforementioned depth concerns, there were plenty of reasons to worry about Orlando’s ability to keep the ball out of the back of the net.

Things have looked much better in 2025, though. The 22 goals OCSC has conceded are the fifth-fewest in the league, and Pedro Gallese’s eight clean sheets are tied for most in the league. Aside from a few egregious defensive performances against the Philadelphia Union, Atlanta United, and the Chicago Fire, things have mostly been tidy at the back, and when they haven’t been, El Pulpo has been around to pick up the slack. Again, things haven’t been perfect, as there have been moments where individual and collective errors have hurt the team, but it’s been better.


I thought the Lions would struggle this year. Going into the start of the season, we were talking about a team that lost Torres, arguably didn’t do enough to strengthen the team across the board, was facing depth issues, and was dealing with a leaky defense — all while pretty much every other contender in the East got stronger on paper. Instead, OCSC tied a club-best unbeaten streak and is just three points out of second place.

That being said, the East is so tight that Orlando is only five points above the playoff line, and injuries to the wrong guys could easily topple the fragile ecosystem that is the depth chart, but so far things are going better than I thought they would be. There are still a lot of matches to play, but this isn’t a bad position to be in at the halfway mark.

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 6/20/25

Orlando Pride take on Racing Louisville FC tonight, Orlando Pride players called up by Zambia, USMNT beats Saudi Arabia, and more.

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride / Jeremy Reper

Happy Friday! June continues to fly by as we enjoy the buffet of soccer here in the U.S. this month. I’ll be spending most of the weekend working, but I am hoping to get some reading done after being gifted some books for my birthday. But enough about me, let’s jump right into today’s links!

Orlando Pride Face Racing Louisville Tonight

The Orlando Pride are on the road tonight for a match against Racing Louisville FC at 8 p.m. in the final game before a league break until August. Going into the break with four straight wins would be nice for the Pride, but they’ve struggled at Lynn Family Stadium over the years. Louisville enters this match following a 4-2 loss to the league-leading Kansas City Current and has scored eight goals over the past three games. Orlando’s defense has been phenomenal this year, conceding just eight goals this season and only one during this win streak. Midfielder Cori Dyke spoke on how the team is finding its groove and shutting out opponents.

Zambia Calls Up Orlando Pride Trio

Barbra Banda, Grace Chanda, and Prisca Chilufya were all called up for Zambia’s CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations roster ahead of this summer’s tournament. Banda has eight goals this season with the Pride and had four goals at last year’s Olympics, including a hat trick against Australia. The Copper Queens claimed third place in the 2022 edition of this tournament, and they’ll need to be at their best to win this summer against tough opponents like South Africa and Nigeria. Zambia’s tournament campaign will kick off on July 5 against the host nation, Morocco.

USMNT Beats Saudi Arabia to Qualify for Quarterfinals

The United States Men’s National Team won 1-0 against Saudi Arabia to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals of this year’s Concacaf Gold Cup. After a scoreless first half, the Yanks broke through in the 63rd minute thanks to a free kick. Sebastian Berhalter served the ball on a silver platter to Chris Richards, who buried it for the crucial goal. The defense did well to secure its second shutout of the tournament, with Orlando City’s Alex Freeman starting at right back yet again. The USMNT will play Haiti on Sunday and should be able to win the group for a smoother path in the knockout stage.

FIFA Club World Cup Roundup

An MLS club finally won a game during this year’s FIFA Club World Cup, with Inter Miami beating Porto 2-1 in Atlanta. Lionel Messi scored the winner from a free kick to complete the comeback after conceding an early goal. The Seattle Sounders had a rougher day, falling 3-1 to Atletico Madrid, with Pablo Barrios scoring a brace. Former Lion Facundo Torres started for Palmeiras in the Brazilian club’s 2-0 win over Egypt’s Al Ahly.

Today’s action features more soccer at Inter&Co Stadium, with Benfica and Auckland City squaring off in the City Beautiful. Our Michael Citro will be on hand to report on it. Elsewhere in the U.S., Chelsea will take on Flamengo, LAFC will face ES Tunis, and Bayern Munich will play Boca Juniors.

Free Kicks

  • Canada Head Coach Jesse Marsch, who is already serving a suspension for misconduct during the Nations League, is under investigation by Concacaf for incidents during this Gold Cup. Reports detail that Marsch disregarded regulations and used offensive language toward match officials.
  • Kylian Mbappe was discharged from the hospital after suffering from a case of gastroenteritis. It’s unclear if or when he’ll play for Real Madrid during the Club World Cup.
  • Carlos Cuesta was hired as Parma’s next head coach after five years with Arsenal as an assistant coach. The 29-year-old becomes the second-youngest coach in Serie A history.
  • Manchester City was fined over $1 million by the English Premier League for repeated delays regarding kickoff times.

That’s all I have for you all today. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend!

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Orlando City

In 2025, OCSC Stands for Orlando City Scorers Club

How Orlando City’s top offensive performers this season compare to the rest of MLS…and the Premier League.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Last week, I wrote about the state of Orlando City at the halfway point of the season, focusing mostly on the team’s accomplishments on offense and defense through 17 games. For this week, let’s look at some of the top performing Lions, because it’s always fun to talk about offensive success. I do not apologize if you take offense to my desire to only focus on offense, because that would be defensive, and there is no place in this article for defense.

Many moons ago, back in January during the preseason, I wrote an article looking at the best offensive seasons in Orlando City’s MLS history. I used a derived metric called game score to rank the seasons, and I’ll quickly explain again how that is calculated:

Goals Scored + Expected Assists + 0.0113 (Progressive Carries + Progressive Passes)

I went into much more detail about why that is the calculation in the original article, but the quick and dirty version is that scoring goals, completing passes to players in dangerous scoring areas, and progressing the ball by dribbling and passing are core components of a strong offensive player. Think of the game score as an offensive value calculation, and think of it simply as a value for which more is better and the most is best.

Opta only tracked the last three contributing statistics (expected assists, progressive carries, and progressive passes) from 2018 onwards, and the chart below shows Orlando City’s 10 best MLS regular seasons since 2018. It also shows the season that currently ranks 11th — Martín Ojeda’s 2025 season, which, as a reminder, is only in game 18 of a 34-game regular season. This means, if you get the extrapolation machine out, Ojeda is on pace for a season-long game score of 26.5, which would rank as the highest full season game score in Orlando City history.

  • * The 2020 season contained only 23 games due to COVID-19
  • ** Ojeda’s stats are through 18 matches; MLS teams have played between 16-19 matches

Ojeda’s 14.1 currently ranks only behind Sam Surridge of Nashville (15.7), Anders Dreyer of San Diego (16.6), and some player from Miami who clearly wants to play for Orlando since he has lion as part of his first name (Messi, 16.8). During Ojeda’s first two seasons, he only accumulated 12.1 and 12.5, respectively, so this is already by far his best season in purple and it is just barely halfway complete.

Ojeda is not the only Orlando City player who is on pace to jump into the club’s all-time top 10 by the end of the season, as teammates Luis Muriel (10.76, on pace for 20.3) and Marco Pašalić (10.46, on pace for 19.8) are both in the top 30 in MLS this season. Muriel is 24th, and Pašalić is 27th. Orlando City is the only team in the league with three players in the top 30, or really the top 27 (shout out to my son, for whom 27 is his favorite number).

One last point on Ojeda: if we were to extrapolate his performance through 18 games to 38 games, his season game score would bump up to 29.6. Why did I choose 38? Well, 38 happens to be the number of games played in the world’s most popular league, England’s Premier League. I am well aware that the Premier League is a different level of competition than MLS, but just for fun I ran the numbers on the 2024-2025 Premier League season, and a season-long game score of 29.6 would coincidentally also rank Ojeda fourth in England, right behind Cole Palmer (29.7) and in front of Alexander Isak (29.2). I do not think Ojeda would actually finish fourth if he was in the Premier League, but my point is more that the frequency of Ojeda’s contributions for Orlando City thus far this season have been similar to that of Palmer for Chelsea and Isak for Newcastle, which is pretty heady company.

Speaking of heady, we also need to talk about the player who is leading Orlando City in aerial duel wins, Alex Freeman. Heady, aerial duels…you got the segue, right? Don’t answer that.

Freeman has been on a rocket ship in the last year, going from Orlando City B starter to Orlando City starter to U.S. Men’s National Team starter, and he likely will also be the MLS All-Star Game starter, too. My mention of his leading the team in aerial duel wins, while noteworthy, was really just a convenient way to cut over to talking about him and his season-long game score of 8.1.

According to Opta’s positional tracking, only two MLS defenders have accumulated game scores of more than six thus far this season — Philadelphia’s Kai Wagner at 6.88 and Freeman’s 8.1. The extrapolation machine says 8.1 through 18 games puts Freeman on pace for a final score of 15.2, which would be the second best performance by an MLS defender since tracking began in 2018. Freeman is going to miss at least a few more games due to being with the U.S. team during the Gold Cup, so that 15.2 will likely not happen, but wow, what a great first half of a season for Orlando City’s right back.

Going back to the Premier League for comparative context…actually, please sit down and buckle up first. Are you good? Ok.

Going back to the Premier League for comparative context, there is none. Freeman’s performance blows away every defender’s from that league. It will likely surprise few that the defender with the best season game score in the Premier League this season was Trent Alexander-Arnold, who accumulated a score of 13.5 during Liverpool’s championship run. That 13.5 was 15% better than the defender who finished in second place, and yet, if we extrapolate Freeman to 38 games, he would be on pace for 17.0, which is 26% better than Alexander-Arnold. Mind the gap.

Once again, I do not mean to say that Freeman is as skilled or would contribute like Alexander-Arnold did in the Premier League. It is instead that Freeman’s contributions to Orlando City’s offense are unlike that from any defenders in the Premier League. Freeman’s performance thus far this season places him 43rd in the overall MLS rankings, first among defenders, and ahead of strikers such as Christian Benteke, Emmanuel Latte Lath, and Brandon Vazquez. He ranks fourth on Orlando City, and the Lions are not only the only club with three players in the top 30, but also the only club with four players in the top 45.

Two teams had four players in the top 45 during the 2024 MLS season, and one of them was the LA Galaxy, the eventual MLS Cup champions. I am not saying that Orlando City having four players in the top 45 this season means they will win MLS Cup, but I am not not saying it either. I am saying I would like it to happen though, and saying that loudly and clearly.

The game score metric is not the be-all, end-all of measuring offensive prowess, but I think it does a good job of creating a ranking system where the eye test matches the math. Most fans would point to Ojeda as the player who has driven Orlando City’s offense more than any other this season, and being that the team is on pace to have one of the best, if not the best, goal-scoring seasons in the club’s MLS history, it should track that Ojeda is also on pace to have one of the best, if not the best, individual offensive seasons in the club’s MLS history as well.

There are 16 more MLS games to go, and the great thing about sports is that in any game anything can happen, and that is why we love to watch. It is awesome that all three Designated Players and Freeman are off to great starts, but nothing is guaranteed for the back half of the season. That’s why they play the games, as the saying goes. For all we know, Ramiro Enrique could come on like gangbusters in the final games and rip off double-digit goals to end as the team’s leading scorer.

Ramiro, this is a bold strategy, and I am on board for it. The more goals the merrier. Feel free to bring us fans some goals for Christmas in July.

Orlando City does not have a game this weekend, with next match coming June 25 on the road in St. Louis. Winning that game would give the Lions their third winning streak of the season and would be something I would very much like, since I will be doling out the grades for that game. And since I have been writing about the offense this week, how about three goals and three points?

Vamos Orlando!

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