Lion Links: 6/27/19

Happy Thursday morning, Mane Landers! It has begun — Orlando City kicked off its toughest stretch of matches this season with a road game against Wayne Rooney’s D.C. United. The Lions will face a total of 10 matches, nine in Major League Soccer and one in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, in a mere 32 days. Elsewhere, the United States Men’s National Team was in Concacaf Gold Cup action last night and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup is gearing up for the quarterfinals.

“Confident” Lions Travel to the Nation’s Capital, Fall 1-0

“Everyone is confident because we’ve got a good amount of games that we’ve won. The energy is pretty high,” stated Orlando City rookie Benji Michel on Tuesday, prior to the team’s 1-0 loss last night versus D.C. United at Audi Field. With big-name forward Dom Dwyer not making the trip up the east coast, the Lions failed to find the net, getting only three of 19 shot attempts on target and wasting several good opportunities. Of course it was Wayne Rooney from his own half of the field who ruined Orlando’s chance to go four straight matches in all competitions without a loss.

• Sean Rollins has your match recap.
• I passed out player grades and selected Man of the Match
• The view from the other side comes from Black and Red United.

And check back later today for Dave Rohe’s five takeaways from the match.

USMNT Round Out Gold Cup Group Stage with a WIN/DEFEAT

Head Coach Gregg Berhalter continued “tinkering with lineups, tactics, personnel and even positions” — and the captaincy — on Wednesday evening, a strategy that saw the USMNT end the Gold Cup group stage with a 1-0 win over Panama. It wasn’t the prettiest game, with Berhalter making 11 changes to his starting lineup, but Jozy Altidore managed a nice goal to help the U.S. finish 3-0-0 in Group D. The Yanks will face Curacao Sunday night in Philadelphia as the quarterfinals begin.

Orlando Pride Internationals Start Trickling Back In

The Orlando Pride will return to Exploria Stadium Sunday night to host the Chicago Red Stars after getting four points, including the squad’s first victory of 2019, during a two-game road trip. While it will be awesome to watch the Pride hopefully get back-to-back victories, the team is hosting a Pride Night for the match and that’s pretty awesome all by itself.

Former The Mane Land contributor Austin David was out at Pride training yesterday and noticed a couple of familiar Brazilians had made their return.

A big welcome back to Marta and Camila! Great job leading Brazil in the Women’s World Cup!

USWNT Preps for Quarterfinals; World Cup Notes

The ever amazing Tobin Heath, USWNT forward, has no problem telling everyone exactly how she feels about European soccer.  

“I don’t know, as a football fan, to me, I would want to see a little bit more diversity at this point. I find European football sometimes a little boring,” said Heath.

Oh, and then the following happened during a press conference for Friday’s USWNT-France match.

Seriously, Tobin Heath is the best ya’ll. Did I mention she’s also my favorite U.S. soccer player of either gender since Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy retired? So I might be a bit biased.

• FIFA hosted a media briefing regarding “general refereeing matters from the first 44 matches” of the WWC. I had to legitimately laugh out loud when I heard about it. FIFA gonna FIFA, am I right?
• Standout English center back pair Steph Houghton and Millie Bright are both “major doubts” for the Lionesses quarterfinal match versus Norway today.
• Lastly, the Orlando Pride are hosting a watch party downtown at Lion’s Pride on Friday afternoon to cheer on the USWNT in the aforementioned battle with France.

Free Kicks

• Yes, even as a woman, I and my fellow females are here for the soccer.
• Bradley Wright-Phillips has returned to full training with the New York Red Bulls after being sidelined for almost two months with a groin injury.
• Respected ESPN journalist Bob Ley announced his retirement from the network.
• Sources are saying that Manchester United have agreed to terms with Crystal Palace in order to sign Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
• Since I always try to end Lion Links on Saturday mornings with information about my beloved Chelsea FC, I thought that I’d do the same on Thursday mornings with my Bundesliga love (and Orlando City partner club), VfL Wolfsburg. The Wolves have signed Austrian international Xaver Schlager from RB Salzburg to a contract through 2023.

That’s all from this very tired writer today. I guess I should get used to mid-week Orlando City games considering the squad’s upcoming schedule. Go City!