Lion Links: 7/13/19

Happy weekend to all of you wonderful Mane Landers! We made it through an after-holiday week successfully. As a reward, we get to watch all three of the purple Orlando teams in action over these two days. We’ll start with a look at how the Lions are getting ready for a third match in seven days.

Orlando City to Host the Crew Tonight

After defeating Columbus Crew SC on the road back on June 29, Orlando City will now battle the Eastern Conference opponents again this evening at Exploria Stadium with a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff. The Mane Land’s own Ben_Miller again spoke to Pat Murphy, managing editor of the Crew blog Massive Report, for the pre-match Intelligence Report. Although new Lion Robinho, who was recently acquired from the Crew, trained with the squad yesterday, he will definitely not be in the 18 against his former team as part of the trade agreement.

Thankfully, the Lions will be without at least two other players due to injury: Cristian Higuita (hamstring) and Shane O’Neill (concussion). Center back Robin Jansson is questionable however because of the rib contusion he received in Wednesday night’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup showdown. Oh, and while I’m on the topic of the Open Cup, $10 tickets are back!

On Tuesday, $15 tickets for the general public will be available for purchase. If for some odd reason you need a reminder about why you should be there for the semifinals, check out this video of last Wednesday’s quarterfinal triumph.

Pride Travel Across the Country to Take on Portland

The women of the Orlando Pride will head to Providence Park on Sunday at 3 p.m. to face off with Portland Thorns FC for the third and final time this season. This will be the first National Women’s Soccer League match to be broadcast on an ESPN network since the sports conglomerate purchased the rights to show 14 games throughout the remainder of 2019. Former United States Women’s National Team players Aly Wagner and Angela Hucles will lead the ESPN coverage crew. Here’s a little Orlando vs. Portland throwback to get you in the mood.

International Mane Landers and Orlando Pride fans, the Pride Shop has a weekend deal for you. Also, make sure to RSVP for a chance to welcome Alex Morgan, Ashlyn Harris, and Ali Krieger back to the Pride at an event this upcoming Tuesday. On top of that, you can grab $9 tickets to the Pride’s July 20 World Cup Welcome Home match against Sky Blue FC.

Orlando City B Travels to Greenville

In a rematch of the June 28 2-0 home loss, the Young Lions of OCB are in Greenville to play Greenville Triumph SC tonight at 7 p.m. Both squads are coming off of draws, OCB’s a 1-1 result after facing Chattanooga Red Wolves SC on Wednesday and Greenville’s a scoreless away match at North Texas SC. For those of you who might prefer to catch this game instead of Orlando City’s, it will be streaming on ESPN+.

FIFA Wants to Talk About the Women’s World Cup

I’m personally not sure if this will ultimately end up being a positive thing or not, but FIFA will host the first-ever FIFA Football Conference on Sept. 22 in Milan. The idea is for the summit to provide “an analysis of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 from a technical, tactical, and physical point of view” along with “discussions on the main footballing trends in comparison to previous editions of the tournament.” The organization already released the refereeing statistics for this iteration of the World Cup.

Additionally, the latest FIFA Women’s World Rankings were published, and of course the dominant USWNT remained ranked at number one. Somehow, Germany is still second, with the Netherlands rounding out the top three. If you’d like to show the Orlando Pride’s own Alex Morgan some love, make sure to vote for her strike as the goal of this year’s tournament.

Free Kicks

• ProSoccerUSA has the Major League Soccer Week 19 preview.
• The LA Galaxy are the next MLS club to borrow (copy) from Orlando City and create a safe standing section.
• Luciano Emilio, a former MLS MVP, has been named an assistant coach for Loudoun United FC.
• USWNT member Allie Long’s Los Angeles hotel room was broken into while the team was being honored at Wednesday night’s ESPY’s. Long reported that someone took her wedding ring, cash, and the key to New York City that she received that morning.
• Barcelona finally confirmed the signing of Antoine Griezmann. However, Atletico Madrid, this year’s MLS All-Star opponent, isn’t so sure the deal is done yet.
• This is a mildly entertaining read about the game we love. Take it with the grain of salt it deserves.
• Starting with the upcoming season, the English Premier League will now have a two-week mid-season player break.
• The legendary Peter Crouch has retired from playing soccer. Best of luck to Crouch in his future endeavors!
• Manchester United unveiled its new away kits.
• Last but definitely not least, Chelsea FC captain Cesar Azpilicueta weighed in on Head Coach Frank Lampard’s “unifying impact.”

Stay in the cool air conditioning this afternoon before getting your butt down to the stadium to cheer for the Lions. Go City!