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Orlando City vs. LA Galaxy: Final Score 4-3 as Lions Can’t Handle Zlatan

Orlando City blew three separate leads and Zlatan Ibrahimović’s hat trick brought the Galaxy from behind.

Published

6 years ago

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Nick Leyva, The Mane Land

Orlando City just did not have the firepower to outscore the LA Galaxy. In a game that saw a total of 42 shots, with 15 of those shots hitting the target, the Galaxy powered from behind past the Lions, 4-3 at the StubHub Center. Orlando led three times, including a 2-1 advantage at halftime, but could not keep Zlatan Ibrahimović at bay.

The loss was the eighth in a row away from home for the Lions (7-14-1, 22 points) and a tough pill to swallow despite playing so well offensively. Ibrahimović scored his first MLS hat trick and added an assist for the hosts while Cristian Higuita and Dom Dwyer saw themselves on the score sheet for the Lions.

James O’Connor sent out this group of lads in the losing effort.

Giovani Dos Santos nearly scored in the second minute on a beautiful pass from Ibrahimović, but Mohamed El-Munir deflected his shot away from goal. The Galaxy (10-7-5, 35 points) dominated possession in the opening minutes, pressing the Orlando defense.

Earl Edwards Jr. made his first save in the eighth minute against Ibrahimović. Yoshimar Yotún fed El-Munir a great through ball in the ninth minute as that forced David Bingham to make a beautiful save. Kljestan took an unmarked header on the ensuing corner but couldn’t punish LA for its poor defense in the box just moments later.

Ola Kamara snuck behind the Orlando defense in the 13th minute but sent his shot well wide of the right post as the Lions dodged another bullet early on.

Kljestan again set up an attacking chance in the 15th minute with Yotún sending a powerful shot well over the crossbar from distance. Kljestan, along with the rest of the midfield, began to dictate the tempo of the match and limit the Galaxy’s chances.

Orlando took the lead in the 19th minute as Kljestan held the ball in front of the Galaxy defense and sent Higuita into the box to put Orlando up 1-0. The goal was Higuita’s fourth goal of the season and his sixth over his MLS career.

Ibrahimović tried to answer just two minutes later but Edwards Jr. made a solid play and got some help from Chris Schuler to shut down the attack.

The Lions continuously stole possession from the Galaxy in the midfield and final third throughout the first 25 minutes, as the opposition rarely saw good chances after the early pressure. PC got a nice ball from Yotún on the wing and sent El-Munir into a nice position but his shot was deflected to force a corner in the 30th minute. Dwyer nearly got open following the corner but the Galaxy defense managed to escape the danger.

Kamara decided to not go to goal as he sent a ball out of play just out of the reach of Ibrahimović to force a goal kick in the 31st minute. The Swedish striker even pointed to Kamara on where exactly he wanted the ball. Kamara followed up with a solid header near the far post on a corner but it flew just outside to force a goal kick.

Again Yotún and El-Munir connected on the wing in the 36th minute as the Libyan international sent his shot wide with Dwyer in the box. El-Munir again worked the wing well against David Romney and put another shot on goal that was easily saved by Bingham.

LA brought the game level as Ibrahimović outplayed Schuler in the box to head the ball to dos Santos, who worked his way past the Orlando defense and fired his shot into the bottom corner past Edwards. The play all started on a beautiful service to Ibrahimović and Tony Rocha’s poor defense led to dos Santos creating the space he needed to level the match in the 39th minute at a goal apiece.

Edwards Jr. made a beautiful one-handed save on Kamara’s shot in the 43rd minute to keep the game level.

Orlando regained the lead on a beautiful counter-attack as Kljestan worked himself into the box again. His pass for Yotún forced Michael Ciani into an own goal against the hosts.

The Lions took their 2-1 lead into the break. Orlando held the advantage in shots, 9-7 (but LA got more on target, 3-2), and possession (53%) over the Galaxy through 45 minutes. El-Munir took four shots, while Kljestan picked up and assist and forced the own goal.

As the second half began, Orlando immediately put the pressure back on the LA Galaxy defense as Yotún tried to find the corner on another shot outside of the box but just missed. It was a costly miss, as LA responded immediately, with Ibrahimović scoring his 13th goal of the season in the 47th minute on a cross from dos Santos. Edwards Jr. decided to not come off of his spot and it cost him, as the big striker was marked by much smaller defenders on the far post.

The Galaxy nearly took the lead in the 49th minute as Chris Pontius saw dos Santos on a trailing run. The Mexican international blasted his shot off the crossbar as the Galaxy created chance after chance to start the second half.

Bingham was forced to make a save against Dwyer on a counterattack as Orlando looked for an answer to its slow start in the second half. LA answered with a counterattack of its own as Rocha had to force a corner that was shut down by the Lions’ defense.

Kljestan fired a shot from distance right at Bingham when no one closed him down in the 54th minute. Moments later, El-Munir sent in a beautiful cross after a great individual effort and found Dwyer, who made a difficult header look easy as Orlando regained the lead in the 54th minute, 3-2. It was Dwyer’s 70th career MLS goal.

Amro Tarek‘s poor clearance led to a Galaxy chance, but Jonathan Dos Santos sent his shot well over the crossbar. Orlando was visibly starting to tire and had trouble keeping the ball at this point in the game.

Higuita’s poor tackle gave the Galaxy a free kick in dangerous territory just outside of the penalty area in the 64th minute. Ibrahimović blasted his shot into the stands. He nearly scored moments later but Edwards made the save.

Orlando was caught sleeping on defense as Kamara and Ibrahimović found themselves in a two-on-two situation against the Lions’ center backs. Ibrahimović easily won a header from Tarek, then beat the center back into the area and scored a header on the service from Kamara to pick up his second goal of the match and level things at 3-3 in the 67th minute.

Tarek made another vital mistake as his attempted clearance went directly to an unmarked Ibrahimović and Edwards had no chance on the blast. PC was out of position, which allowed Ibrahimović to be so open in the penalty area. He completed his hat trick in the 71st minute and gave LA a 4-3 lead with less than 20 minutes to play.

The defense began to seem lost for Orlando as Ibrahimović forced Edwards into another good save. The Swedish striker stole the ball from Schuler and almost scored again but Tarek finally cleared the ball out of the defensive third.

El-Munir, who caused problems on the wing was subbed off for Stéfano Pinho in the 80th minute as the Lions looked for some offense to find an equalizer. Following the substitution, LA continued to press the tired and confused Orlando defense, but again the Lions managed to keep the game in reach with 10 minutes to play.

Pinho found himself in a wonderful spot in the 88th minute but sent his free header over the bar. Bingham then made an easy save on Josué Colmán in the 89th minute as the LA defense gave him way too much space.

In the 93rd minute, Kljestan sent a cross to the far post but Colmán could do nothing with it as he couldn’t place the ball into a dangerous area.

After four minutes of stoppage time, the final whistle blew on Orlando’s 12th loss in 13 MLS matches. LA turned around the possession in the second half, finishing with 55%, and out-shot the Lions, 23-19 (10-5 on target). LA had a slight advantage in passing accuracy (86%-83%).

Orlando is back in action next Saturday against the New England Revolution at Orlando City Stadium.

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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.

Published

16 hours ago

on

November 21, 2024

By

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?

Published

18 hours ago

on

November 21, 2024

By

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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Lion Links: 11/21/24

Marta’s chance to shine in NWSL Championship, NWSL and MLS award winners announced, 2025 SheBelieves Cup details, and more.

Published

22 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

By

Image courtesy of Orlando Pride

How’s it going, Mane Landers? I’ve been spending most of this week plotting out some holiday shopping to make things a little less stressful for myself over the next few weeks. A big weekend filled with Orlando soccer awaits us, so make sure to get any errands or obligations out of the way sooner rather than later. Let’s dive into today’s links!

Spotlight Falls On Marta in NWSL Championship

There are plenty of storylines heading into Saturday’s NWSL Championship between the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit, including Marta’s opportunity to put an exclamation point on what has been an excellent season for the Pride. Orlando has been enjoying the fruits of its labor this season after a rebuild over the past few years that’s included plenty of change in the City Beautiful. Marta has been a constant, however, enduring some difficult seasons since joining the Pride and adapting her game She’s scored in both of the Pride’s playoff games so far and has a chance to author a storybook ending on Saturday.

Ann-Katrin Berger Named NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year

NJ/NY Gotham FC goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger was named 2024 NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year, beating out the Pride’s Anna Moorhouse and Utah Royals FC’s Mandy Haught for the honor. It was Berger’s first year in the NWSL and she’s the first European player to win the award. She only conceded 16 goals across her 22 matches for Gotham this season and was a key reason behind her team’s success. I’m not too surprised that Moorhouse did not win, considering how solid the Pride’s defense was as a whole, but this won’t take anything away from a record-breaking season for her.

Wilfried Nancy Named MLS Coach of the Year

Columbus Crew Head Coach Wilfried Nancy was voted 2024 MLS Coach of the Year after a historic season in which the Crew set club records in both points and goals. The Crew also won the Leagues Cup this summer and their 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup campaign included advancing past Tigres and Monterrey en route to the final. This is Nancy’s first time being named Coach of the Year and he has been a finalist for the award every year since 2021. The Frenchman received 40.02% of the vote, winning the award over Inter Miami’s Gerardo Martino and Colorado Rapids Head Coach Chris Armas.

2025 SheBelieves Cup Details Unveiled

The 10th annual SheBelieves Cup will take place next year and the tournament will return to its usual format where each of the four teams plays each other once. The United States Women’s National Team will host Japan, Colombia, and Australia in February in what should be an exciting tournament. The U.S. will take on Colombia on Feb. 20 in Houston before facing Australia in Arizona on Feb. 23 and finishing the tournament on Feb. 26 against Japan at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. These games will also be the first domestic games of 2025 for the USWNT as it prepares to qualify for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.

Eric Quill Named FC Dallas Head Coach

FC Dallas announced that Eric Quill will become the team’s next head coach. Quill joins Dallas after a great year with New Mexico United that included trips to the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals and USL Championship Western Conference semifinals. It’s also a reunion of sorts for Quill, as he previously coached North Texas SC and was named USL League One Coach of the Year with the club in 2019. Dallas missed out on the playoffs this season, with Peter Luccin coaching the team on an interim basis after the firing of Nico Estevez in June.

Free Kicks

  • District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser challenged Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer to a bet involving this weekend’s NWSL Championship, with embarrassing lightshows on the line.

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday and rest of your week!

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