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

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Orlando City picked up three points over Real Salt Lake for its sixth straight victory, and once again, the win came in comeback fashion. After a scoreless first half, Orlando City scored three goals in a 20-minute span to take a 3-1 lead, which was eventually the final score of the match. The win streak is both the longest streak for the club in its MLS history and the longest winning streak in MLS so far this season.

With that said, lets see how the lads did individually in yet another victory.

Starters

GK, Joe Bendik, 8.5 — Despite giving up the goal to Corey Baird in the 12th minute, Bendik had one of his best games of the season. Bendik faced nine shots on goal throughout, saving eight of them, including a stellar kick save in the 62nd minute to keep the game level at 1-1 at the time. He also had a beautiful diving save in the 51st minute that kept RSL’s lead to just one goal early in the second half. Bendik may have given up a goal, but he was a huge reason why Orlando was able to win this game and extend its win streak to six games.

D, Mohamed El-Munir, 7.5 — El-Munir once again had a solid game at left back as he totaled eight tackles, one interception and numerous clearances on scoring chances from Real Salt Lake. He also came up and helped fuel the attack throughout with crosses, mainly in the second half, when Orlando City scored all three of its goals. El-Munir continued his solid campaign at right back for the Lions.

D, Chris Schuler, 6 — In his first start for Orlando City, and first MLS game since last June, Schuler did look rusty, especially in the first half, but he made no astounding errors and played well alongside Lamine Sané. Schuler had not seen playing time at all this season before this game, so it was expected for him to look shaky at times as he was replacing Jonathan Spector and Amro Tarek, who were both out with injuries. Not the greatest game from Schuler, but not a bad one either.

D, Lamine Sané, 7 Sané was outpaced on the lone goal from Real Salt Lake after Sacha Kljestan’s poor touch in the midfield. But the center back made up for it by netting his first goal in an Orlando City uniform and playing solid defense throughout the second half. Sané was also the only defensive player for the Lions dwith a blocked shot and was all over the pitch. His veteran presence helped the defense regroup after the early goal, which led to better play and a victory.

D, Will Johnson, 6.5 — Will Johnson once again lined up at right back and helped the Lions on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Johnson had a shot on target early on that was saved by Nick Rimando as well as several accurate long balls and crosses that led to near scoring chances. Johnson has had to be a flexible player for Jason Kreis throughout the season, but he is proving himself as a reliable right back week in and week out for Orlando City.

MF, Yoshimar Yotún, 9 (MotM) — Yotún had the most solid game of any player on the pitch against Real Salt Lake. He had 85 touches along with 59 passes, one of those passes being an assist to Lamine Sané off a corner kick for his first goal with the club. Yotún scored a goal of his own off a rebound from Dom Dwyer’s shot to give the Lions a 3-1 lead in the 78th minute to put the game away. Yotún was the Swiss army knife for Orlando City and its midfield, which allowed Orlando to control that part of the pitch throughout the entire game. Yotún had a stellar game as he gets my Man of the Match nod.

MF, Cristian Higuita, 7.5 — Higuita had the most passes (66) and the most touches (86) of any player on the pitch for Orlando City, so he was involved for the entire 90 minutes. Of course, Higuita picked up his usual yellow card, but that was excusable given his notorious physical playing style which always helps Orlando in the midfield. The Colombian had two shots off target but was a force on both sides of the ball. Higuita tallied four successful tackles, two interceptions and two clearances while playing alongside Yotún.

MF, Justin Meram, 5.5 — For some reason, Justin Meram has yet to be able to find the net, something Orlando City expected to be second nature for him when it acquired him from the Columbus Crew. Meram had four total shots, all of them being off target, even though a few were close. He also seemed to have issues with his touches as he was undisciplined on a few, but he was able to throw some passes into the box and create havoc for Real Salt Lake. Jason Kreis needs to continue to find a way to get Meram on the score sheet, because the floodgates will open once that happens.

MF, Sacha Kljestan, 7 — As stated earlier, Kljestan gave away the ball in the midfield that led to the goal from Corey Baird, but he shrugged it off and played a solid game otherwise. He assisted on Orlando’s first goal of the match to Dom Dwyer in the 60th minute, which opened the scoring barrage that ensued for the 20 minutes to follow. Kljestan’s passes consistently led to scoring chances and he also took a few shots on goal as well. Kljestan had a normal game, which is basically what Orlando needed out of him to attain victory.

MF, Chris Mueller, 6 — Mueller had arguably the quietest game of his career as he didn’t record a shot throughout his time on the pitch and only had 38 touches, second to Dom Dwyer, who only had 33. He set up an early opportunity with a tremendous individual effort to put his defender on skates, but the cross was well defended. The rookie really didn’t do anything drastically right or wrong to rightfully grade him up or down, so his game was quiet but not in a bad way to affect the squad as a whole.

F, Dom Dwyer, 8.5 — Dwyer once again scored for Orlando City for the sixth time in as many games and he also was responsible for the rebound goal by Yoshimar Yotún that gave Orlando a two-goal cushion in the 78th minute. Dwyer took three shots on goal, two of which led to goals and the other also being a shot on target. He once again proved he can wreak havoc on opposing defenses and he also made passes that led to other scoring chances, as well as demonstrating standout hold-up play. Dwyer was the fire Orlando City needed in the second half after a scoreless first, and he once again put himself all over the score sheet and helped Orlando City continue scoring goals at will.

Reserves

F, Stéfano Pinho (72’), 6 — Pinho was relatively quiet for being on the pitch for about 18 minutes, as he only recorded a tackle and 11 touches. He came on for Chris Mueller, who was also quiet, so the Brazilian did about as much as Mueller did, which was nothing absurdly right or wrong.

MF, Uri Rosell (80’), 6.5 — Rosell came on for Yotún and made some noise as he took two shots, one being on target that almost gave him his first goal of the season. Uri wasn’t on the pitch long, but he made his presence felt throughout those 10 minutes and gave Orlando City a strong finish to a solid second half.

D, RJ Allen (87’), N/A — It would be unfair to grade RJ Allen as he barely saw the pitch. He made a tackle and an interception but he did not have enough time to truly make an impact on the game itself.


Vote for your Man of the Match or comment your thoughts on these game grades.

Polling Closed

PlayerVotes
Yoshi Yotún114
Joe Bendik111
Dom Dwyer10
Lamine Sané2
Cristian Higuita24
Other (comment below)0

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.

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride / Jeremy Reper

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!

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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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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?

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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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