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Orlando City

Orlando City vs. Real Salt Lake: Player Grades and Man of the Match

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9 years ago

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So that happened.

Orlando City showed incredible resiliency to come back from two goals down in stoppage time against a solid and already battle tested Real Salt Lake side. Granted, the Lions should have had a better result, given that Demar Phillips was sent off after picking up two yellow cards in the first 19:12 for rash challenges on Kevin Molino and Cyle Larin, but instead of taking advantage of a man advantage that lasted 25 minutes in the first period.

The Lions failed to capitalize, playing too deliberately with the extra man and eventually RSL actually took the lead on a penalty. The spot kick was given just six minutes after Orlando City went a man up, when Seb Hines unnecessarily slide tackled Yura Movsisyan, who was running away from goal and had little to no angle to shoot from and no help in the attack. Down 1-0, Darwin Ceren’s charge from behind into Javier Morales in first-half stoppage time evened the teams at 10 men apiece and gave Real Salt Lake the advantage.

But the Lions didn’t give up and came back to rescue a point in front of more than 60,000 fans, so it kinda, sorta felt like a win. Here are my grades from today’s game. Your mileage may vary.

Starters

GK, Joe Bendik, 7 — Made the stops he could make and got a hand on Plata’s penalty, nearly stopping it. But did get caught a bit indecisive on a play in the 15th minute that could have cost Orlando City and which resulted in a corner. Distribution was generally fine and did OK on set pieces.

D, Luke Boden, 5.5 — He was good at times and not so good at other times. An inconsistent outing for Bodz, who sometimes didn’t deliver the best service on corners or long balls. He did work well on the left with Shea at times and was generally OK in defense before being subbed off.

D, Seb Hines, 5 — A completely unnecessary slide tackle ended up costing Hines some points here after an otherwise solid game. He did well in the air, despite the fact RSL players were shoving him every time he launched, managing to still get some balls on target off of corners, including the first of the game which Nick Rimando caught squarely. On the back end, there were a few scrambly moments, but he still managed to cover well and help keep the back line organized.

D, Tommy Redding, 6.5 — The 19-year-old didn’t look like the occasion fazed him. He put in a solid, if unspectacular 90+ minutes and only made a few mistakes in possession when the team was pressing to get back into the game. Adrian Heath praised his play at the postgame press conference, saying his teenaged center back did well against a very solid attacking force of Joao Plata, Yura Movsisyan, Juan Manuel Martinez, and Javier Morales. Completed 84.8% of his passes and conceded only one foul.

D, Rafael Ramos, 5 — I felt Ramos had a bit of a tough game overall. He certainly was culpable on RSL’s second goal, losing Plata by getting caught ball watching a bit. His pass selection was suspect at times as well. He did manage to make some good bombing runs in the second half, but sometimes didn’t trust his ability to make a cut and get past a defender (either that, or didn’t trust the coverage behind him enough to make that move). With Ramos, you sometimes have to live with the odd defensive lapse and that was the case today.

MF, Pedro Ribeiro, 6 — As we’ve seen throughout the preseason, Ribeiro seems like a different player at defensive midfield. He’s confident, comfortable and reads the play better without having his back to goal. He connected well with his midfield partners and probably should have drawn more fouls but Chris Penso wasn’t interested in RSL’s continuous obstruction while he was in possession. Made some unnecessarily complicated passes at times, and crushed a ball on target off a set piece that forced a great save by Nick Rimando. A promising start to the season for Ribeiro, who led the team with four tackles won. Hs four fouls committed was tied with Hines for the team high, and he’ll feel harshly done by Penso, who allowed RSL players to put hands on him several times, especially early.

MF, Servando Carrasco, 7 — Solid day for Servando, playing in central midfield. He delivered some solid long balls and broke up play well overall in the middle of the pitch. Led the team in touches and passes, with a solid (if unspectacular) 77.3% accuracy, which may have been better against an opponent less adept at clogging the midfield. His beautiful long ball in the final minute of stoppage set up Larin to chest the ball down for Winter to tie the game.

MF, Darwin Ceren, 4 — Although the red card may have been a tad harsh, Ceren put Chris Penso into a position to make a decision by charging in hard on Morales. Although the replay shows contact with the player’s back and shoulder area, Penso, who was trailing the play, ruled that Ceren intentionally took a shot at Morales’ head. The RSL veteran sold it, going down holding his head, and Penso bit. Ceren has to know the book on him is that he’ll charge in and opposing teams are waiting for that. It ruined a decent effort otherwise for Ceren, who linked up well at times with his midfield partners. He’ll miss Friday’s game with suspension, further complicating things for his team.

MF/LB, Brek Shea, 7 — His terrific cross to Larin started Orlando City’s comeback. He worried RSL’s defense all game long with his pace and charging runs up the left side. Nearly tied the game just before halftime after battling his way past the defense from a tough angle. Tied for the team lead with three shots and won a couple of fouls. This grade would likely be higher if not for a few poor crosses and a 72.4% passing accuracy.

MF, Kevin Molino, 6.5 — There’s no doubt that Molino appears ready to break out, but it’s just not quite coming together for him yet. He’ll make a spectacular move and then try to thread a pass through three guys. He’ll pass up a bad angle shot to make a worse angle pass. But he is dynamic and does make things happen on the pitch. He completed 88% of his passes and nearly scored his first MLS goal on a shot that Rimando made a nice save on. He earned a couple corners and set up a few chances but ultimately his 76 minutes of work went unrewarded.

F, Cyle Larin, 6.5 — A mostly frustrating day for Larin turned for the better in the dying moments. He got two of his three shots on goal and his tying tally in the 94th minute gave his team a lifeline in the game. He followed that by chesting a ball down for Winter to score the tying goal on a Carrasco long ball. Did well most of the game to hold up possession but seemed to be on a different page with his runs at times. Made at least one important defensive header in his own box on a corner. He likely won’t be happy with only 29 touches in 95 minutes.

Substitutes

MF, Adrian Winter (61′), 7.5 (Man of the Match) — The Swiss midfielder changed the energy of the team when he came on for Luke Boden, moving Shea to left back. His energy was infectious and he had a couple of late opportunities but the ball wouldn’t settle for him until Larin set him up for the equalizer. Winter buzzed around the RSL midfield and made himself a nuisance, out-working his opponents during his half hour or so of work. He completed 81.8% of his passes, created one chance, scored on another and only a wee too heavy touch on a ball he beat Rimando to kept him from scoring twice in the game.

F, Hadji Barry (77′), 6.5 — The former UCF striker had a solid first MLS outing after subbing on for Molino. He used his speed well and nearly scored his first MLS goal just barely getting a touch on a long ball that trickled just wide. Playing up top with Larin, his presence and speed created issues for the RSL back line in the game’s final minutes, and he helped set up the first goal with a pass to spring Shea down the left wing. This score could have been higher but he finished with only six touches, but his movement and speed made an impact.

* * *

OK, that’s the match the way I saw it. I welcome your comments below, and don’t forget to vote for your Man of the Match.

Polling Closed

Player Votes
Brek Shea 107
Tommy Redding 7
Servando Carrasco 144
Kevin Molino 7
Adrian Winter 203
Cyle Larin 28
Other (tell us who below!) 3
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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.

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1 hour ago

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April 3, 2025

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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!

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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

2 hours ago

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April 3, 2025

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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!

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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

7 hours ago

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April 3, 2025

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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!

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