Orlando City vs. New England Revolution: Final Score 2-2 As Carlos Rivas’ Late Equalizer Saves The Lions

These two teams have a flair for the dramatic.

Two weeks after a hectic finish at the Citrus Bowl that saw Orlando City and the New England Revolution draw, 2-2, the two sides managed to find the same scoreline again. Only this time at Gillette Stadium, with Orlando providing the late equalizer in a thrilling 2-2 draw in Foxborough, MA.

Orlando City was able to bounce back from a goal deficit twice in the match, most importantly in the 90th minute, when Carlos Rivas — a late substitute by Adrian Heath — put a rare shot on target and into the back of the net, salvaging a point on the road for the Lions. Orlando was again without its captain, Kaká, for the second week in a row.

New England took an early lead just seven minutes in thanks to some very poor defending by Orlando City. Diego Fagundez found a long ball on the far side and worked around Brek Shea, giving the ball to Lee Nguyen, who laid it back to Fagundez to slide it home past Joe Bendik.

Orlando City fell behind, but that didn’t give the Lions a reason to quit.

The team struggled to get in a rhythm for most of the match, but in the 30th minute, the Lions were able to equalize behind a strong play from Adrian Winter, who put a cross into the box that set up Molino to smoothly finish past Bobby Shuttleworth to level the score at 1-1.

After struggling to find the net for so long with Orlando City in MLS, Molino now has three goals in his last three matches, a sight Lions fans have missed for so long after watching the Trinidad & Tobago midfielder tear up the score sheets in USL.

The bad, however: Molino left the game in the 62nd minute with an apparent injury and went straight to the lockerroom. Good news though, Heath said Molino will be fine.

Things continued to slope downhill for the Lions from there.

New England regained the lead in the 71st minute. Nguyen, about 15 yards above the penalty area, found Kelyn Rowe charging down the right side. Rowe put a low cross into the box in a perfect spot for Juan Agudelo, who had entered the match only moments earlier as a substitute, to redirect it past Bendik for the would-be game-winner.

Hoping to counter with some late magic of his own, Heath subbed both Julio Baptista and Rivas on in the 81st minute, and both made an impact right away, helping make things very dicey in the final eight minutes.

In the 88th, Baptista put a header on frame from a few yards out that was headed away in front of goal by London Woodberry. Two minutes later, Rivas equalized, making a great run into the middle of the box to get on the end of a perfectly placed cross by Cyle Larin, who held off Jose Goncalves long enough near the end line to make the play.

Because Orlando City doesn’t know any better, the final five minutes of stoppage time stayed just as thrilling.

After Bendik made a big save on Donald Smith, Baptista ripped a shot just high and wide at the other end of the field. New England, making one last attempt up the field, came this close to retaking the lead if not for the crossbar saving the day for Orlando on Agudelo’s shot.

It wasn’t the prettiest, but the Lions will travel back to Orlando with another point in hand as they prepare for another rematch on Friday, this time with the New York Red Bulls, their first game in the newly renamed Camping World Stadium.