Orlando City Faces Tough Stretch Heading Into Copa America Break

Orlando City will be hoping for some May flowers following some mild April showers.

As the Lions prepare to welcome the New York Red Bulls to town for the first time this season, they’ll be heading into a tough stretch of games coming up this month heading into the Copa America break during the first half of June.

Coming off their 2-2 draw in New England on Saturday, the Lions will meet with New York less than two weeks after seeing their Eastern Conference counterparts on the field in Harrison, New Jersey, with the Red Bulls coming back to score three unanswered goals in a 3-1 win.

That game may have just been the one that finally woke up the defending Supporters’ Shield champions, who followed up with a 4-0 win over a tough Western Conference side in FC Dallas five days later. Their season got off to a very rocky start, but things are starting to look up for the Red Bulls.

And playing in Orlando doesn't guarantee anything for the Lions, either, as New York defeated Orlando City, 2-0, at Camping World Stadium last July.

From there the Lions will make their first trip in MLS to Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City to take on Dom Dwyer and company, who Orlando City took care of easily at home last year in a 3-1 win late in the season. Again, there are no givens against a powerful team like SKC.

The Lions will finish the month playing their last three games in a span of nine days.

First they come back to Orlando for a two-game home stand against the Philadelphia Union and Montreal Impact. Those two clubs, as of the time of this writing, sit second and first respectively in the Eastern Conference, and as you may already know, Philadelphia handed Orlando City a 2-1 loss in Philly just last month.

Neither team, again, can be taken for granted. As ofter they were bad in recent years, both teams have seen major improvements over the past year and will be a tough handful of points for Orlando City to earn.

And to wrap things up, they’ll make one more trip to Yankee Stadium this season when they take on New York City FC for the second of three match ups in 2016. The Lions took care of business their first time in the Big Apple this year, pulling out a 1-0 win over the blues in March. It was a tightly contested ballgame for the full 90 minutes, and I wouldn’t expect it to be anything less the second time around.

Once Orlando City navigates their May schedule, it won’t hit the field in MLS action again until June 18, when the team welcomes the San Jose Earthquakes into town to kick off a very, very busy summer for the club.

May will be a very important month for the club as they prepare to head into the Copa America break in June. Capitalizing on opportunities and grabbing as many points as possible against tough competition will be crucial for the club because, trust me, it's not gonna get any easier for Orlando City this season.