Orlando City
Orlando City vs. Real Salt Lake: Player Grades and Man of the Match
Will Johnson’s goal was enough to give the Lions a 1-0 win in Utah. It was not the best performance by Orlando City, but a win is a win. Orlando City was unable to get much going offensively, and Cyle Larin was unable to create a big impact in his return. The lone goal came from a bouncing ball, off a set piece, that Johnson was able to finish against his old team.
So, let’s dive right into the grades:
Starters
GK, Joe Bendik, 6.5 — Bendik was back to his typical self tonight, making saves that Orlando City fans have become accustomed to seeing. However, everything wasn’t perfect for the ‘keeper and he had way too many turnovers, just look at the chart below. Still, his two saves and two crosses held solidified the win for Orlando City. Plus, he kept the shutout, and for that his grade goes up. His highlight of the match came in the 64th minute. RSL nearly went up as Luis Silva broke through the Lions’ defense and was in on goal. Bendik was quick off his line, and gave Silva no chance at finding the back of the net.
D, Donny Toia, 6 — Offensively Toia was poor, however defensively he did well. He led the team in clearances and interceptions, but his passing accuracy was about 56%. He did not even attempt a pass in the final third and he mostly had giveaways on the touch line. He was beaten a few times by Brooks Lennon, but was either able to recover or had help behind him.
D, Jonathan Spector, 7 — Spector was the leader tonight, and kept the defense compact and organized. Although close a few times, the high line never broke and RSL was unable to get in behind the defenders. The one time that it did happen, Bendik scooped up the ball with ease. Almost all of Spector’s defensive stops were outside the box, and he made the stops that were needed. He was caught ball watching early on in the game, but was able to recover. He struggled in possession a few times which led to seven turnovers in the defensive third.
D, Jose Aja, 7 (MotM) — Aja needed a great performance to claim the spot as his own, in place of Tommy Redding, and, while it was not great, he was the best defender on the field tonight. He finished with eight clearances, four recoveries, and one tackle, a block, and a recovery. He had just four misplaced passes, all of which were long balls forward. He did give up two fouls, one of which resulted in a yellow card. Aja was also part of a defensive unit that held RSL to only two shots on target, but more impressive might be the home side’s six offside calls. Aja and Spector combined to keep the unit from breaking, where previously this year the opposition broke through Orlando’s high line way too often. On the goal, Aja got robbed of his first MLS goal, as his header hit the crossbar.
D, Scott Sutter, 6 — All-in-all Sutter had a good game, although he has had better outings in purple before. RSL wanted to get Joao Plata the ball down the left side, and Plata continually beat Sutter, as the Swiss-Englishman lacked the speed of the Ecuadoran, most notably on the play below. Like Spector, he was caught ball watching early on but he got better and better as the game went on.
MF, Kaká, 4.5 — It was not a performance for the Brazilian to remember, as he walked directly to the locker room after being subbed off, ignoring Jason Kreis. He hardly provided any attacking support, failed to register a single shot, and added many turnovers as well. His yellow card that he picked up in the 68th minute came off of his own turnover and was just lazy defending.
MF, Cristian Higuita, 5 — An awful decision by Higuita in the 76th minute led to an RSL free kick 20 yards out and should have resulted in a yellow card as well. Luckily for him he did not get a yellow, though, as 11 minutes later he whacked an RSL defender in the face while dribbling and earned himself a card. He was part of a midfield that struggled to possess the ball and led to RSL having 60% possession. In the 21st minute, Higuita and Kaká both failed to gain possession and the play nearly led to an RSL goal. However, for all the bad, Higuita made a handful defensive stops and broke up the home side’s attack.
MF, Antonio Nocerino, 6 — Noce had a quiet evening, with no glaring mistakes but also nothing too noteworthy. Late in the first half the Italian took a knock that he got up limping from. He continued on for the remainder of the first half, but did not come back out to start the second 45. The club stated that he is not injured though. While in the game, he did what he was supposed to do. He only had five misplaced passes, as he sat below the midfield and tried to direct traffic. He did give up a free kick about 30 yards out in the 35th minute, but altogether a solid outing for Nocerino.
MF, Will Johnson, 6.5 — Johnson scored the lone goal in the match, simply by being in the right place at the right time and jumping on the rebound. For the rest of the game he was a little bit of everywhere, although not making too much noise for himself. This is not strictly his fault, as it is most likely coming from Kreis, but he needs to put a cross in the box on the corners and stop with the short passes. They lead to way too many turnovers and counter attacks going the other way.
F, Giles Barnes, 6 — Barnes was another player who had an average game, but did what he needed to do. He got up and down the right wing all game, and in the 35th minute made room for himself and got a rare shot on target for Orlando. His passing accuracy was nothing to be proud of, but he brought energy for the Lions while also helping out on the defensive end.
F, Cyle Larin, 6 — In his first game back, Larin played with energy that the Lions were missing for the past three games. Up top he did not have many opportunities, but he attempted to make something out of nothing multiple times. He spent a large amount of time away from the goal and in the open space instead, even taking players on one-on-one near midfield. He finished with just two shots, none on target, but the service in to him was poor, and he did not spend much time in front of the net. For his first game back, it was a good performance, although nothing special from the Canadian.
Substitutes
MF, Servando Carrasco (46’), 6.5 — When Noce went out at halftime the team did not miss a beat with Carrasco in. In fact, the defense got better in the second half. Carrasco had a quiet game, but, as the defensive midfielder, quiet is typically not a bad thing. He connected on eight of his 10 passes, and broke up any attack that tried to go by him.
MF, Luis Gil (72’), 6 — With just under 20 minutes to play, by the time Gil entered the game Orlando City was in defensive mode. The team picked up a little when he came in, and he helped to secure the shutout. He won a header in the box over Kyle Beckerman at the back post in the 84th minute that could have threatened Bendik’s goal. He had one clearance and one recovery, to go along with his five-for-six passing.
MF, Richie Laryea (88’), N/A — He did not have enough time to earn a grade, but in his few minutes he once again brought immediate energy to the Lions. Three minutes into his game, he juked out a defender, got into the box, and nearly opened his account and beat Nick Rimando, but the veteran ‘keeper parried it out for a corner.
Those were the grades, as I saw them. Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments and vote on the Man of the Match below.
Polling Closed
| Player | Votes |
| Joe Bendik | 33 |
| Jonathan Spector | 25 |
| Jose Aja | 31 |
| Will Johnson | 20 |
| Other | 3 |
Lion Links
Lion Links: 11/22/24
Emily Sams wins Defender of the Year, Orlando City’s turnaround, Barbra Banda nominated for African Woman Player of the Year, and more.
Happy Friday! Beyond working and catching some soccer here and there, I don’t have many plans for the weekend. I’m also hoping to find some time to trial some cranberry and brie bites I’m trying to perfect before Thanksgiving next week. For now though, let’s jump right into today’s links from around the soccer world!
Emily Sams Awarded NWSL Defender of the Year
The Orlando Pride’s Emily Sams was named 2024 NWSL Defender of the Year after a fantastic season. The Pride only conceded 20 goals in a record-breaking season, and Sams played in all 13 of the team’s shutouts. Sams was one of the most impactful players for the Pride this year and had 163 recoveries, 76 clearances, and 16 blocks. She’s the first Pride player to win the award and it’s great to see her receive some deserved recognition in her second year in Orlando.
Analyzing Orlando City’s Revitalization
It’s been a rollercoaster of a season for the Lions to say the least. There were serious concerns over whether or not the Lions would even make the playoffs back in June and now they find themselves as the highest remaining seed in the Eastern Conference this postseason. Facundo Torres’ excellent run of play is a major reason behind the club’s turnaround, but the buy-in from all of Orlando’s attackers has helped create a dynamic and unselfish offense. Although expectations are rising once more for the Lions, Executive Vice President of Soccer Operations and General Manager Luiz Muzzi spoke on how the team is focused on Sunday’s playoff match.
“There’s only one team that matters: Atlanta United,” Muzzi said. “The easiest way to lose a game is to look ahead. I’ll say we didn’t expect to be playing at home, but it’s welcomed. We’re focused on Atlanta, they’re playing great. They have a lot of confidence and momentum. It doesn’t matter they’re the No. 9 seed because they’re not playing like the No. 9 seed.”
Barbra Banda Up For African Woman Player of the Year
Orlando Pride forward Barbra Banda was one of 10 players nominated for this year’s African Woman Player of the Year award. The 24-year-old has done well for both club and country this year. She scored 13 goals in her first regular season with the Pride and has three goals so far in the playoffs. Banda also had a hat trick for Zambia in the Summer Olympics. She’s joined by fellow NWSL players Temwa Chawinga and Racheal Kundananji on the list of nominees. Bay FC striker Asisat Oshoala, who has won the award in five of the past six years, was not nominated for the first time in a decade. The nomination list will be trimmed to a three-player shortlist before the winner is announced on Dec. 16 in Morocco.
Croix Bethune Named NWSL Midfielder of the Year
Washington Spirit rookie Croix Bethune won NWSL Midfielder of the Year after recording 10 assists and five goals in 17 matches this season. A knee injury cut her season short in September, but she still tied Tobin Heath’s record for the most assists in a season. Bethune gave plenty of NWSL teams headaches this year and also won Rookie of the Year earlier this week. She’s the first player to ever receive NWSL Midfielder of the Year and she beat out the Pride’s Marta, the North Carolina Courage’s Ashley Sanchez, and Kansas City Current duo Lo’eau LaBonta and Vanessa DiBernardo.
Eastern Conference Clubs Making Moves
FC Cincinnati officially signed striker Kevin Denkey from Cercle Brugge on a deal that will last through 2028. The 23-year-old joins as a Designated Player on a reported $16.2 million transfer, which would be a league record. He won the Golden Boot in Belgium last year after scoring 27 goals and should give Cincinnati some considerable firepower next year.
Elsewhere in the league, CF Montreal declined the option on Josef Martinez’s contract, meaning the Venezuelan forward will be a free agent once again. The 31-year-old led Montreal with 11 goals this season and we’ll see where he winds up next. Charlotte FC did not trigger the purchase option on Pep Biel’s loan, opening up a Designated Player spot. Former Lion Junior Urso’s contract option was also declined by Charlotte. The Philadelphia Union signed defender Olivier Mbaizo to a contract extension that will keep him with the club through 2026, with options for 2027 and 2028 as well.
Free Kicks
- In preparation for the 2026 World Cup, FIFA named 26 new options across the country as “base camps” for participating teams to train and rest. Orlando was included, with OCSC’s training grounds at Osceola Heritage Park pitched alongside the Lake Nona Wave Hotel.
- ESPN‘s Jeff Kassouf dove into how the NWSL stacks up to the biggest sports leagues in the U.S. Saturday’s NWSL Championship between the Pride and Spirit should showcase just how entertaining the league is to plenty of viewers.
- Pep Guardiola will stick around as Manchester City’s manager for a couple more years after signing a two-year contract extension with the club. His contract was set to expire at the end of this season.
- Here’s a cool breakdown of the seven amateur teams that have qualified for the 2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup so far. None are from Florida, but there are some great logos to check out if you’re looking for a team to root for in the early rounds next year. Debutants Southern Indiana FC and the Virginia Dream are my personal favorites of the bunch.
- The draw for the 2025 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations will take place today. Zambia is in the second pot, meaning it will be put in a group of four that will include one of Nigeria, South Africa, or Morocco. The tournament itself will be in July of next year.
- Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and Manchester City all clinched a spot in the Women’s Champions League quarterfinals with two games still left to play.
That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend. Go Orlando!
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.
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:
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):
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:
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.
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!
Orlando City
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?
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!
Lion Links: 11/22/24
Orlando Pride Center Back Emily Sams Named 2024 NWSL Defender of the Year
How Orlando City’s Offense Stacks Up Against What Atlanta Does Defensively
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