Orlando City vs. New England Revolution: Player Grades and Man of the Match

Well that game was…interesting. The 3-3 scoreline covered up the fact that the Orlando City defense was at complete sixes and sevens for much of the game. On the other hand, when the ball wasn’t given away before reaching midfield, the team looked capable of creating chances going forward. But if the defense isn’t sorted out soon it isn’t going to matter.

Starters

GK, Earl Edwards Jr., 4 — Not Earl’s best performance tonight. Though he was largely helpless on the Penilla goal he might have been able to do a bit better with the Revs’ third goal, and he certainly could have done better on the first goal the Lions conceded. He had a terrible first-half pass that went straight to Diego Fagundez and could have buried the Lions in too deep of a hole to dig out of. He did have three saves, but he’ll definitely wish he could have had the first one back.

D, PC, 4 — He was incredibly lucky to stay on the field after committing a professional foul as the last man back in the opening minutes of the game. He got forward in attack on multiple occasions but also lost runners in behind more than once and had some bad giveaways in the team’s defensive third. He was sacrificed for Stéfano Pinho when James O’Connor decided it was time to throw the proverbial kitchen sink at the Revs.

D, Amro Tarek, 4.5 — Quite the mixed bag for Tarek. On the one hand he had a goal-line clearance and was credited with Orlando’s second goal. On the other hand, the only reason he had to make that clearance was because he completely lost Scott Caldwell’s run in behind him. He too was guilty of multiple bad giveaways in the defensive third, and got taken to the cleaners on Teal Bunbury’s goal. Scoring the goal helps his score a little, but this was not a good performance by the Egyptian.

D, Shane O’Neill, 4 — It was a tough night for the entire defense and O’Neill’s fortunes were no different. Even though Scott Sutter’s pass put him in a horrible position he was dispossessed far too easily on Penilla’s goal, and poor positioning just a few minutes earlier led to a Diego Fagundez chance that meant Edwards needed to bail him out. He did make an important last-ditch tackle in the second half but he had a rough go of it.

D, Scott Sutter, 5 — Like Tarek, Sutter gets some bonus points for scoring his goal. But, the pass he played to O’Neill in the first half was the soccer equivalent of a quarterback lofting a ball up the middle for his wide receiver to get completely obliterated: absolute suicide. He didn’t make too many mistakes aside from that, and while he took his goal well it was clear that it’s been awhile since he last played.

M, Cristian Higuita, 5.5 — Deployed as one of two holding midfielders, Higuita worked hard as usual. He had more than one good pass and combined well in the attack several times. However, he was also guilty of more than one bad giveaway, including one in the first half that would have led to a scoring chance had the resulting pass not been overhit. He was one of the few players that played with good physical presence. He made way for Chris Mueller as O’Connor looked to add more energy to the attack.

M, Tony Rocha, 5 — His game started off very badly as he was completely out-muscled by Juan Agudelo on the opening goal, although it still shouldn’t have gone in. While he did have the assist on Dom Dwyer’s goal, like too many of his teammates he was guilty of several sloppy giveaways in his own half.

M, Mohamed El-Munir, 6 — El-Munir looks more and more like he should be a winger. Mostly freed up of defensive responsibilities he got forward in attack well, beating his man off the dribble on several occasions. His final pass was lacking, but all in all it was a pretty steady night for the Libyan.

M, Sacha Kljestan, 5.5 — It was a pretty quiet night for Sacha, who was wearing the captain’s armband. He made several smart passes, including one around the corner in the 32nd minute for Higuita that nearly put the Colombian through on goal. Unfortunately, he was forced off with an injury right before the end of the first half. Hopefully its nothing too serious.

M,  Yoshimar Yotún, 7.5 (MotM) — Orlando’s best player on the pitch by several country miles, Yoshi bagged assists on all three Orlando goals, although one may be removed if Tarek’s is changed to an own goal. He had a hockey assist on Dom’s goal, and ran the show going forward. He had a team high 90 touches, and his set piece delivery was lethal. Unfortunately, he was baited into a frankly stupid red card, which means the team will be without his top quality services in the next match.

F, Dom Dwyer, 6.5 — It was a bit of an odd night for Dom. He didn’t see much of the ball at all, his 21 touches were the third fewest out of all the Lions. But, he took four shots and put three of them on target, while another was blocked. Plus, he scored Orlando’s opening goal. Like PC, he can probably count himself lucky not to have been sent off for an extremely rash tackle late in stoppage time.

Subs

Josué Colmán (44’), 5.5 — Coming on for the injured Kljestan, Colmán often looked dangerous with the ball at his feet, much as he has all season. The problem was that he didn’t know when to get the ball out of his feet, and multiple times he held onto it too long and was dispossessed in promising positions. It was not a bad half from him, but it could have been better if he had passed in some situations where he chose to dribble.

Stefano Pinho (60’), 4.5 — Coming on for PC in the 60th minute, Pinho found it very hard to get involved in the game, only managing seven touches. He did get a shot off and make a tackle, but it was not enough considering he had 30 minutes to work with.

Chris Mueller (70’), 5 — Given 20 minutes to work with when he subbed on for Higuita, Mueller also did not have the kind of impact on the score sheet he was probably hoping for. As usual though he gets some bonus points for running his butt off for every second he was on the field, and did manage to inject some energy into a faltering Orlando midfield.

As you can see, I was far from thrilled about the team’s performance defensively. A point is a point but I feel like I typed the word “giveaway” so many times it was beginning to make my head hurt. Agree with my assessment? Disagree? Let me know in the poll and the comments.

Polling Closed