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Orlando City vs. Seattle Sounders: Final Score 2-1 as Heavily Rotated Lions Fall on the Road

A completely different starting XI can’t get it done on the road.

Published

6 years ago

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Dan MacDonald, The Mane Land

Well, that was certainly a soccer match. Orlando City (3-6-3, 12 points) lost its third consecutive game and is winless in its last four after a 2-1 loss to the Seattle Sounders (7-1-4, 25 points) at CenturyLink Field. With the loss, the Lions remain winless in five meetings (0-4-1) against the Sounders. The hosts improved to 6-0-2 at home this season.

Shockingly, I can’t say I was full of confidence when the Orlando City lineup came out an hour before kicking off against the Sounders. We all knew to expect some rotation because of the Lions having three matches in three different cities in an eight-day span. The keyword, however, is “some.” No one could have reasonably predicted an entirely different starting XI, including the MLS debut of Greg Ranjitsingh in goal.

Having said that, and considering that the Sounders put out a nearly full-strength lineup, things certainly should have been worse. Orlando City entered the match having conceded six goals in the first 15 minutes of games, the worst tally in Major League Soccer. On the flip side, Seattle led MLS with six goals scored in the opening 15 minutes.

As those initial 15 minutes passed, the Lions looked better than expected. The men in purple were maintaining around 40% possession, not terrible for a squad of bench players on the road against one of the league’s best teams. Sacha Kljestan took a slow-moving shot from distance in the ninth minute that went wide of the goal. Ranjitsingh came off his line decisively to grab a couple of crosses Seattle players put into the box. Then the 19th minute came, and it brought a Raul Ruidiaz goal for the Sounders with it.

Left back Brad Smith made a run into the box and was not shut down by Orlando City right back Kyle Smith. He then sent a nicely weighted cross rolling in front of the goal right to Ruidiaz’s foot. An unmarked Ruidiaz slotted it past Ranjitsingh and the Sounders went up 1-0.

In the 22nd minute, Uri Rosell took a shot from distance that, similarly to Kljestan’s earlier attempt, was wide and left of the goal. Rookie forward Santiago Patino made an excellent run down the left flank in the 24th, but was cleanly tackled by Seattle center back Roman Torres. Fellow rookie Benji Michel made a run down the right a few minutes later that resulted in a corner for the Lions. Midfielder Dillon Powers put a Carlos Rivas-style shot a mile into the stands after nothing was doing on the corner.

Surprisingly, the Sounders looked content with the one-goal lead for the last 20 minutes of the first half, though Orlando’s possession climbed closer to 50% as the half progressed. Rosell took another shot from 25 yards out in the 43rd minute, sending it over the crossbar. Seattle had one more chance to add a goal before the half when Brad Smith sent a cross right to the head of Jordan Morris. Morris tried to bounce it off the turf and ended up watching the ball skyrocket over the bar.

Seattle took its 1-0 lead to the locker room, leading in shots (7-4), shots on goal (2-0), passing accuracy (87%-83%), and possession (53.4%-46.6%).

Neither side made any changes at the half, and the Sounders came out pressing at the start of the second half, ready to maintain or build on the one-goal advantage. Young Designated Player Josué Colmán provided a chance for the Lions when he put in a good through ball to Danilo Acosta, who subsequently had his shot blocked. Morris went down with what appeared to be a hamstring injury, forcing Seattle Head Coach Brian Schmetzer to pull him out for Handwalla Bwana in the 53rd minute.

Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan got past Orlando City center back Lamine Sane in the 56th minute to take a shot directly at Ranjitsingh. Ruidiaz couldn’t bring down an over-the top-pass from Bwana at minute 60, allowing Ranjitsingh the time to come out and make the save. Seattle right back Kelvin Leerdam decided to get in on the action in the 62nd minute, shooting from right outside the 18-yard box just over the bar.

Lions Head Coach James O’Connor had seen enough of Patino by the 63rd minute and subbed him out for Dom Dwyer. Harry Shipp took a shot that went right over the bar again in the 67th, then came off immediately after, when Schmetzer brought in Nouhou Tolo. Apparently, that change sparked something for the Sounders, as Bwana scored a minute later to make it 2-0 to Seattle. The play started from a turnover on a loose touch by Powers in the midfield and then Acosta lost Bwana in the box. The always astute Nicolas Lodeiro saw that, so he crossed a beautiful ball into the six-yard box that Bwana only had to redirect into the back of Ranjitsingh’s net.

A five-minute discussion and video review followed the goal to check for a handball on Lodeiro, but the goal was allowed. The goal was finally confirmed in the 73rd minute.

O’Connor subbed on Chris Mueller for Colmán during the video review delay. Mueller looked to make an impact off the ensuing kickoff. Bwana gave the ball away to Kljestan, not far from the top of Seattle’s 18. The midfielder then passed to Mueller just above the six-yard box, but he fluffed the shot, sending it high.

Mueller made up for it in the 75th. He made a run to the top of the 18 and took a low, driven shot past Stefan Frei and into the bottom right corner of Seattle’s goal to make it 2-1. The goal snapped a 327-minute scoring drought for Orlando City and it was the first goal scored by a Lion other than Nani in 534 minutes.

In the 84th minute, Ranjitsingh quickly came way off his line to clear a dangerous through ball. He did the same thing again four minutes later. The 85th minute saw O’Connor sub in Joao Moutinho for Acosta, followed by a Seattle sub of Alex Roldan for Smith a minute later.

It looked like the Sounders made it 3-1 in the third minute of stoppage time. Orlando City center back Shane O’Neill hit a header straight up into the air and then had a terrible moment that led to Ruidiaz scoring. Thankfully, the goal was instantly called back for an obvious handball on the Seattle striker. The Lions had a couple of other crosses find their way into Seattle’s box during the last five minutes of the long stoppage to no avail.

Seattle finished with a 14-10 advantage in shots (3-1 on target), and slightly more possession (50.7%-49.3%), with the teams each completing 84% of their passes.

Unfortunately, the 2-1 loss means Orlando City will return home on Sunday with no points from the two-game road trip. Hopefully, that will be all the motivation the team needs to take all three points in the team’s first ever meeting against FC Cincinnati. The match kicks off at 3 p.m.

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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.

Published

13 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

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

15 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

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

18 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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