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Orlando City

Orlando City vs. Houston Dynamo: Final Score 2-1 as Lions Blow Early Lead

Lions’ skid reaches six matches.

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Dan MacDonald, The Mane Land

Orlando City led early but couldn’t keep the ball in the second half and eventually succumbed to pressure, losing 2-1 to the Houston Dynamo at BBVA Stadium. Dom Dwyer’s early goal was canceled out by strikes by Alberth Elis and Christian Ramirez just three minutes apart in the second half, as Orlando (9-14-9, 36 points) made it six straight games without a win (0-3-3). Houston (11-16-4, 37 points) got its third result in six matches under Davy Arnaud.

Orlando fell to 1-2-2 against the Dynamo in the all-time series and 1-2-0 in Houston. The loss, coupled with New England’s draw, doesn’t quite officially eliminate the Lions from the postseason but a whole lot of chaos would need to ensue for the miracle of a playoff berth to materialize.

James O’Connor’s side played a 4-3-3 with playmakers Nani and Mauricio Pereyra on the wings and Dwyer up top. Will Johnson returned to the midfield with Cristian Higuita and Sebas Mendez. Kamal Miller took over at left back with the three usual starters on the back line — Robin Jansson, Lamine Sané, and Ruan — in front of Brian Rowe.

It didn’t take long for the Lions to get on the board. Orlando City scored its earliest goal from the start of the game all season just six minutes into the game.

Higuita was chopped down by Oscar Boniek Garcia, giving Orlando a free kick to the right side. Pereyra made a gorgeous delivery and Dwyer headed it back across the grain inside the back post to make it 1-0.

It was Dom’s second goal in as many games and both were on headers. It was also the first goal that an Orlando player has scored in this series. Previously, the only goal for the Lions was an own goal by Tyler Deric in 2015. Orlando City had been shut out in each of the last three meetings entering tonight.

There were other actions in the remaining 39 minutes of the first half aside from Houston corner kicks, but it might not have seemed like it. The Dynamo racked up corner after corner, finishing the game with a 13-5 advantage in that category.

Despite that, the Dynamo weren’t very menacing on those corners. One ended up fizzing through the six in the 13th minute and any touch would have put it in the net, but it went out the other side.

Dwyer smashed a shot with power in the 20th from just outside the area that forced a save from Joe Willis. The striker was Orlando’s only real threat all night, firing five of the team’s seven shot attempts and getting all three of the team’s shots on target on the evening.

Rowe’s outlet sprung a 25th-minute counter, with Nani getting down the left flank. He tried to cross into the middle for Ruan, but the defense got a touch on the cross to snuff out the chance. Houston came right back down and Jansson had to block a shot from Mauro Manotas at the other end.

Orlando fashioned a couple of half chances before Houston won a free kick on a soft foul by Sané — and nearly scored on it. A cross to the back post cleared Miller and found Maynor Figueroa, who headed one toward the near corner. Rowe made a good reaction save to keep it out in the 37th minute.

That was the last good opportunity for either side in the opening period and the Lions went into the locker room with their slim lead.

Houston led in shots (5-3), although both team got two on target. Orlando held 53% of the possession, with much of that just taking the air out of the game and kicking it around the back and not really doing much meaningful in the attacking end. The Lions were slightly more accurate in passing (87%-86%).

Bad news came at the break as the television broadcast announced that Higuita was suffering from his tricky adductor muscle and would need to sub off early in the second half.

Orlando tried to double the lead in the 50th as Pereyra was sent on essentially a one-man counter attack. Nani joined him late and Pereyra tried to thread the captain through on goal but a hustling play by DaMarcus Beasley broke up the play at the last second.

Dwyer did some emergency defending in the 55th minute on a set piece, clearing a shot off the line.

Shortly thereafter, O’Connor was forced to make two changes due to fitness. Higuita was replaced by Carlos Ascues and Tesho Akindele came on for Pereyra, as both starters were laboring. But the biggest change was Houston introducing Memo Rodriguez for Tommy McNamara, and the young Dynamo attacker changed the complexion of the game with his quickness and creativity.

The warning signs started before the subs, as Orlando was unable to break out of its own end. Balls were fired forward to an outnumbered Dwyer, Houston recycled, and the Dynamo came forward to apply pressure again and again. It wasn’t sustainable and eventually the breakthrough came.

Elis beat Miller to a cross from Ramirez and headed it home to make it 1-1 in the 70th minute. The play began with a sliding challenge by Sané and the ball pinballed out to Ramirez on the left. His cross was perfect and Elis didn’t miss.

Rowe saved Mendez some embarrassment in the 72nd minute after the Ecuador international turned the ball over in his own end. Rodriguez fired and Rowe was there to stop it. But the Dynamo took the lead a minute later anyway.

Houston had a long clearance that fell perfectly for the Dynamo to break. Manotas made a nice move to lose Ruan, then crossed over to Ramirez for a tap-in while Jansson defended air on the goal line.

Dwyer had the best opportunity to pull Orlando back level in the 77th minute. Nani fed a through ball and the striker had a tough angle — on his weaker right foot — but he smashed one hard at the net to force a save from Willis.

Dwyer then headed the ensuing corner kick cross over the bar but he did well to even get something toward the net on the play.

From there, the Lions just lacked the final bit of quality and Willis came up big. Ascues sent a curling shot through the area that Willis was able to save. The rebound fell for Ruan, who also saw his shot save but that part of the play was ruled offside with Dwyer in front of goal.

Nani sent a free kick toward goal in the 84th but Willis got down to make the save and held on as Dwyer closed in. A minute later Chris Mueller checked in for Mendez but that was too little, too late. In the 89th minute Miller sent a great ball up the left for Akindele, who crossed in for Dwyer, but the pass was just off and the defense recovered. Akindele saw another cross smothered by Willis and Dwyer had a shot blocked and that was that.

Houston out-shot the Lions (15-7), and had more shots on target (6-3). remarkably, Orlando held more of the possession (52%) but little of it seemed to be in the attacking half. Both teams passed at an 86% rate.

Orlando now has to win its final two games and get lots and lots of help. Any point by New England would eliminate City from the playoffs. But I wouldn’t put any money down on the Lions getting through with the team now having gone six straight without tasting victory.


The Lions continue on the road next Sunday when they make their first trip to play FC Cincinnati.

Orlando City

Orlando City Showed Defensive Improvement Against D.C. United

The Lions looked much better defensively last game, but now they have to prove that they can build on that performance.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

As the 2025 Major League Soccer season has gotten underway, one of the bigger topics surrounding Orlando City has been the team’s struggles on the defensive side of the ball. Andrew DeSalvo called on the team to get its defensive game up to scratch last week, and with good reason. The Lions have conceded 11 goals in five games, a mark that is good for second-worst in the league and is only eclipsed by Toronto FC’s 12. Given how Oscar Pareja’s Orlando sides have typically been built on the backs of a strong defensive foundation, its been a startling departure, particularly when paired with an offense whose output would usually be enough to get results as long as the defense isn’t leaking like a sieve.

Fortunately, OCSC had a much-improved defensive showing in Saturday’s 4-1 victory over D.C. United. Despite a consolation goal in stoppage time preventing the Lions from keeping a first clean sheet of the season, it was the team’s first time holding an opponent under two goals in 2025. A low bar to clear maybe, but that’s where we are right now.

Including the goal, D.C. took 14 shots and put five on target, with eight shots coming from inside the box. Those eight shots resulted in one goal, one attempt missed, three shots blocked, and two shots saved. The Lions managed to block nearly half of the shots taken within their own box without Javier Otero needing to be called into action. He took care of another two, and the Lions got lucky with one wayward shot before their luck ran out on the goal. All things considered, that’s not bad, and Orlando’s five blocks on the night tied for second-most this season, with the high water mark of six set against the Philadelphia Union in the opening game. Blocks aren’t a tell-all defensive statistic. For example, OCSC only had one in the 4-2 win over Toronto FC — probably due to TFC only managing nine shots on the night. Still, it’s nice to see bodies getting in the way to disrupt potentially dangerous opportunities.

D.C. ended the night with 1.60 expected goals (xG), and while that stat isn’t perfect, it’s good to see that D.C. didn’t vastly underperform the statistic, which would mean they should have scored more and simply didn’t take good chances. Of the visitors’ 1.60 xG, 45% came from Lukas McNaughton’s goal, with another 29% coming from Dominique Badji’s 68th-minute attempt that Otero saved. The next highest attempts were 17% from a Derek Dodson attempt in stoppage time, which was blocked, and 16% from a Christian Benteke header in the 54th, which was saved by Otero. Essentially, Orlando mostly did a good job in preventing D.C. from getting off dangerous attempts, and the opposition’s only big chance of the night came on McNaughton’s goal.

This also all came with Orlando City having slightly less of the ball than D.C., with 48% possession to the opponent’s 52%. The imbalance isn’t huge, but it’s a good sign that Orlando was largely able to limit dangerous chances even while spending periods of time without the ball and while being peppered with a whopping 10 corner kicks.


It wasn’t a perfect performance, as evidenced by the late goal, but frankly I’d have been surprised to see a sudden leap in defensive play given the struggles of the first four games. The D.C. win showed a lot of good things though, and gave the Lions a performance that they can build off of. Next up is an LA Galaxy team that has struggled for goals with only four in five games, but LA has attackers like Christian Ramirez and Gabriel Pec that are capable of doing plenty of damage on the offensive end. It’ll be a good test of whether the defensive unit is on the right trajectory, and hopefully it’s one that the defense can pass with flying colors. Vamos Orlando!

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 3/28/25

Orlando Pride prepare for the San Diego Wave, NWSL weekend matches, USMNT roster predictions, and more.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

We made it to Friday! Celebrate however you see fit, whether that’s an indulgent breakfast or just your favorite cup of coffee. This week has flown by a bit for me and I’m looking forward to a weekend filled with soccer. I’ll be spending the next few days working, reading a new book or two, and working out the kinks of making a frozen coconut mojito. My blender hates me. Let’s get to today’s links!

Orlando Pride Prepare for the San Diego Wave

The Orlando Pride will look to extend their 2025 win streak to three games — and their overall win streak to seven — on Saturday when they host the San Diego Wave at noon. Orlando has looked the part of a defending champion so far, leading the league with eight goals without conceding a single one in two games. The Pride will take on a revamped San Diego team that is unbeaten under Head Coach Jonas Eidevall. Pride Head Coach Seb Hines spoke about how Orlando will need to set the tone early on at home against the Wave and keep up the momentum.

NWSL Provides Entertaining Slate of Weekend Matches

While it’s far too early to think about the NWSL Shield race, it never hurts to check out how the Pride’s competitors are doing while enjoying some great soccer. Tonight features a pair of matches at the same time, with the Washington Spirit hosting Bay FC and the Houston Dash playing on the road against NJ/NY Gotham FC. Kansas City Current forward Temwa Chawinga will have a chance to tie her own record of scoring in eight straight games when her team plays the Utah Royals on Saturday. On Sunday, we’ll get to see if the Seattle Reign’s solid start continues against an unbeaten Angel City FC team searching for its first win of the season.

USMNT Roster Predictions for Concacaf Gold Cup

The pressure is on United States Men’s National Team Head Coach Mauricio Pochettino to turn things around after a rough showing in the final four of the Concacaf Nations League. This summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup will be an opportunity for the USMNT to impress in preparation for the 2026 World Cup, and Pro Soccer Wire dove into how the roster could look for the tournament. Injuries to Ricardo Pepi and Folarin Balogun complicate things up top, but we could see Brenden Aaronson or Alex Zendejas could return to the attack. The Gold Cup will likely also determine which goalkeeper between Matt Turner, Zack Steffen, and Patrick Schulte emerges as the true starter. Players like Sergino Dest, Malik Tillman, and Johnny Cardoso are other notable names to keep an eye out for leading into the tournament.

FA Cup Quarterfinals Kick Off This Weekend

Only eight teams remain in the FA Cup and the action returns with enticing quarterfinal matchups. Preston North End is the only team outside of the English Premier League still fighting, but Manchester City is the only traditional giant left in the field as well. City will face off against a Bournemouth side that beat it 2-1 back in November, while Preston will have to get past Aston Villa, which has only won two of its last eight games. Nottingham Forest forward Chris Wood’s injury adds an obstacle to overcome when the team travels to play Brighton and Hove Albion. Meanwhile, Crystal Palace gets star striker Jean-Philippe Mateta back from injury for its clash with Fulham.

Free Kicks


That’s all I have for you for today’s links. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend. Go Orlando!

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Orlando City

Orlando City’s Offense Looks Different With Marco Pašalić on the Right

How Orlando City’s offensive style changed from the end of 2024 to 2025 and how the Croatian contributes differently than Facundo Torres did.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

As I often like to do, I will start this article on Orlando City by writing about…baseball. America’s pastime — or at least it was for most of the 20th century — is celebrating opening day for the 2025 season this week, but that is not why I mention baseball. Rather, when I think about baseball I often think about baseball movies, and that brings me to one of the seminal sports films of all time, The Sandlot.

There are many great characters and moments in this movie, but a fan favorite was Michael “Squints” Palledorous. If you have not seen The Sandlot, you should, because that movie is fun and fun is good, but the reason I brought Squints up is because…wait for it…if you squint really hard when looking at Orlando City’s newest Designated Player, Marco Pašalić, then you can see Orlando City’s former Designated Player, and all-time leading scorer, Facundo Torres.

I say you have to squint really hard because aside from being similarly aged (Torres is 154 days older than Pašalić), left-foot-dominant players who play on the right side of the field, the styles of play for both players are quite different, as is how Orlando City has played in 2025 with Pašalić vs. toward the end of 2024 with Torres.

Let’s start with Orlando’s style of play in 2025 vs. the end of 2024, and we will look at the two individual players after that. I am choosing the final games of last season, because those are the most recent games played by the team, and as was frequently discussed in the run-up to this season, Orlando City brought back many of its key players from last season and has much of the same coaching staff as well. If you look at the statistics though, the team is playing differently this season as compared to 2024.

I’ve broken this out into three sections: the first five games of the 2025 regular season, the five 2024 playoff games, and the final five 2024 regular-season games. Playoff games are played differently than regular-season games, so I did not want to just compare the most recent five games of 2024 to the first five of 2025. This data is sourced from fbref.com, tracked by coders from Opta (all data is on a per-game basis):

Category2025 Reg. Season
(First 5 Games)
2024 Playoffs
(5 games)
2024 Reg. Season
(Last 5 Games)
Possession46%56%52%
Passes Attempted473538536
Touches in Attacking Third142195183
Shots16.012.413.4
Expected Goals2.01.31.9
Attacks Down Right Side37%31%28%

We will get back to the attacks down the right side more specifically when we look at Pašalić and Torres, but look at the major differences in all of these numbers. This year’s team, at least through the first few games, is playing a different style of soccer than the 2024 team played at the end of the season. They are possessing the ball less throughout the game but also in particular while in the attacking third of the field. This comes from rapid counterattacks and excellent transition offense as well as a more direct approach to creating shots.

We can see this more direct approach by looking at the reduction in touches per game in the attacking third of the field juxtaposed against an increase of more than 20% in shots per game, meaning that the ratio of touches per shot in the attacking third has decreased dramatically from last year to this year. During the final five regular-season games, the Lions were averaging 13.7 touches per shot, and thus far in 2025 that number is 8.9.

In this context, a touch is counted not as every individual dribble or pass but rather as a count of each person who possesses the ball in the attacking third of the field. So, a pass from player A to player B, who then takes four dribbles and passes to player C is three touches, even though player B dribbled the ball four times.

The upshot of the reduction of touches per shot is that Orlando City is getting to its shots in a reduced number of possessors of the ball, meaning that there has been lower risk of a bad exchange since there have been fewer exchanges. This year’s team is generating shots from more dangerous locations (using expected goals) as well, and the Lions’ 13 goals scored in the first five games leads the league at this point of the season.

Looking at the final row in that table, there is also a big difference in the location of where the Lions are emanating their attacks from. The team is more frequently launching attacks down the right side, and that is where the comparison of Torres and Pašalić starts to come into play. It must also be noted that the primary right back in 2024 was Dagur Dan Thórhallsson, whereas in 2025 it has been future USMNT starter Alex Freeman (I crossed it out, but I do believe that Freeman is a serious candidate to play on the national team), and it is likely not coincidental that there have been more attacks down the right side with the direct playing style of the Pašalić-Freeman combination.

Torres also always made a point to play all across the attacking zone, often switching sides with Iván Angulo, whereas that has not been the case this season with Pašalić. I pulled the heatmaps (thank you very much, whoscored.com) for Pašalić and Torres from the same five-game periods from the table above, and you can see that in Torres’s heatmaps the blue shading goes all over the field, whereas for Pašalić he stays mostly to the right side (Orlando City is attacking from left to right on all of the heatmaps below).

These heatmaps and the following stats show some stark differences between the Croatian Designated Player and the Uruguayan former Designated Player in terms of how they play/played for Orlando City (all data is on a per-game basis):


Category
Pašalić:
2025 Regular Season
Torres:
Playoffs
Torres:
Last 5 games of
2024 Regular Season
Touches37.861.050.8
Take-Ons4.82.81.2
Passes Attempted23.252.043.4
Shots3.02.41.6
Shot-Creating Actions3.23.82.4
Progressive Passes Received5.69.88.0

Across nearly every metric there are big differences between the players, but in particular the ones that stand out to me are how much of the offense flowed through Torres last season and how the Lions looked for him to initiate as compared to how Pašalić appears to get his offense in the flow of play — at least through the first five games of this season. Pašalić also attacks more off the dribble than Torres did, as shown by his much higher rate of take-ons per game, and he is able to get shots off at a higher rate as well.

That leads me to the last comparison, which is not shown in the table above, but is the most critical category for any offensive player — goals scored. Orlando City has not yet played 15% of its 2025 MLS regular-season games, but Pašalić has scored four goals and assisted on another. With so many games still to play, we can extrapolate the numbers to see a pace of 27 goals scored and seven assists, but we can also consider that defenses will adjust over a long season and it is unlikely that the pace will remain the same for the next seven months.

Torres, sadly, is not on pace to score any more goals for the Lions, but he did score 37 MLS regular-season goals during his three seasons, including two seasons of 14 goals each, and he added 20 assists as well. His numbers are real, not theoretical or extrapolated, and while it is incredibly exciting to think about Orlando City’s offense and what it could be and what Pašalić could achieve, we are still only five games into the new season, so let’s keep our excitement from boiling over for at least another week.

Pašalić still has a way to go to show that he can consistently create goals the way that Torres did, but if you squint real hard, you can see that the potential is there for him to do so or perhaps even surpass his predecessor out on the right wing. He is playing with a different offensive style but going after the same result.

We will see.

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