Orlando City
Intelligence Report: Orlando City vs. Columbus Crew
Familiarize yourself with this week’s opponents, the Columbus Crew, courtesy of someone who knows them best.
It was a pretty rocky week for Orlando soccer, but the only way out is through. Time to put bad results in the past and look forward to the next match. Tomorrow, Orlando City will take on the Columbus Crew up in Ohio, and try to right the ship after a rough couple of games.
A clash with Columbus means I spoke to Massive Report’s Pat Murphy. As always, Pat was very helpful in getting us up to speed with the Crew. Like us here at The Mane Land, Massive Report has gone independent and they’re continuing to do excellent coverage of the Crew, and I answered a few of their questions about Orlando City, so make sure you go and check them out over at their place.
Columbus has now played 10 league games under Wilfried Nancy. How do the Crew like to play under him compared to what you saw under Caleb Porter?
Pat Murphy: If you watched CF Montreal under Nancy last year, you have the answer to that question. More or less, he has tried to carbon copy what made Montreal successful in 2022 in Columbus.
The Crew play a 3-4-2-1 with one of the center backs stepping up into midfield often. The Black & Gold want to play out of the back with the center backs attempting to pull attackers to them before passing at times to open space to go forward. The wing backs create the width with central midfielders operating mostly out of a double pivot. There are two attacking midfielders behind the lone striker (typically, sometimes he’s played with two strikers) and that group is usually rather fluid.
As well as this worked last year in Montreal, it’s taking time for things to fall in place for the Black & Gold. This was a team that was built to play a 4-2-3-1 under both Gregg Berhalter and Porter, and so the pieces to play a completely different formation aren’t all there, especially after the starters. We’ll call it a work in progress.
The Crew have not struggled to score goals this season, as only Atlanta and St. Louis have more than Columbus’ 19 tallies. What has made the Crew so lethal on offense this season?
PM: That number is a bit inflated by two consecutive games earlier this year where the Crew combined to score 10 goals against an undermanned Atlanta United and a struggling Real Salt Lake. The only other times the Black & Gold have scored more than one goal in a game this year came in the two games against D.C. United (and that was still a D.C. team trying to figure things out).
What should be pointed out is that Designated Player striker Cucho Hernandez has played just four games this year after a knee injury forced him out for around two months. He has one goal, which came in the last game against Inter Miami, and if he gets going, that could really boost the offense. Hernandez has done more floating than he did after joining the team last year, which means he hasn’t been in front of the goal as much, but is still always dangerous. His combination with Lucas Zelarayan, plus central midfielder Aidan Morris adding goals to his game this year, could mean the offense does live up to its numbers so far.
Who were some notable off-season departures, and how have they been replaced?
PM: The biggest was Jonathan Mensah, who had served as the team’s captain and defensive rock for the last several years. He was traded to the San Jose Earthquakes shortly before the start of the year with the intent to replace him with a younger center back that more fits what Nancy wants from that position. The Crew had a target they were close with in Turkey, but that fell apart before the start of the season. The Black & Gold brought in Gustavo Vallencilla from the Colorado Rapids on a season-long loan and he has played well for the most part but has not replaced Mensah.
Pedro Santos and Derrick Etienne were both also rather notable departures. Santos, in particular, would have been interesting on this team given his ability to play left back or left wing, which would fit right into Nancy’s wing back role. Etienne had a good season last year but wanted more money than the team wanted to give him — and they appear to be right with an inconsistent start for him in Atlanta. As it turns out, he may not have fit well in Nancy’s system either, as the Crew has too many wingers and not enough wing backs.
Are there any players who will be unavailable due to injury, suspension, etc? What is your projected starting lineup and score prediction?
PM: Left wing back Will Sands is out for the season after he tore his ACL against Charlotte FC a few weeks back. Goalkeeper Eloy Room likely remains out with a knee issue that has lingered for a while. The Black & Gold may have an issue at center back, a position that already doesn’t have much depth, as Josh Williams is yet to play this year after an ankle injury in preseason, Milos Degenek and Steven Moreira left the game two weeks ago against Miami with injuries and Philip Quinton got hurt late in the Open Cup game on Wednesday.
Guessing Nancy’s starting lineup is typically tricky, but I’ll go with: Patrick Schulte; Steven Moreria, Gustavo Vallencilla, Malte Amundsen; Mohamed Farsi, Yaw Yeboah; Aidan Morris, Darlington Nagbe; Lucas Zelarayan, Alexandru Matan; Cucho Hernandez.
I said 2-0 Crew earlier this week on our podcast but the injuries at the back have me reconsidering this score. The Black & Gold need a win after dropping two in a row to struggling teams, so I think they pull one out at home but it could be an ugly 2-1 victory.
Thank you to Pat for helping us get caught up on the Crew. Vamos Orlando!
Orlando City
2024 Orlando City Season in Review: Wilder Cartagena
The midfielder helped Orlando City own the center of the field throughout the majority of the 2024 season.
Orlando City initially acquired midfielder Wilder Cartagena on loan through the 2022 MLS season. After a successful end of the year, the club exercised the option to extend the loan through the 2023 season. He became a key player in the starting lineup for the Lions that season, resulting in the club signing him to a permanent deal through the 2025 season on Dec. 14, 2024. The Peruvian midfielder built a powerhouse partnership with fellow midfielder César Araújo, forming what may have been the best central midfield duo in all of MLS during the 2024 season.
Let’s take a look back at Cartagena’s season with Orlando City.
Statistical Breakdown
Cartagena participated in all four of the competitions Orlando City played in during 2024, playing primarily in his normal central defensive midfielder role but also filling in as center back for around seven games worth of minutes (631). Despite playing in a brand new position for approximately 20% of his total minutes, Cartagena ended up leading the team in plus-minus for the season, finishing +22 across all competitions, meaning the Lions were much better with him on the pitch than they were when he wasn’t.
In MLS regular-season play, the Peruvian international appeared in 27 matches, starting 25 and playing 2,192 minutes. He only recorded one goal contribution on the season, an assist, though he took 24 shots, putting eight on target. He completed 89% of his passes with 16 key passes, one successful cross, and 25 completed long balls. On the defensive side, he recorded 76 tackles, 20 interceptions, 42 clearances, and nine blocks. He committed a team-leading 48 fouls, suffered 28 fouls, and received seven yellow cards and one red card, which he picked up after the conclusion of the game against Minnesota United. Coincidentally, his red card suspension and his one-game ban for yellow card accumulation each resulted in him missing a regular-season game against Atlanta United — both were Orlando losses.
During the MLS playoffs, Cartagena started all five matches, playing 431 minutes with no goals or assists. He took two shots, placing one on target, and he completed 87.2% of his passes with a single key pass. Defensively, he recorded nine tackles, four interceptions, 11 clearances, and one block. He drew eight fouls and committed nine, and he was booked twice, with both being yellow cards.
Cartagena played in all four Concacaf Champions Cup matches, starting every game and playing 315 minutes. He did not take any shots, so he did not score any goals, and he didn’t contribute any assists either. He completed 86.6% of his passes, including four key passes. Defensively, he tallied eight tackles, five interceptions, four clearances, and one block, and he committed three fouls, while suffering five. He was booked twice, earning two yellow cards.
During Leagues Cup play, Cartagena started all three games, playing the full 270 minutes with zero goal contributions. He took three shots, placing one on target, and completed 92.1% of his passes, but with zero key passes. He added three tackles, three interceptions, four clearances, and one block on defense, and he committed three fouls and drew one. Unlike in the other three competitions, in Leagues Cup play he did not receive any cards.
Best Game
While Cartagena only had one goal contribution for the season, the positions he played do not lend themselves to being able to use the commonly cited stats like goals and assists to evaluate which game was the finest. That said, I think the one game in which Cartagena had an assist was his finest performance, but the assist was only the cherry on top of an outstanding game all over the field by the Peruvian midfielder, as his performance helped lead the Lions to a dominant 5-0 victory over D.C. United on March 9.
Cartagena completed 77 of his 81 passes (95.1%), and while any game with that many completed passes and that high of a completion percentage would be excellent, it was the types of passes that he completed that really set this game ahead of all of his other performances. He completed 22 of those 77 passes into the attacking third of the field, meaning they were attacking balls forward towards goal that went from the middle or defensive third into the attacking third. If 22 sounds like a lot, well, that’s because it is. There were only seven instances during MLS play in 2024 of a player completing 22 or more passes into the attacking third in a single game.
If that was not enough, Cartagena also went 11 of 12 (91.7%) on long passes (passes of at least 30 yards) on the night, one of only 24 instances during MLS play in 2024 of a midfielder completing at least 11 long passes and being successful on more than 90% of his long pass attempts.
On top of both of those stats, Cartagena also got on the score sheet for the only time all season, playing a beautiful cross from the right flank onto the head of a charging Robin Jannson, who smashed in his header and gave the Lions a 2-0 lead.
Cartagena went the full 90 in this match, contributing not only offensively but also defensively, with three tackles, four recoveries, and one clearance, and his dominance in the center of the field helped the Lions keep a clean sheet.
2024 Final Grade
The Mane Land awarded Cartagena a composite rating of 7.5 out of 10 for the 2024 season, the same as the 7.5 we gave him last season. I mentioned earlier that the team was +22 while Cartagena was on the field, and that +22 equaled a +0.62 goals per 90-minute average over his total minutes played, meaning that when Cartagena played, the Lions were nearly two-thirds of a goal better than their opponents. On the flip side, when Cartagena was off the field, the Lions were -5 for the season, which equaled a -0.48 goals per 90-minute average. The net of those two per 90-minute averages is +1.10, meaning that Orlando City was more than one goal better than its opponents when Cartagena was on the field as compared to when he was off, showing just how valuable he was to the team during the 2024 season.
2025 Outlook
I expect 2025 to look very similar to 2024 for Cartagena, as both he and his midfield partner Araujo are set to return and are completely comfortable in Head Coach Óscar Pareja’s system. The Lions also parted ways with Felipe, Jeorgio Kocevski, and Heine Gikling Bruseth, meaning that Nico Lodeiro is the only player on the roster with significant experience in the role where Cartagena usually plays, and Lodeiro is more of a supersub than a starter at this point in his career and a much more offensive minded No. 8 option than a defensive, double-pivot type. Kyle Smith and Dagur Dan Thórhallsson both have the skillset to potentially get some minutes there, and Orlando City used its first-round draft pick in the MLS SuperDraft to select midfielder Joran Gerbet from Clemson, but it should be Cartagena’s job to lose during the 2025 season, and I expect to see him on the field for the vast majority of Orlando City’s minutes.
Previous Season in Review Articles (Date Posted)
- Alex Freeman (12/5/24)
- Michael Halliday (12/6/24)
- Yutaro Tsukada (12/7/24)
- Mason Stajduhar (12/8/24)
- Javier Otero (12/9/24)
- Jack Lynn (12/11/24)
- Shakur Mohammed (12/12/24)
- Luis Muriel (12/13/24)
- David Brekalo (12/14/24)
- Facundo Torres (12/14/24)
- Rodrigo Schlegel (12/15/24)
- Rafael Santos (12/16/24)
- Kyle Smith (12/17/24)
- Martín Ojeda (12/18/24)
- Dagur Dan Thorhallsson (12/19/24)
- Nico Lodeiro (12/20/24)
- Ramiro Enrique (12/21/24)
Orlando City
Top 10 Moments of 2024: Orlando City Surges to Top Four Spot in Eastern Conference
Languishing near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, the Lions made a massive push from June 19 onward to finish fourth in the Eastern Conference.
As we count down to the new year of 2025 — which will be Orlando City’s 11th in MLS, the Orlando Pride’s ninth in the NWSL, and OCB’s third in MLS NEXT Pro — and say goodbye to 2024, it’s time to look back at the club’s 10 best moments of the year as selected by The Mane Land staff via vote.
The Lions were floundering. A team that finished strong in 2023 and ended up second in the Supporters’ Shield race had bolstered the attack in the off-season by signing a Designated Player forward out of Italy’s Serie A and figured to pick up where it left off. It didn’t.
Orlando City struggled out of the gate to connect in the final third, to find a cohesive starting XI that worked well together, and to find the form with which it ended the 2023 campaign. Although the Lions swept Canadian Premier League side Cavalry FC in the first round of the 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup at the onset of the season, they once again played a scoreless draw on opening day of league play, got blown out at Inter Miami, gave up a 95th-minute goal to lose at home to Minnesota, and then got knocked out of Champions Cup by Tigres before falling at Atlanta.
The team’s 0-3-1 start to the regular season was followed by two wins and two draws, pulling Orlando to 2-3-3, but that surge proved to be fool’s gold. That run preceded a late-game collapse at home against Toronto that turned a 1-0 87th-minute lead into a 2-1 loss. That loss, to a Toronto team that finished 11-19-4, turned into a home losing streak after FC Cincinnati departed Inter&Co Stadium with a 1-0 win on May 4.
A 2-0-1 surge followed, but it could only bring the Lions to 4-5-4 on the season. But again, Orlando City fans had to take the bad with the good, as the club went 0-3-1 in its next four. Two late goals by LAFC and a missed Facundo Torres penalty — the first such miss in his entire soccer careeer — produced a 3-1 home loss that left the club at just 4-8-5 at the season’s midway point. Some fans were calling for Oscar Pareja’s job; no one was happy with new Designated Player Luis Muriel’s play; and the players seemed frustrated, disjointed, and at odds with each other on the pitch.
Things looked bleak for extending the club’s four-year postseason streak to five. It seemed as if there was no way to break out of the funk the Lions were in.
But then it happened.
The team’s fortunes didn’t turn around all at once, and the turning point sure didn’t seem like one at the time. Orlando City went to Charlotte on June 19, found itself up a man, and still had to scrape by with just a 2-2 draw. Down a man, Brandt Bronico put Charlotte FC up 2-1 with 13 minutes remaining, and things looked worse than ever for the Lions, who were on the verge of falling to 4-9-5 and threatening to contend for the wooden spoon. But Torres struck in the 81st minute to bring City level on a corner kick. Was this the goal that ultimately saved Orlando City’s 2024 season?
Once tied, Orlando pushed furiously for a winner but to no avail. The single point the Lions brought home from North Carolina didn’t feel good at the time, but it was a start — the first pebble in what ultimately turned into an avalanche. A win and a loss in the next two matches didn’t seem particularly noteworthy either, but the team was starting to put things together.
After beating Chicago 4-2 on June 22 at home, the Lions nearly mounted a comeback after a disastrous first half in a 4-2 loss at New York City FC on June 28 — a game in which Orlando lost backup goalkeeper Mason Stajduhar for the rest of the season. The Lions then won four straight matches and went 4-0-1 in their final five games prior to the Leagues Cup break, entering the MLS pause at .500 with a 9-9-7 record. It had taken the team half the season to recover from the poor start, but the Lions were back in the fight.
A win and two draws in Leagues Cup, despite some international absences, kept the Lions’ momentum going. Although a flat performance in a loss at Sporting Kansas City in the MLS restart weekend didn’t help matters, it was followed by three more consecutive wins — all via shutout, with Orlando outscoring its opponents 8-0 — and six victories in seven matches. The lone loss in that seven-game stretch was a 4-3 defeat at Columbus in which a valiant comeback effort fell just short.
After that 6-1-0 run, Orlando entered Decision Day with a 15-11-7 record and a top-four spot that wasn’t spoiled by a loss in the regular-season finale to Atlanta.
The Lions’ 11-4-2 finish over the final 17 matches of the 2024 season not only pushed the team into the postseason, it also put Orlando City in position to take advantage when Miami, Columbus, and Cincinnati all faltered in the first round of the playoffs.
Because the Lions were the highest remaining seed in the postseason, once Orlando City won its best-of-three, first-round series against Charlotte, it had home field priority for the remainder of the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Lions hosted Atlanta in the Eastern Conference semifinal and knocked their rivals out of the postseason in a tight defensive battle in which the Five Stripes hardly troubled goalkeeper Pedro Gallese. Orlando advanced to the Eastern Conference final for the first time, hosting the New York Red Bulls.
Although Orlando faltered in that conference final, which is not the result we (or the Lions) wanted, City put itself in the best possible position to reach the MLS Cup final by finding the right blend of chemistry, form, and grit in the season’s second half.
The Lions came closer to MLS Cup in 2024 than ever before, thanks to the team’s second-half surge. As such, that surge is a worthy inclusion in the list of the club’s top moments of the year, and a great way to kick off our annual series of the club’s most memorable accomplishments and events.
Come back through New Year’s Eve as we count down the remainder of Orlando City’s top 10 moments of 2024.
Opinion
Three Orlando City Games to Watch in 2025
Here are three intriguing matches in the 2025 Orlando City season.
Major League Soccer provided a last-minute stocking stuffer for North American soccer fans when it dropped the 2025 season schedule six days before Christmas. It feels like the Orlando City season just wrapped (as is often the case when a team makes a deep run in the playoffs), and yet now we can spend the next few “winter” weeks meticulously breaking down the matchups as training camp is just around the corner. My fellow staff writers at The Mane Land can attest that I have a horrible case of scoreboard-watching from Matchweek 1 of the regular season on, and that obsession starts now with my top three games to watch in 2025.
Friday, July 25 — at Columbus Crew
As the final match of three games in 10 days and the last match of July, the first meeting against perennial the Eastern Conference powerhouse Columbus Crew should serve as a great measuring stick for fans and pundits to assess where the Orlando City season stands heading into the final third of the season. Traditionally speaking, over the last few years, late July into early August is the time frame when Head Coach Oscar Pareja’s teams have caught fire.
If that historical trend holds, then I expect Orlando City to hit Columbus in strong form, once again looking to secure a top-four spot in the Eastern Conference. While it is hard to predict what rosters will look like by then, as there have been reports and rumors of both stars and Head Coach Wilfried Nancy’s possible departure circulating. However, it is difficult to imagine Columbus slipping much, as the club has established a winning culture and has a knack for finding and signing outstanding players like Lucas Zelarayan and Cucho Hernandez. A matchup between the Crew and Lions at that point of the season could serve as a marquee event for MLS in 2025.
Saturday, Feb. 22 — vs. Philadelphia Union
There are two things I know to be true when it comes to Orlando City soccer. First, Orlando City has kicked off every MLS regular season in front of its home fans — a unique trend that I was excited to see continue in 2025. The second thing that I know is that Orlando City is unbeaten in season openers (3-0-7). In 2025, Orlando City welcomes the Philadelphia Union to Inter&Co Stadium and the unbeaten record will be on the line once again. The Union will be the seventh different opening day opponent for the Lions in 11 seasons.
What makes this matchup particularly interesting is that this will be the first time in Orlando City history that they will face the Union without now-former head coach Jim Curtin. One of the longest-tenured head coaches in MLS at the time, Curtin parted ways with the Union at the end of the 2024 season. Often I find myself in the “managers don’t make a large difference” camp when it comes to the outcome of matches, but to look back at what Curtin did with Philadelphia, its academy, and modest roster spending can only be viewed as wildly successful. Orlando will try to start its season off on the right foot, while a new Union manager will be looking to start his tenure in Philly with a road victory. Something will have to give, and I am going to put my money on Orlando winning the day.
Saturday, April 12 — vs. New York Red Bulls
While the first opportunity to exact revenge over the club that eliminated the Lions from the 2024 MLS Cup playoffs will happen roughly a month earlier on the road, the true opportunity to stick it to the Red Bulls in front of a home crowd has to be my most anticipated match of 2025. A lot has been said about rivalries in MLS. Some seem manufactured, and some come down to genuine hatred, but I firmly believe that for the time being our squad’s biggest rival is the one that ended Orlando City’s season one game short of the championship match.
It seems a little strange to me that the Lions will wrap up their season series with the Red Bulls just eight games into the year (so much for spacing out some matchups), but Orlando City will look to pounce on the Red Bulls early on and would likely love nothing more than to take all six points from the team that ended its MLS Cup hopes before the calendar even hits Memorial Day.
Those are the top three matches I have circled on my calendar. Let us know in the comments below which matches you’re most excited about and which matches you think will carry the most significance in 2025. As always, vamos Orlando!
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