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2022 Orlando City Season in Review: Jake Mulraney

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2 years ago

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Orlando City acquired winger Jake Mulraney from Atlanta United on May 5 in exchange for $200,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM), with half of that coming from the club’s 2022 pool of GAM and the other half coming from its allotment in 2023. There was another $75,000 in 2023 GAM potentially going Atlanta’s way if certain unnamed performance metrics were reached.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Mulraney had a bit of a reputation in Atlanta as a super sub who could provide a spark off the bench and get down the left flank to provide service and some danger. But Mulraney ultimately didn’t add much to the Orlando City attack, and when MLS U22 Initiative signing Gaston Gonzalez injured his knee in his final match with his former club, the OCSC front office had to bring in Ivan Angulo to strengthen the position.

Let’s look back at the Dublin, Ireland native’s first season in Orlando.

Statistical Breakdown

Mulraney was cap tied to Atlanta United in the U.S. Open Cup prior to the trade to Orlando, so he did not appear in any of that competition’s matches as a Lion in 2022.

In MLS play, however, Mulraney appeared in 17 matches with Orlando (10 starts), playing 726 minutes. He didn’t play a full 90 in any match with the Lions this year. Mulraney did not contribute a goal or an assist on the year, attempting 11 shots and getting only one of them on target. His passing rate was a solid 82.5% and he contributed six key passes, but he also turned the ball over 14 times. Defensively, Mulraney contributed 17 tackles, five clearances, and three interceptions. He committed just eight fouls and drew 22 on the opposition and was booked twice.

The winger also played 13 minutes off the bench in Orlando City’s playoff match at CF Montreal. He did not contribute a goal, assist, shot, or key pass in the game and only touched the ball three times. He completed his only pass attempt and served an unsuccessful cross into the box. He did not register any defensive statistics, committed no fouls while drawing one, and was not booked.

Best Game

It’s tempting to go with the 1-0 win over Inter Miami on July 9 here. Mulraney played just 20 minutes in that match and completed all eight of his passes, but the most memorable moment was his cross in stoppage time that resulted in the Damion Lowe own goal that gave the Lions the victory. I mean, look at this beauty:

That said, let’s be a little more fair and go with his performance in Orlando City’s 2-1 home win over the Houston Dynamo on June 19. Mulraney started the match and played 65 minutes, recording a season-high four shot attempts on the evening, although none were on target. He passed at a 76.5% rate on 17 attempts — tied for his fourth most on the season. Mulraney also completed a dribble and drew two free kicks without conceding one. He may not have gotten an assist, but he was part of the buildup to Ercan Kara’s opening goal in the match, getting the ball into the corner and laying off for Joao Moutinho, which you can see on the replay in this goal video:

Mulraney also flicked a header on later in the match that deflected off a Houston defender to captain Mauricio Pereyra, who fired a shot off of Kara and in for the second Orlando goal — the eventual game winner — in the match.

Even though his performance didn’t provide the single-most memorable moment of his season with the Lions, it was his most complete and solid attacking performance. In a season in which Mulraney struggled to get involved in the Orlando attack, he was involved against the Dynamo.

2022 Final Grade

Mulraney’s composite grade from The Mane Land staff is not a good one. This is not a player the staff enjoyed watching in 2022, which is reflected in his rating of 4 out of 10. And there wasn’t much variation across the staff. The lowest grade was a 3.5 and the highest a 4.5, so members of the staff were universally unimpressed with his performance after his arrival from Atlanta United. More performances like his game against Houston would certainly have helped his rating.

The move seemed to make sense at the time — Orlando City needed wing play on the left side, and it was worth taking a shot at a veteran guy who was looking for more playing time and had previously had an 18-month stint with English Premier League side Queens Park Rangers. The Irishman had a somewhat promising start with Orlando, but toward the end of the season he was adding so little that his inclusion in the team made it seem like the Lions were playing with 10 men at times. This was reflected in his managing only three touches in 13 minutes with Orlando chasing the game at Montreal in the postseason.

2023 Outlook

The big question is what Mulraney’s contract status is at the moment. He has played two seasons in MLS since being signed by Atlanta in January of 2020. Terms of his deal were not disclosed in the signing announcement. Mulraney was announced as already being under contract for 2022 in Atlanta’s year-end roster announcements after the 2021 season. It is possible that Mulraney either has a third year or a club option year remaining on his contract (or possibly two option years). The deal with Atlanta will seem worse when Orlando City sends the $100,000 in 2023 GAM to its northern rival.

This is a player who might be able to better integrate into the team with a training camp under his belt, but our staff grades clearly indicate that we feel Orlando should move on from this player as soon as possible. The winger had a base salary of $301,600 and a guaranteed compensation of $338,777 in 2022. The clubs split Mulraney’s 2022 budget charge but did not announce what percentage each team was paying. His salary is far too much money to spend on a player who had so little production and didn’t seem to mesh well with the other players on the pitch. That’s especially true if the player is likely to be, at best (assuming Angulo remains with the Lions), the third option at his position in 2023. Mulraney has fallen behind Angulo in the pecking order already and Gonzalez will be expected to jump to the front of the line when he’s healthy.

Previous Season in Review Articles (Date Posted)

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Orlando City

How Orlando City’s Offense Stacks Up Against What Atlanta Does Defensively

How Orlando City has performed against teams playing with three or four defenders, and how that may influence the playoff game against Atlanta United.

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18 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

The most famous quote about real estate is that “there are three things that matter in property: location, location, location.” Soccer coaches also like to think in threes, especially when it comes to points, but for a soccer coach, the three things that matter might be the rhyming triplet “formation, formation, formation,” as that is where they will have the biggest influence on every game that their team plays.

Throughout his tenure as head coach, Óscar Pareja has preferred to use a 4-2-3-1 as his formation (fbref.com’s lineup data shows that the Lions primarily played a 4-2-3-1 in 65% of their MLS matches this season, and 79% of their MLS matches during the last three seasons). The Lions have lined up in a 4-2-3-1 during each of their last 14 games, and my confidence level is strong to quite strong (can you believe Meet the Parents came out 24 years ago?) that they will do so once again on Sunday when they host Atlanta United.

Atlanta United also prefers to deploy a 4-2-3-1, but was less consistent than Orlando City this season during MLS play, as evidenced by the chart below that shows how Atlanta lined up this season:

The purpose of this image is a table to show how Atlanta United lined up in 2024 (mostly in a 4-2-3-1 but also in one of six other formations).

I am relying on the coders at Opta for their evaluation of the formation, as I do not watch a lot of Atlanta United matches (sounds terrible), but though Atlanta primarily played with four defenders in more than two-thirds of its matches, during the last two matches it played a 3-5-2, the only two matches all season in which interim coach Rob Valentino rolled out that formation. I suspect that the formation change was related partially to playing Inter Miami and trying to defend the Herons’ dynamic offense and partially due to an injury suffered by defender Brooks Lennon in the first game of that series. So, while Atlanta primarily played four in the back for most of the season, there is a good chance it will roll with what worked against Florida’s second-best MLS team when it plays Florida’s best MLS team this weekend.

Now, if you want to read more about Atlanta, then you can read our match preview, which will drop Sunday morning, but I want to look at how Orlando did against teams that play similar styles. Looking only at MLS games, the table below shows how Orlando City performed against different back line structures this season (the left side is how the Lions’ opponents lined up, the right side is how Orlando City performed against opponents in those formations):

Table embedded as an image showing Orlando City doing best in goal differential in 12 games against three-man back lines, second best against four-man back lines, and having played once against a five-man back line (a 1-1 draw).

Orlando City earned slightly more points per game — the stat that matters most — against teams that played four in the back, but the Lions had a better average goal differential when teams played three in the back. Atlanta will likely deploy one of those two formations. In both games against Orlando City this season, Sunday’s visitors went with a 4-2-3-1, but as mentioned earlier, they used three in the back in each of their last two matches, so it really could be either.

Soccer is not like baseball, where players primarily stay in the same spot throughout the game, so some of these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt, as players are not always rigidly in the same position throughout a match. A team may also primarily play with four in the back but switch to three when chasing a game, or five when trying to protect against a late goal.

That said, using the data around Orlando City’s opponents’ general formations, here are the attacking groups who played the most frequently against four defenders during the 24 MLS games where Opta coded the opponents as using a defensive group of four:

Table embedded as an image showing the most frequently used lineups against teams who deploy four defenders. The most frequently used attacking group has a plus eight goal differential for the season.

It is a little ominous that the main starting group, shown in row one, has played 666 MLS minutes against back lines of four this season, but do I like that green goal differential of +8 in those minutes, which is a strong +1.08 per 90 minutes. I like that goal differential more than I like all the things that Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin like on their song that is creatively named “I Like It.” Coincidentally, when people ask me what I think about that song, I say, “I like it.” I am very creative.

If we look at the lineups that Orlando City has used against back lines of three defenders then there are some pretty major differences in personnel groupings, but it must be noted that more than half of the games against teams playing three in the back came early in the season, when Ramiro Enrique was unavailable to play. Enrique, my presumed starter at striker, has played fewer than three games’ worth of minutes (265 total) against back lines of three this season, and only 28 minutes with the main starting group, which ranks 13th among all the attacking lineups for minutes played against three defenders. That group scored one goal in their 28 minutes together though, for a robust 3.21 goals-scored-per-90-minutes average.

While the team as a whole has been successful against three-man back lines, I do not expect any of the lineups shown in the table below to play more than a few minutes together this weekend, though the first row and the last row are strong groups and had a lot of success.

Table embedded as an image showing the most frequently used lineups against teams who deploy three defenders. The most frequently used attacking group has a plus three goal differential for the season.

I am sure that all week long the Orlando City coaching staff has been going back and forth on whether it is more likely that Atlanta reverts to its most commonly used four in the back, or if the Five Stripes try for three wins in a row with three in the back. I would prefer that Atlanta plays with zero defenders and goalkeeper Brad Guzan wears a blindfold, but I think that is unlikely to be the case.

Even though Atlanta defeated Orlando City both times while in a 4-2-3-1, based on available personnel and recent results, I believe that the team will come out in a 3-5-2 in Inter&Co Stadium in the conference semifinal. Good things come in threes, and Orlando City’s best offensive production this season has been against three defenders, so I am going to be hoping that this continues, and in the third game against Atlanta the Lions grab the three points. Three’s company!

Well, it is a playoff game, so there are no actual points at stake, but you know what I meant.

Vamos Orlando!

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Orlando City vs. Atlanta United: Three Keys to Victory

What do the Lions need to do to get a victory to advance to the Eastern Conference final?

Published

20 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Orlando City continues its playoff journey against Atlanta United Sunday at Inter&Co Stadium. The Lions are coming off an emotional penalty shootout win over Charlotte FC in their best-of-three, first-round series. Likewise, Atlanta United stunned everyone by taking out Inter Miami to advance in its own best-of-three matchup. Now, the rivals meet in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

What does Orlando City need to do to get past Atlanta United to advance to the Easter Conference final?

Beat Guzan

Brad Guzan made 16 saves over Atlanta’s three matches against Inter Miami, including seven in the 3-2 win on the road in Game 3. The 40-year-old former USMNT keeper is in excellent form and is a big reason why the Five Stripes are facing Orlando City. Converting chances against Guzan will be crucial to earning a result. There have been times this season when the Lions have struggled to convert their chances. Despite that, the team has done enough offensively to get to this point. Facundo Torres, Martin Ojeda, Duncan McGuire, Ramiro Enrique, and others have contributed and will need to do so this weekend.

Cartagena is Essential

Orlando City lost twice to Atlanta United during the regular season. What is interesting, and perhaps relevant, is that Wilder Cartagena was out for both of those matches. Cartagena was shown a straight red in the match against Minnesota United prior to the first match against Atlanta way back in March. He was shown a yellow card in the match against FC Cincinnati and then served a yellow card accumulation suspension for the final match of the season against Atlanta. Fortunately for Orlando City, Cartagena will be available for the match this weekend. I’ve mentioned before the importance of Cartagena to Orlando City’s success. When he and Cesar Araujo are on the field together, the defense is simply better. Cartagena is frankly one of the better defensive midfielders in MLS. Atlanta scored five goals in the series against Miami, and Orlando will need to keep the visitors from having that kind of offensive success.

Overcome the Past

That darn international break in the middle of the playoffs is something I don’t love. More precisely, I don’t like it because Orlando City often struggles after a break. It would have been nice if Orlando City could have ridden the momentum from the penalty kick victory into the Atlanta match, but that’s not to be. Now is the time for Orlando City to break some bad habits, including turning around its historical lack of success against Atlanta, and tendency to struggle in the first match after a break. Oscar Pareja needs to have the players in the right frame of mind, and the players need to execute the plan. A full house of supporters can also make a difference. Given it’s a Sunday afternoon match, there’s no reason not to pack the house.

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

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 11/21/24

Marta’s chance to shine in NWSL Championship, NWSL and MLS award winners announced, 2025 SheBelieves Cup details, and more.

Published

23 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride

How’s it going, Mane Landers? I’ve been spending most of this week plotting out some holiday shopping to make things a little less stressful for myself over the next few weeks. A big weekend filled with Orlando soccer awaits us, so make sure to get any errands or obligations out of the way sooner rather than later. Let’s dive into today’s links!

Spotlight Falls On Marta in NWSL Championship

There are plenty of storylines heading into Saturday’s NWSL Championship between the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit, including Marta’s opportunity to put an exclamation point on what has been an excellent season for the Pride. Orlando has been enjoying the fruits of its labor this season after a rebuild over the past few years that’s included plenty of change in the City Beautiful. Marta has been a constant, however, enduring some difficult seasons since joining the Pride and adapting her game She’s scored in both of the Pride’s playoff games so far and has a chance to author a storybook ending on Saturday.

Ann-Katrin Berger Named NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year

NJ/NY Gotham FC goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger was named 2024 NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year, beating out the Pride’s Anna Moorhouse and Utah Royals FC’s Mandy Haught for the honor. It was Berger’s first year in the NWSL and she’s the first European player to win the award. She only conceded 16 goals across her 22 matches for Gotham this season and was a key reason behind her team’s success. I’m not too surprised that Moorhouse did not win, considering how solid the Pride’s defense was as a whole, but this won’t take anything away from a record-breaking season for her.

Wilfried Nancy Named MLS Coach of the Year

Columbus Crew Head Coach Wilfried Nancy was voted 2024 MLS Coach of the Year after a historic season in which the Crew set club records in both points and goals. The Crew also won the Leagues Cup this summer and their 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup campaign included advancing past Tigres and Monterrey en route to the final. This is Nancy’s first time being named Coach of the Year and he has been a finalist for the award every year since 2021. The Frenchman received 40.02% of the vote, winning the award over Inter Miami’s Gerardo Martino and Colorado Rapids Head Coach Chris Armas.

2025 SheBelieves Cup Details Unveiled

The 10th annual SheBelieves Cup will take place next year and the tournament will return to its usual format where each of the four teams plays each other once. The United States Women’s National Team will host Japan, Colombia, and Australia in February in what should be an exciting tournament. The U.S. will take on Colombia on Feb. 20 in Houston before facing Australia in Arizona on Feb. 23 and finishing the tournament on Feb. 26 against Japan at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. These games will also be the first domestic games of 2025 for the USWNT as it prepares to qualify for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.

Eric Quill Named FC Dallas Head Coach

FC Dallas announced that Eric Quill will become the team’s next head coach. Quill joins Dallas after a great year with New Mexico United that included trips to the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals and USL Championship Western Conference semifinals. It’s also a reunion of sorts for Quill, as he previously coached North Texas SC and was named USL League One Coach of the Year with the club in 2019. Dallas missed out on the playoffs this season, with Peter Luccin coaching the team on an interim basis after the firing of Nico Estevez in June.

Free Kicks

  • District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser challenged Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer to a bet involving this weekend’s NWSL Championship, with embarrassing lightshows on the line.

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

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