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Orlando City vs. Colorado Rapids: Player Grades and Man of the Match

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7 years ago

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Orlando City finally snagged that elusive first home win of 2019 in last night’s 4-3 win over the Colorado Rapids. I’ve never gone whitewater rafting, but they say it’s a fun, wild ride. That’s a pretty good description of last night’s game as well. Ideally the Lions won’t be conceding quite so many goals typically, but since the final score went the right direction, I’m willing to overlook that.

When speaking to reporters after the match, Nani mentioned the team had been pressing and feeling a bit of pressure to deliver a win to the home fans. He said that now that the team has crossed that bit of business off the list, maybe they can play more relaxed and deliver more results. Let’s hope that’s the case, because winning at home >>>> losing or drawing at home.

But enough preamble. Let’s get to the individual player grades from last night’s game.

Starters

GK, Brian Rowe, 6 — While I wouldn’t say any of the three goals were on bad goalkeeping errors per se, Rowe would probably say he should maybe have done better on the first goal. If he couldn’t beat Kei Kamara to the spilled ball in the box on the first goal, he might have at least come off his line and made himself big to pressure the Rapids striker. He went long quite often but his passing percentage should ideally still be better than the 23.8% he produced last night. He also stayed a bit deep in his area a few times when he could possibly have snuffed out some danger before it became a problem. Still, he had a vital punch that could have led to a counter-attack if not for a Colorado foul and he made a couple of nice saves, considering the weather conditions and the wet ball, including a free header thumped low by Kamara in the second half.

D, Robin Jansson, 5.5 — The Swede had a difficult night against Colorado at times. The first goal hit off his head and fell in behind him but I’m sure he was screened by the leaping Lamine Sané on the play. He fell for a fake by Cole Bassett on the third Colorado goal and allowed the midfielder to cut back inside where he had a much better angle. His passing accuracy wasn’t great (74.2%) but he did lump some long balls forward, which contributed to that. His four clearances led the team and he added two interceptions. It wasn’t a terrible performance but he was as much affected by the rotation to a four-man back line as anyone.

D, Lamine Sané, 6 — If Sané had been one inch taller (or able to leap one inch higher), Kamara wouldn’t have opened the scoring nine minutes in. The French-Senegalese center back still had a decent game overall, with a tackle, three interceptions, and three clearances. His 77.5% passing rate led the back line, including the wingbacks. Even his 4/9 accuracy on long balls outshone his fellow defenders. Still, he got pulled out of shape a few times in the game, but he wasn’t alone in that.

D, Carlos Ascues, 5 — It was a short night for the Peruvian, who left the game at half an hour with a hamstring injury after getting tangled up with a Colorado player while running down a loose ball. He touched the ball just 20 times and his passing rate was just 53.8%, which was worst on the team in the first half. He was OK defensively (one blocked shot, two clearances) and helpful in moving the ball, but it wasn’t the best outing of his time in Orlando, nor his worst, but the shape change after his injury hurt the defense.

WB, Joao Moutinho, 6.5 — A somewhat chaotic night in defense prevented this score from being higher, but I thought Joao played well overall. He certainly drifts too far inside on defense sometimes and occasionally gets caught up the pitch too far, but I think that’s because he’s used to playing wingback, which seems a more natural position for his skill set than fullback. Last night he was asked to play fullback after the Ascues injury and there were some shaky moments defending. However, he’s also a good ball winner, leading all players in tackles in the game (7). He contributed two interceptions, notched an assist on his one chance created, and generally helped facilitate the attack. But there were a few bad touches on switches in the first half that broke down attacks, a poor back pass that almost went horribly wrong, and some poor positioning to offset some of the good he did.

MF, Sacha Kljestan, 6.5 — The mustachio’d one doesn’t do a lot of flashy things on the pitch and he may frustrate some fans, but I’ll bet James O’Connor is happy to have him. Kljestan finished second on the team in touches, with his 79 being just one fewer than Ruan’s 80. The ball finds him often and that’s because he puts himself in the right spots and because his teammates rely on him to connect the lines. He attempted one shot (which was blocked) and created two chances on the offensive end. His gorgeous chip pass over the top to spring Ruan started the sequence that led to the penalty on Axel Sjoberg — and ultimately to Nani’s game-winning penalty kick. He hit a pretty decent 80% of his passes and chipped in a tackle and an interception on defense.

MF, Nani, 8.5 (MotM) — With two goals and a hockey assist, it was a big night for Nani and it pushed him over the top for my Man of the Match. The Portuguese star man finally opened his Orlando City account with a nice header in front of goal. It wasn’t the most difficult goal he’s scored in his career, but he made no mistake on the opportunity. He played a great ball to Dwyer in the 43rd but Dom’s shot was blocked. He was calm and collected on his penalty, sending Tim Howard the wrong way. He lulled the defense to sleep at one point and then fizzed a cross through the six but nobody made a run to get onto it, so maybe he also mesmerized his teammates. His 87.5% passing rate was among the best on the team, he created two chances, and he got two of his three shots on goal (scoring on both). He also often tracked back and helped defensively.

MF, Sebas Mendez, 6 — While Mendez’s 94.4% passing accuracy stands out, he also had a couple of bad giveaways in the game. He was dispossessed twice and had two bad touches and seemed a bit late closing down a few times. He finished with two tackles and seemed to have trouble getting on the ball at times. It’s easy to forget how young he is and although he and Moutinho may be inconsistent at times, they’ve got a ton of upside and that showed through for the most part last night.

WB, Ruan, 8 — The highway patrol would like you to know that speed kills and watching Ruan play shows that’s absolutely the case on the soccer pitch. The Brazilian gave Dillon Serna fits throughout the first half, got to the end line repeatedly, and sent several dangerous passes into the area. He figured heavily in three of Orlando’s four goals. On the first, he fizzed a cross through Tesho Akindele’s legs that should have been tapped home, but the ball found Moutinho on the other side and he crossed in for Nani. Ruan roasted the Rapids on a counter attack off a Rapids corner kick to help set up Akindele’s goal. Finally, his cross late in the game led to the handball that Nani converted. He literally played Serna off the pitch by halftime, drew a yellow card on Kamara, and led the team in touches. He needs to improve his passing accuracy (67.5%) and defending, but his pace changes the game and Orlando wouldn’t have won last night without him. Defensively, he had four tackles, two interceptions, and a clearance.

F, Tesho Akindele, 8 — There were a couple of spells where the Canadian seemed to disappear from the proceedings last night but overall he was very good in his return from a hamstring issue. He scored the second goal and assisted on the third, but he was also important on aerial balls, winning a team high six of them. He passed at an 83% clip, which is a high rate for a striker. He created four chances, took three shots (one on frame), and even defended well, making three tackles and an interception. His only true misstep was getting himself nutmegged two yards out by Ruan’s cross on the buildup to the first goal, but at least Moutinho and Nani bailed him out for that miss.

F, Dom Dwyer, 6.5 — Dwyer was active all night but somehow didn’t figure in any of the scoring. He fired seven shots to lead all players and got four of them on frame, forcing two pretty good saves from Tim Howard. But he also knocked a header right at Howard from only a few yards out and completely missed the gaping empty net on the play that ended up as the handball on Sjoberg, so it’s a good thing that was spotted by Jair Marrufo to avoid him the embarrassment of the miss. He had one clearance on the defensive end, hit 70% of his pass attempts, and drew two free kicks.

Substitutes

MF, Oriol Rosell (30’), 6 — Uri came on for Carlos Ascues and O’Connor changed the shape to go four at the back. Rosell had a mixed night. He tied for second on the team in tackles and passed well (85.7%) but he also gambled and lost on a midfield ball that led to Colorado’s second goal and he was left to try to defend Kamara on an aerial attempt at the back somehow as the defense got pulled out of shape and, well, he didn’t do a great job of it. At least Rowe made the save. Mostly Uri had a decent night but there was room for improvement.

F, Chris Mueller (80’), 8.5 — It’s not easy to get a really high grade for essentially 10 minutes of work, but Cash did it. He scored his second goal of the year just a minute after getting on the pitch, and he darted and dashed around with the ball in the offensive end, bending the Colorado defense out of shape. He had 12 touches and eight passes (87.5% accuracy) in his short time on the pitch and he terrorized the Rapids in that time. He created one scoring chance, got his one shot on target, and beat one of the legendary American goalkeepers for a huge game-changing goal.

WB, Kyle Smith (90’+2), N/A — Smith came on for Nani in stoppage time as more of a time-wasting substitution than anything. He didn’t even touch the ball in about two minutes on the pitch so there’s really no way to give him a grade for the appearance.

That’s how I saw the performances on a rainy Saturday night in Orlando against the Rapids. Let me know where you agree and/or disagree in the comments below and be sure to vote for your Orlando City Man of the Match in the poll below.

Polling Closed

PlayerVotes
Ruan26
Nani102
Chris Mueller53
Joao Moutinho7
Tesho Akindele0
Other2

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Orlando City

Flashback Friday: June 3, 2023 vs. New York Red Bulls

Let’s rewind to an eventful match on the road up in New Jersey that took place just over three years ago.

Published

2 days ago

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June 5, 2026

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

With Orlando City on break for the foreseeable future, it falls to me to keep bringing you fond memories from OCSC games of years gone by. We won’t be going quite as deep into the vault as we did last week, when we rewound to nine years ago and relived a wet and weird win over D.C. United. Today, we’ll go a little over three years into the past to June 3, 2023, when the Lions hit the road to take on the New York Red Bulls.

As Orlando prepared to face the Red Bulls after opening the season against them at home, things were going pretty well for the Lions. They were riding a four-game unbeaten streak that included some solid results on the road and sought to continue that trend up in Harrison, NJ.

To do that, then-coach Oscar Pareja sent out the team in his traditional 4-2-3-1. Pedro Gallese was in net, while Kyle Smith, Antonio Carlos, Robin Jansson, and Rafael Santos manned the back line. Cesar Araujo and Wilder Cartagena sat in deep midfield as the double pivots, Ivan Angulo, Mauricio Pereyra, and Facundo Torres were the attacking midfielders, and Ercan Kara was deployed as the tip of the proverbial spear.

By and large, the first half wasn’t the most engaging 45 minutes of soccer that Orlando City has ever graced us with. The first 15 minutes saw a lot of fouls and fairly sloppy play, with the game lacking any real rhythm but featuring plenty of stops, starts, and turnovers. That all changed in the 18th minute when Orlando broke the deadlock through an unlikely source. The Lions managed to break New York’s press, and Cartagena took advantage of an out-of-position John Tolkin to play Angulo behind the defense with a great ball. The Colombian carried the ball into the box, cut onto his left foot to avoid the sliding challenge of Dylan Nealis, and beat goalkeeper Carlos Coronel to score his third goal of the season.

The Red Bulls had a great opportunity to tie the game in the 30th minute after a bad Pereyra giveaway at midfield, but Luquinhas hit a tame shot at Gallese and failed to capitalize. Smith of all people had a crack at goal from inside the box just a few minutes before halftime, but he sent his effort wide of the post when he really should have hit the target. Tom Barlow then wasted another chance to put the game at 1-1 going into halftime but contrived to fire over the bar from the top of the area when all he had to do was hit the empty net.

That proved to be the last action of the half, and it was surprising to see Orlando in the lead based on the stats. Orlando held slightly more possession (52.1%-47.9%) and passed marginally better (76.1%-74.9%) but those were the only categories in which it led. The Lions were outshot (7-2), had fewer shots on goal (2-1), and took no corner kicks while the Red Bulls had one.

Fortunately, the Lions got a break just a couple minutes into the second half. Kara ran onto a ball over the top and New York center back Andres Reyes pulled him back, picked up a deserved second yellow card, and hit the showers early in the 47th minute.

New York cleared the danger from the ensuing free kick, but referee Victor Rivas was advised to go to the monitor and check for a foul during the play. Further examination revealed that Sean Nealis took Jansson down from behind as the ball was in the air, and he rightfully pointed to the spot. Enter Torres, who stepped up and beat Coronel (who guessed the right way), to double Orlando’s advantage despite the Paraguayan trying to get in his head beforehand.

The good vibes were dented slightly when Araujo went down injured in the 57th minute, with Felipe coming on in his place. The Red Bulls kept up their traditional high pressing despite being down a man, and with the Lions continuing to be sloppy in possession, it was hard to blame them. The teams traded chances right after Araujo made his exit, and some close calls for New York spurred Pareja into further changes, with Duncan McGuire and Martin Ojeda entering the fray for Kara and Pereyra in the 62nd minute.

Angulo squeezed off a shot from an acute angle three minutes later and Coronel saved it well, with the game entering a bit of a lull after he did so as the teams traded fouls and McGuire was caught offside.

Things sprang back into life in the 72nd minute. Ojeda cleared his lines and managed to find Angulo in the process, who absolutely torched Frankie Amaya down the left wing. The Colombian carried the ball into the box, drew Tolkin to him, and crossed perfectly for the unmarked Torres, who fired low and hard past Coronel with conviction to put the game away for good.

Despite being down 3-0, the Red Bulls kept up the fight and Jansson was forced into a good block just four minutes after Facu bagged his brace. The Lions spurned a few more half chances as the game wound down, and there was a scary moment in the 82nd minute when Dylan Nealis fell into Gallese’s leg, but the goalkeeper was able to soldier on after getting some treatment, although he looked a little shaky.

That more or less did it for the notable moments of action, as Orlando saw out a healthy eight minutes of stoppage time to make it five games unbeaten. The Lions finished with more possession (51.2%-48.8%) and more shots on target (5-2), but New York was crisper with its passing (79.2%-78%), took more shots (14-7), and won more corners (8-2).

David Rohe was on hand for our Player Grades column in this one, and Angulo took Man of the Match honors with an 8 out of 10 for his one-goal, one-assist performance that also included three completed dribbles, two tackles, and an interception. Torres unsurprisingly also graded out high with a 7.5 out of 10, as did Cartagena, who received the same grade.

The Lions went on to grab one more victory before the undefeated streak ended at six up in Foxborough against the New England Revolution. Fortunately, they started picking up points again immediately afterward and had a largely strong summer and back half of the year that saw them finish second in both the Eastern Conference and Supporters’ Shield race. Hopefully, this year’s side can take some cues from the 2023 squad and start stacking points with more regularity once the season resumes in July. Vamos Orlando!

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 6/5/26

Maxime Crepeau named Canada’s starter, analyzing Germany before USMNT friendly, USWNT prepares for Brazil, and more.

Published

2 days ago

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June 5, 2026

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Image of Maxime Crepeau making a save against the New York Red Bulls.
Dan MacDonald, The Mane Land

Happy Friday, Mane Landers! It’s been a pretty hectic week for me, but I’m looking forward to a weekend filled with soccer and celebrating with some friends. It should be a nice next couple of days before the World Cup is here in full force next week. Before we dive into today’s links, let’s all wish a happy birthday to Orlando City B midfielder Dylan Judelson!

Canada Chooses Maxime Crepeau as Starting Goalkeeper

Orlando City goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau was named as the starter for Canada for the upcoming World Cup. The 32-year-old has been in a tight battle with Dayne St. Clair for the starting job for quite some time and he’s done well enough for Jesse Marsch to choose him for the role. This will be Crepeau’s first World Cup since he wasn’t able to take part in the 2022 competition due to a broken leg. Canada will play Ireland today in a friendly before hosting Bosnia and Herzegovina in the World Cup on June 12.

Analyzing Germany Ahead of USMNT Clash

The United States Men’s National Team will take on Germany on Saturday in Chicago in its final friendly before the World Cup starts next week. This will be the 13th match between the two nations, with the most recent one being a 3-1 loss by the U.S. in October of 2023. Manuel Neuer is Germany’s starting goalkeeper, but he’s dealing with an injury and backup Oliver Baumann could play on Saturday in his place. Hopefully the U.S. can make his life difficult, but Germany has tough defenders in Jonathan Tah and Nico Schlotterbeck. Florian Wirtz, Kai Havertz, and Leroy Sane are dangerous attacking threats, while Nick Woltemade brings both height and solid ball movement at the top of the formation. It should be a great test for the USMNT before the games get serious.

USWNT Prepares for Brazil

The United States Women’s National Team is in action on Saturday as well, with the team set to play Brazil in Sao Paulo in the first of two friendlies. Plenty of attention will be on the reunited attacking trio of Sophia Wilson, Trinity Rodman, and Mallory Swanson that combined for 10 goals and five assists in the 2024 Summer Olympics. As for Brazil, the Orlando Pride are well represented, with Marta, Angelina, and Rafaelle all called up for these friendlies. There’s plenty of competing talent on Brazil’s roster, so it will be interesting to see who starts on Saturday. I’m most interested to see how the U.S. defense manages against Brazilian attackers like Ludmila, Dudinha, and Kerolin without having Naomi Girma on the back line.

Liverpool Hires Andoni Iraola as Next Manager

Liverpool didn’t waste much time finding a new manager after firing Arne Slot last week, hiring Andoni Iraola as his replacement. Iraola joins Liverpool after three years with Bournemouth that included securing Europa League qualification for the first time in club history this past season. He now joins a Liverpool team that qualified for the Champions League, but lost 12 league games after winning the league title in 2025. It will be interesting to see how Iraola does at one of England’s biggest clubs, particularly in regards to how his high-octane approach is applied.

Free Kicks

  • While the Pride haven’t provided an injury update on Barbra Banda according to reporter Jeff Kassouf, she did reportedly travel for Zambia’s friendlies against Kenya and Burkina Faso as the team prepares for next month’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

I checked in with the Orlando Pride: no official update on Barbra Banda after sustaining an injury over the weekend in #NWSL play. A spokesperson confirmed that Banda did travel to join Zambia for international duty. Hopefully more answers soon. No NWSL games until July 3.

— Jeff Kassouf (@jeffkassouf.bsky.social) 2026-06-04T19:11:37.433Z

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a fantastical Friday and rest of your weekend!

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Orlando City

According to Math, Orlando Among Top Soccering Cities in North America In 2026

A ranking of every North American city by its soccer performances thus far in 2026.

Published

3 days ago

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June 4, 2026

By

An aerial image of Inter&Co Stadium
Image courtesy of Orlando City SC

The opening match of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup kicks off one week from today, when Mexico hosts South Africa at Estadio Azteca Mexico City Stadium (thanks FIFA, for your silly stadium-naming policy). Like most soccer fans, I am excited for wall-to-wall games starting next week, but I will definitely also be missing the men and women in purple as Orlando City and the Orlando Pride will not play again until early July (Pride) and late July (Orlando City).

MLS NEXT Pro channeled its inner Red Hot Chili Peppers and said they “can’t stop, they’re addicted to the shindig” and will continue to play a normal weekly schedule throughout the World Cup, so thankfully we will still have the Young Lions to root for during this break. But aside from that, it will be all international soccer for the upcoming weeks, and primarily in North America.

With that in mind, I took a deeper look at the beautiful game on our beautiful continent and evaluated which cities in North America are having the best soccer-related 2026 so far. There are no actual rankings for this, so I created my own, using the following components:

  • I awarded a half point to the city of every team in Liga MX, Liga MX Femenil, Major League Soccer (MLS), NWSL, and the Northern Super League (Canada’s top domestic women’s league). This covers the highest levels of club competition on the continent. I did not include the Canadian Premier League (men’s, ranked 159th among men’s leagues by Opta) or the Gainbridge Super League (women’s, ranked 35th among women’s leagues), because even though those are considered leagues at the highest level of competition in their countries, they do not compare to the five leagues I included. Also, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver all have teams in MLS.
  • I awarded a full point to every city that is hosting World Cup games. This is a little sticky because some stadiums and/or teams represent metropolitan areas as opposed to the actual zip/area code location for the team or stadium, but I did some rounding. I had to put my mathematics degree to good use.
  • I averaged the points earned per match per team in that city, and awarded that total number of points to the city. Orlando, for example, received 1.18 points in this category, as Orlando City is averaging 0.93 (this was disappointing to type) and the Pride are averaging 1.42.
  • I awarded a point to the city of each quarterfinalist in the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup and U.S. Open Cup, and a subsequent point for each win by those teams.
  • I awarded a point to the city of each semifinalist in the 2026 Concacaf W Champions Cup (this tournament went straight to the semifinals after the group stage), and a subsequent point for each win by those teams, excluding the third-place game.

After I awarded all those points, I rested for a minute, and then I summed up all the points for each city to see which cities are having the best 2026 so far (there are 47 North American cities/metro areas with at least one team in the leagues I included).

As this is an Orlando-focused publication, let’s take a look at the City Beautiful and how we fared. There are two professional teams in Orlando that count, so a half point for Orlando City plus a half point for the Pride accounted for one total point. With how well OCB has been playing (fourth in the Eastern Conference and winners of three of its last four games), I wish I could have included MLS NEXT Pro teams in the points system, but including that league did not make sense.

OCB would have helped with the average points metric as well, as it is averaging 1.83 points per match, the best in Orlando. Restricting it down to Orlando City and the Pride, however, added the 1.18 points that I referenced in the bullets earlier.

The Lions are in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals, which earned them one point for being a quarterfinalist and another point for winning that quarterfinal match, so they picked up two points from the U.S. Open Cup.

Orlando was not selected to be a host city for any World Cup games, Orlando City did not qualify for this year’s Concacaf Champions Cup, and the Pride nearly qualified for the semifinals of the Concacaf W Champions Cup but fell just short (ugh, because they really should have advanced), so Orlando did not pick up any points from any of those three categories.

With the points that Orlando accumulated it has tallied a total of 4.18 points so far in 2026. Let’s take a look at where 4.18 puts Orlando in the city rankings:

Chart showing all North American cities in the study and its score, organized alphabetically.

The cities in the chart above are sorted alphabetically, for ease of finding any cities you are interested in picking out, but the chart below shows the same data but sorted from most to fewest points earned:

Chart showing all North American cities in the study and its score, organized by score, showing Orlando in 13th.

In looking at this chart, you will find Orlando just outside the top 10, sitting in the lucky number 13 spot. Unsurprisingly, most of the teams at the top are among the largest cities on the continent and were also selected to be World Cup host cities. Among cities not selected as host cities, and therefore cities that did not receive a one-point bump in my rubric, Orlando ranked fifth, trailing Toluca (Mexico), Nashville, Washington D.C., and Denver.

If the Pride had played a little better in the Concacaf W Champions Cup, and had Barbra Banda not gotten injured and missed the entire group stage last summer, Orlando likely would have qualified for at least the semifinals in that cup and finished in the top six, or perhaps even higher, of these rankings.

It should come as no surprise to soccer fans that Mexican cities dominate the top of this ranking system, as Mexico City boasts a continent-high six teams (men’s and women’s heavyweights Club América, Cruz Azul, and Pumas), Monterrey houses four (men’s and women’s for Tigres and Monterrey), and Toluca, which only has men’s and women’s teams called Toluca but is the reigning Concacaf men’s champion after defeating Tigres on May 30.

With Miami to the south and Atlanta to the north, it was always unlikely that Orlando was going to be selected as a host city, but based on performance alone, our city is among the top soccer cities on the continent this year. And this is even with Orlando City having a down year during league play in 2026 and the Pride only recently putting together some decent results.

Last year, through 15 games Orlando City was nearly one full point better, averaging 1.80 points per game compared to this year’s 0.93, and the 2025 Pride were two-thirds of a point better than this year’s team through their first 12 games, averaging 2.08 points per game last year compared to 1.42 in 2026.

That was then and this is now, and neither season ended the way Orlando City or the Pride wanted in 2025, so hopefully the slower starts portend something better for this year’s teams. There is still a U.S. Open Cup, Leagues Cup, and MLS playoff spot for Orlando City to play for when its season resumes, and the Pride can solidify, or preferably, improve their playoff spot as well.

As we get closer to the end of 2026 I will update this chart to see where Orlando finishes in the full-year rankings, but for now we once again have unimpeachable evidence that shows that Orlando is the soccer capital of the southeast. We have all known this for years and years, but it is important to remind the people of Atlanta and Miami about it from time to time.

This was that time.

Vamos Orlando!

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