Orlando City
Orlando City vs. FC Dallas: Final Score 2-0 as Lions Get First Ever Victory Against Dallas
Tesho Akindele scored against his old team and Carlos Ascues opened his MLS account to lead Orlando to victory.
Tesho Akindele came back to haunt his old team and Carlos Ascues opened his MLS account as Orlando City (8-11-5, 29 points) got its first ever win (and goals) against FC Dallas (9-9-6, 33 points) in front of 22,479 at Exploria Stadium. The Lions played well defensively and got a timely goal in each half to finally beat the Texas side, moving to 1-3-1 in the all-time series.
With the three points, Orlando also has guaranteed it will finish with more points than the previous season, after putting up just 28 in 2018. It’s the first time in the club’s MLS history that it has amassed more points than the previous year.
“I thought that the mentality that the players showed was excellent,” Head Coach James O’Connor said after the match. “I think there were some outstanding individual performances.”
“It’s just a lot of mixed feelings,” Akindele said about scoring against his old teammates. “I played for that team for five years. I really love the club. I have a lot of respect from the ownership all the way down to the players, the academy. I was glad to be there. And I’m glad to be here. It was a mix of emotions. Hard to explain.”
Aside from not starting Nani, O’Connor’s match day squad for Dallas was a first-choice lineup.
Ruan was active in the attack almost from the jump. He drew an early free kick in the seventh minute, set up a shot by Dom Dwyer in the 10th minute, then set up the game’s first goal three minutes later.
The Brazilian cut inside from the right sideline and sent a perfect diagonal ball through the defense for Akindele to run onto. The former FC Dallas man slid his shot inside the back post past Jesse Gonzalez. The goal was Akindele’s eighth of the season, establishing a new career high for the Canadian. It was also the first goal Orlando has ever scored against FC Dallas after being shut out in all four previous meetings.
“I saw (Ruan) kind of cut inside and he was streaking through the middle,” Akindele said. “I checked and then went in behind and I didn’t really think he would see me, honestly, because it was pretty hard, but he saw me and played a great pass, I think with the outside of his foot. He just put it on a platter for me and I was finishing it.”
“I think for Ruan to come inside and play a fantastic weighted ball…but then you look at the quality of the finish from Tesho. It’s slotted right in the corner, outstanding finish,” O’Connor said. “It was a really good goal from our standpoint.”
Dallas started to get back into the game more after the goal, with Santiago Mosquera fizzing a ball through the area in the 16th minute and Edwin Gyasi firing a shot right at Rowe a minute later.
Akindele had a chance to put Dwyer in alone on goal in the 19th but put too much oomph on his pass. Orlando looked more content to counterattack and Dallas was forced to take some yellow cards to stop it. Reto Ziegler was booked for chopping down Ascues after being nutmegged by Dwyer.
Gyasi went off for Dallas after sustaining what appeared to be a groin injury and was replaced by Michael Barrios in the 30th minute. Dallas shifted from a 4-2-3-1 into a 4-3-3 and started seeing more of the ball.
Robin Jansson was forced into some good emergency defending in the 38th minute to concede a corner but prevent a scoring chance. Lamine Sané cleared the ensuing cross and Paxton Pomykal was booked for taking Dwyer down from behind on the counter.
The last good chance of the half came in the first minute of stoppage time when an Akindele cross took a deflection and Will Johnson sent it inches wide. The Canadian may have been distracted by Dwyer, who was tracking back for the ball and jumped over it to allow the shot.
Orlando took its 1-0 lead into the break with a 4-3 edge in shots (1-1 on goal). Dallas held 61% of the possession and the better passing accuracy (88%-83%).
Dominique Badji, who subbed on for Dallas at halftime for Brandon Servania, got the first shot of the second half, but he fired it over the Heineken sign in the south end and into the upper deck as a tribute to Orlando legend Carlos Rivas.
Dallas buzzed for the equalizer in the early part of the second half, with Mosquera serving as the danger man. He fired a free kick just wide in the 51st, then forced a Brian Rowe save in the 53rd after a corner kick that was set up when a Pomykal shot attempt deflected out off of Sané.
The visitors won a lot of corners after that, finishing with eight in the second half alone. But Orlando defended well all night. Despite seeing most of the possession, Dallas created few clear-cut opportunities as the Lions swarmed to the ball whenever it crossed into the defensive third.
Akindele nearly got a brace on a good play in the 70th. He sent the ball left to Ascues and the Peruvian returned it to him on the doorstep but Akindele’s shot hit Gonzalez in the chest and the score remained 1-0.
As the game moved into its final stages, there was a video review for a possible handball on Sané in the box. Lamine was tangled up with an opposing player and the ball did appear to glance off his hand but he was nudged by Badji as he jumped, spinning him a bit and no penalty was given.
Dallas started lumping more crosses and passes into the area in a final push to tie the game. The Lions threw their bodies in front of shots and did anything they could to shield Rowe’s goal.
“I think overall when you look at the commitment to defending, it was excellent,” O’Connor said.
Ascues put the game to bed in the 92nd minute. Second-half sub Nani centered the ball from the left, sending a ball to the top of the area to Ascues, who flicked on to Akindele — wearing the captain’s armband for the first time in his MLS career. Tesho laid off to second-half sub Sacha Kljestan, who found Ascues with a slick backheel pass. With Kljestan breaking into open space on his right, Ascues opted to shoot. Gonzalez got a piece of it but couldn’t prevent the Peruvian’s first MLS goal.
“It was a little layoff by Tesho. My first idea was to shoot, but I didn’t think I had a good angle,” said Kljestan. “So, I could see Carlos kind of in the blind spot of the defenders and I flicked it to him. And to be honest I expected him to pass it back to me for a tap-in. So, fortunately he finished it because if he hadn’t I’d have been very angry.”
With the assist, Kljestan moved into sole possession of eighth in the all-time MLS assist list. His 92nd career helper moved him past Cobi Jones, but the midfielder said he didn’t care about that so much as getting the three points.
From there it was a matter of seeing out the rest of the seven minutes of stoppage time, which Orlando was able to do.
Dallas led in most of the statistical categories, out-shooting the Lions, 10-9, although City had three on target to just two for the visitors. FC Dallas also led in possession, with 64.2%, corner kicks (10-2), and passing accuracy (86%-79%).
“We had better opportunities in the first half, apart from Tesho’s in the second,” O’Connor said. “But overall when you look at the way the game went and how difficult it was for Dallas to break us down, I think that was the thing we wanted to try to make sure — that we made it hard for them to attack — and then equally we needed to be on point when we attacked them. So it’s a pleasing performance for all the guys.”
The team can now turn its attention to the massive match coming up this week.
“We know (Tuesday is) probably the biggest game in our club’s short time, short history, so everyone’s excited,” Kljestan said. “I know it’s going to be a very big game.”
Orlando City’s next match is a gigantic one, as Atlanta United visits Exploria Stadium on Tuesday night in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals. The Lions’ next league match will be next Saturday night in Toronto.
Lion Links
Lion Links: 11/22/24
Emily Sams wins Defender of the Year, Orlando City’s turnaround, Barbra Banda nominated for African Woman Player of the Year, and more.
Happy Friday! Beyond working and catching some soccer here and there, I don’t have many plans for the weekend. I’m also hoping to find some time to trial some cranberry and brie bites I’m trying to perfect before Thanksgiving next week. For now though, let’s jump right into today’s links from around the soccer world!
Emily Sams Awarded NWSL Defender of the Year
The Orlando Pride’s Emily Sams was named 2024 NWSL Defender of the Year after a fantastic season. The Pride only conceded 20 goals in a record-breaking season, and Sams played in all 13 of the team’s shutouts. Sams was one of the most impactful players for the Pride this year and had 163 recoveries, 76 clearances, and 16 blocks. She’s the first Pride player to win the award and it’s great to see her receive some deserved recognition in her second year in Orlando.
Analyzing Orlando City’s Revitalization
It’s been a rollercoaster of a season for the Lions to say the least. There were serious concerns over whether or not the Lions would even make the playoffs back in June and now they find themselves as the highest remaining seed in the Eastern Conference this postseason. Facundo Torres’ excellent run of play is a major reason behind the club’s turnaround, but the buy-in from all of Orlando’s attackers has helped create a dynamic and unselfish offense. Although expectations are rising once more for the Lions, Executive Vice President of Soccer Operations and General Manager Luiz Muzzi spoke on how the team is focused on Sunday’s playoff match.
“There’s only one team that matters: Atlanta United,” Muzzi said. “The easiest way to lose a game is to look ahead. I’ll say we didn’t expect to be playing at home, but it’s welcomed. We’re focused on Atlanta, they’re playing great. They have a lot of confidence and momentum. It doesn’t matter they’re the No. 9 seed because they’re not playing like the No. 9 seed.”
Barbra Banda Up For African Woman Player of the Year
Orlando Pride forward Barbra Banda was one of 10 players nominated for this year’s African Woman Player of the Year award. The 24-year-old has done well for both club and country this year. She scored 13 goals in her first regular season with the Pride and has three goals so far in the playoffs. Banda also had a hat trick for Zambia in the Summer Olympics. She’s joined by fellow NWSL players Temwa Chawinga and Racheal Kundananji on the list of nominees. Bay FC striker Asisat Oshoala, who has won the award in five of the past six years, was not nominated for the first time in a decade. The nomination list will be trimmed to a three-player shortlist before the winner is announced on Dec. 16 in Morocco.
Croix Bethune Named NWSL Midfielder of the Year
Washington Spirit rookie Croix Bethune won NWSL Midfielder of the Year after recording 10 assists and five goals in 17 matches this season. A knee injury cut her season short in September, but she still tied Tobin Heath’s record for the most assists in a season. Bethune gave plenty of NWSL teams headaches this year and also won Rookie of the Year earlier this week. She’s the first player to ever receive NWSL Midfielder of the Year and she beat out the Pride’s Marta, the North Carolina Courage’s Ashley Sanchez, and Kansas City Current duo Lo’eau LaBonta and Vanessa DiBernardo.
Eastern Conference Clubs Making Moves
FC Cincinnati officially signed striker Kevin Denkey from Cercle Brugge on a deal that will last through 2028. The 23-year-old joins as a Designated Player on a reported $16.2 million transfer, which would be a league record. He won the Golden Boot in Belgium last year after scoring 27 goals and should give Cincinnati some considerable firepower next year.
Elsewhere in the league, CF Montreal declined the option on Josef Martinez’s contract, meaning the Venezuelan forward will be a free agent once again. The 31-year-old led Montreal with 11 goals this season and we’ll see where he winds up next. Charlotte FC did not trigger the purchase option on Pep Biel’s loan, opening up a Designated Player spot. Former Lion Junior Urso’s contract option was also declined by Charlotte. The Philadelphia Union signed defender Olivier Mbaizo to a contract extension that will keep him with the club through 2026, with options for 2027 and 2028 as well.
Free Kicks
- In preparation for the 2026 World Cup, FIFA named 26 new options across the country as “base camps” for participating teams to train and rest. Orlando was included, with OCSC’s training grounds at Osceola Heritage Park pitched alongside the Lake Nona Wave Hotel.
- ESPN‘s Jeff Kassouf dove into how the NWSL stacks up to the biggest sports leagues in the U.S. Saturday’s NWSL Championship between the Pride and Spirit should showcase just how entertaining the league is to plenty of viewers.
- Pep Guardiola will stick around as Manchester City’s manager for a couple more years after signing a two-year contract extension with the club. His contract was set to expire at the end of this season.
- Here’s a cool breakdown of the seven amateur teams that have qualified for the 2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup so far. None are from Florida, but there are some great logos to check out if you’re looking for a team to root for in the early rounds next year. Debutants Southern Indiana FC and the Virginia Dream are my personal favorites of the bunch.
- The draw for the 2025 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations will take place today. Zambia is in the second pot, meaning it will be put in a group of four that will include one of Nigeria, South Africa, or Morocco. The tournament itself will be in July of next year.
- Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and Manchester City all clinched a spot in the Women’s Champions League quarterfinals with two games still left to play.
That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend. Go Orlando!
Orlando City
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.
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:
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):
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:
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.
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!
Orlando City
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?
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!
Lion Links: 11/22/24
Orlando Pride Center Back Emily Sams Named 2024 NWSL Defender of the Year
How Orlando City’s Offense Stacks Up Against What Atlanta Does Defensively
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