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Orlando City vs. Portland Timbers: Final Score 1-1 as Lions Stay Mentally Tough on Road

Out-shot 26-2 on the road against Portland’s A-team, the backup Lions fought heroically for a point.

Published

5 years ago

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC

Orlando City continued to show its mental toughness in the middle of a brutal July, grinding out a 1-1 draw against the Portland Timbers in a late Thursday night affair at Providence Park. Santiago Patino’s goal didn’t quite hold up to take all three points, but with a fullback playing center back, a midfielder playing right back, and three rookies on the field, that’s a much better point for the Lions (7-9-5, 26 points) than the Timbers (7-8-4, 25 points), who ran out their first-choice squad with a Cascadia matchup at Seattle looming over the weekend.

The Lions improved to 3-1-1 in the all-time league series against Portland (1-1-1 at Providence Park) and survived a game without any of its Designated Players, no first-choice defenders on the field, backups in the midfield, and two rookies and a guy making his first appearance in purple on the forward line. Orlando also survived an early injury to a starting center back — with no replacement central defenders on the bench — and an inexplicable seven minutes of second-half stoppage time, given for reasons known only to possibly some high roller in Vegas and God himself.

James O’Connor rotated the squad heavily, giving Robinho his first start as a Lion and resting several key starters a few days ahead of Sunday’s home match vs. the New York Red Bulls. Nani, who missed Saturday’s win over Columbus due to food poisoning, did not travel, making this the third game on artificial turf without him (out of three). As a result, the looming trip to play resurgent New England next week will bear watching.

So few regulars dressed that three goalkeepers were in uniform, with Greg Ranjitsigh getting the start between the sticks on his birthday. Danilo Acosta and Kyle Smith flanked Kamal Miller and Alex De John on the back line. Sacha Kljestan returned from suspension and joined Dillon Powers and Uri Rosell in the midfield, with rookies Benji Michel and Patino up top next to Robinho. Joao Moutinho returned from injury to make the 18.

As one might expect from the lineup, Orlando’s strategy was to dig in defensively and look to spring opportunities the other way. The Timbers owned the ball and the territorial advantage throughout the opening half but Orlando defended with determination.

Defending became more difficult early on. De John was kicked in the face in just the eighth minute and went down, seemingly unconscious before he hit the ground. Brian Fernandez was booked for the high boot — which was unintentional but incredibly dangerous — and De John went off officially in the 12th minute, replaced by Will Johnson. Smith slid into central defense and Johnson played right back.

Immediately after the change, Portland fashioned its first good scoring chance. Cristhian Paredes fired just over the bar from the top of the area in the 13th minute. Four minutes later, Sebastian Blanco fired just a couple feet wide of the right post as the Timbers probed for an opening goal.

Diego Valeri fired just wide of the far post in the 23rd minute after being given too much space on the left side.

Five minutes later, Valeri broke down the left side of the area but Johnson blocked his shot out for a corner. Claude Dielna headed over the bar on the ensuing corner kick.

Michel won Orlando’s first corner kick in the 31st minute and seconds later Johnson fired wide on Orlando’s first shot attempt of the game.

Blanco’s header hit the crossbar in the 37th minute and nearly bounced in off Ranjitsingh’s back but the goalkeeper was able to turn and grab the ball before it could cross the line.

Just minutes later, Ranjitsingh made a good save to deny Fernandez from just left of the penalty spot.

Orlando opened the scoring a minute later. Robinho made a good hustle play to keep the ball in play on the sideline, then crossed in for Michel. Jorge Moreira knocked the ball away from one Lions rookie, but sent it right to another. Patino hit the ball first-time past Steve Clark to give Orlando a 1-0 lead against the run of play.

The Lions survived a late header by Dielna that sailed just inches over the crossbar off a corner and took their slim advantage into the locker room at halftime.

Portland’s commanding statistical advantage was not represented in Orlando’s 1-0 halftime lead. The Timbers led in shots (10-2), shots on target (2-1), possession (62%-38%), and passing accuracy (87%-78%).

The second half was a bit more lopsided, in that the Lions attempted not a single shot and Portland attempted 16. While the Timbers helped by not being clinical, Orlando sufficiently gummed up the middle of the pitch in front of Ranjitsingh’s goal to make life difficult for Valeri and Blanco to find Fernandez and neither could get many clean looks from outside the area.

Portland started fast, looking to push the pace, nearly finding Fernandez over the top off the second-half kickoff. Seconds later, Blanco blazed down the left channel but shot wide. Fernandez one-timed a cross from the right in the 51st minute but didn’t hit it cleanly and Ranjitsingh was able to cover it.

Orlando’s best chance of the second half came at the hour mark. Robinho beat Zarek Valentin down the wing and opted to fire an aerial cross, but he hit it too hard and it sailed past Patino and Michel. A hard cross on the turf may have yielded better results. Nevertheless, that half chance was the Lions’ best second-half opportunity.

In the 67th, Larrys Mabiala was booked for elbowing Michel in the face, which was a red card on Saturday when done by the smaller player against the larger player but it was not a red on Thursday when the larger man did it to the smaller. Go figure.

In the 70th minute, Paredes headed a cross right at Ranjitsingh as the Timbers kept coming. Dielna headed wide off a set piece in the 78th minute and Powers was shaken up on the play. Powers was replaced by Tesho Akindele in the 80th.

Just eight minutes shy of the end of normal time, the Timbers equalized. Orlando was in good shape, looking to break out of its own end with possession. Patino sent a soft pass to his left intended for Michel but under-hit it, allowing Valeri to make a sliding challenge to take possession. Valeri’s ball found Moreira, who crossed in to Fernandez. The Argentinian headed it on to the back post, where Jeremy Ebobisse was waiting to nod it in off the left post, tying the match in the 82nd minute.

The goal looked to be coming all game long but it still felt like a sucker punch to come so late.

Orlando did a good job of managing the rest of the game. The Lions didn’t look much for the game winner so much as they tried to hold on for a point. Both Akindele and Kljestan had opportunities to perhaps play Patino in as the Timbers pushed numbers up the field, but neither looked up to see the rookie.

After an interminable seven added minutes of injury time — almost twice what De John required in the first half — the whistle mercifully blew on another road result for Orlando. The Lions are 3-4-4 on the road in 2019.

In addition to a 26-2 advantage in shot attempts, Portland led in shots on target (4-1), possession (63%-37%), corners (8-3), crosses (41-10!!!), and passing accuracy (86%-73%). To say that the Lions were under siege throughout the match would be an understatement. Credit to Ranjitsingh and O’Connor’s makeshift back line of Johnson, Smith, Miller, and Acosta — as well as Powers, Rosell, and Kljestan in the midfield — for keeping Orlando from getting pounded into Portland’s artificial turf.

The Lions are right back at it again on Sunday at home against the Red Bulls at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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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

15 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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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

17 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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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

21 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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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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