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Orlando City vs. CF Montreal: Final Score 4-2 as 9-Man Lions Lose Second Straight

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4 years ago

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Orlando City went down a man and two goals but battled back to even the score before suffering a second straight loss — this time 4-2 to CF Montreal at Exploria Stadium. Nani hit the showers before halftime after picking up a pair of yellow cards and Andres Perea joined him in the dressing room during the second half with a straight red. Romell Quioto led Montreal (9-8-7, 34 points) with a goal and two assists while defenders Robin Jansson and Ruan provided the only offense for Orlando City (10-6-8, 38 points).

The Lions have conceded nine times in the last three matches but at least they didn’t score on themselves as they had in the previous two. It was just Orlando’s second home loss of the season and a disappointing performance in all phases almost from the opening whistle.

“First, I apologize (for) our performance to our fans,” Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja said after the match. “Not just because the game became messy with all these incidents and things, but because we’re much more than that. But at the end, you have a coach and you have a leader who takes the responsibilities on the way we line up, the way we choose to play the game, and our strategies, and all those things and today it didn’t work.”

Pedro Gallese returned to the starting lineup in goal for Orlando City behind a back line of Emmanuel Mas, Jansson, Antonio Carlos, and Ruan. Junior Urso returned from suspension to take his spot in central midfield beside Perea. Silvester van der Water and Mauricio Pereyra facilitated the attack to Nani and Daryl Dike.

Orlando City looked a bit out of sync to start the match and everything was just a little off. The Lions started several Montreal counters with poor passes and poor decisions with the ball and the one time they managed to put together a good attack early, the goal didn’t count. Van der Water got in behind and put the ball in the net in the seventh minute but he was flagged for a clear offside.

The first good look fell, literally, to Montreal. A cross from the right came to Jansson but he failed to clear it and only knocked it as far as Djordje Mihailovic, who fired a shot over the bar in the 11th minute. A minute later, Joaquin Torres fired just wide on a counter that was set up when Mas tried to flick a back pass to Pereyra in the attacking third but the ball got caught under his foot in the process and Montreal took it away.

In the 15th minute, Samuel Piette recycled a corner kick that Orlando cleared and sent a ball that Joel Waterman headed toward goal but Gallese was able to get over and save it.

Montreal broke the deadlock in the 18th minute after Perea turned it over. The visitors came forward and Ruan drifted too far inside. A quick pass outside and Quioto had plenty of space to send in a good cross. Montreal somehow had two runners — one on each side of Jansson, who was left to try to defend two men. The ball sailed over him to Mathieu Choiniere, who headed home.

Orlando tried to pull that goal back but lacked the quality and the creativity to do it. Nani sent in a cross for Urso but he was well covered and could only send a weak header toward goal. Moments later, Nani tried a shot from distance but it was always going over the bar.

The Lions got a set piece when Pereyra was fouled but it ended up doing more harm than good. Ruan played the free kick short to no one in particular and Nani raced forward to try to beat Torres to it and ended up fouling him and getting booked for it. That became a big booking shortly therafter. Nani coughed up the ball in the midfield for the second time in the game in the 35th minute and clipped Quioto from behind trying to stop the counter. Rubiel Vazquez showed him a second yellow and the Lions were forced to play at a manpower disadvantage for the rest of the match.

“Sometimes this happens,” Urso said of the sending off. “I know it’s hard to play with 10 players against 11. We have to be a team. Nani is our captain and he was sad and mad in the locker room, but we understand him and we are a team. We have to keep going. Nani has our respect (and) has our support.”

To make matters worse, Montreal scored right after the restart. Mihailovic played Quioto behind the defense and his shot hit off the far post and went in to make it 2-0 in the 37th minute.

Orlando managed to pull one back on a set piece. After Victor Wanyama fouled Dike from behind and was booked for it, Pereyra sent in a ball that fell to Wanyama to clear. The midfielder hit it only as far as Jansson near the top of the area and the Beefy Swede chipped in a shot toward the far post to make it 2-1 in the 40th minute.

Montreal out-shot the Lions in the opening half, 7-4, and got more on target (4-1). The visitors had more possession (57.2%-42.8%), more corners (4-0), and more accurate passing (92.5%-84.7%). The Orlando passing accuracy doesn’t look that bad as a statistic, but seemingly every wayward pass ignited some kind of Montreal transition.

Pareja subbed Benji Michel on for Chris Mueller to start the second half, which seemed odd because Mueller had replaced van der Water in the 41st minute. It turns out that both wingers picked up knocks in the match.

“When Chris came in for Silvester, Silvester was hurt,” Pareja said. “He asked for the substitution. And then when we came back to the locker room, Chris was hurt too. He got his ankle tweaked and then he couldn’t come out for the second half.”

The Lions had an excellent opportunity to tie it up in the 54th when Ruan got down the right flank and sent a ball toward the net that hit the goalkeeper and bounced straight to Dike. The big forward sent his shot over the gaping wide net.

Montreal seemed content to knock the ball around and keep possession, not attempting to get forward much. Orlando took advantage of that in the 63rd minute. Michel got down the left side and sent in a quick pass to Mas, who took an extra touch instead of shooting. Zachary Brault-Guillard swept in and knocked the ball off Mas and it bounced straight to Ruan in the middle. The right back fired immediately and scored his first career MLS goal, tying the game at 2-2.

CF Montreal was no longer content to just kick it around after the game was tied and started attacking again. Orlando managed to fight off the visitors for a while but only for about 10 minutes. Quioto got the ball on the right and sent a wicked low cross into the box. All substitute Lassi Lappalainen had to do was stick out a foot and redirect it to restore Montreal’s lead at 3-2 in the 73rd minute.

The visitors got an insurance goal off a corner in the 80th minute. Substitute Ibrahim Sunusi flicked home a near-post cross from Mihailovic to make it 4-2 and effectively end things.

Perea was sent off three minutes later trying to commit a tactical foul in transition. Rather than seeing yellow, Perea was shown a straight red by Vazquez for denial of a goal-scoring opportunity although the play was on Montreal’s attacking right and Carlos was charging down the center of the pitch. The center back appeared to be in position to potentially make a play, but Orlando finished out the match with just nine men.

Mihailovic sent the ensuing free kick just inches wide of the far post.

Michel had a final chance to pull one back for the Lions but hit a weak shot right at the goalkeeper from the left side in the 90th minute.

Montreal finished with more shots (15-7), shots on goal (7-3), corner kicks (9-0), and possession (59.7%-40.3%), and was the more accurate passing team (92.5%-84.8%).

“We can use it as an excuse of saying that we’re playing at first with 10 and nine and ejections and other things, but I didn’t like the way we were playing with 11 either,” Pareja said. “So, after that we played actually better. We cannot lose our mind. It’s something that’s happened to many teams in the league and this is our journey. We’re not we’re not going to lose our heads, for sure. We have to review and obviously try to see how can we find a way to be back (to) the team that we are. And definitely things need to be done and changes (need to be made). This needs to be evaluated for sure. It’s part of our job, and I take that responsibility.”

The Lions hit the road next for a pivotal Sunday afternoon match against the Philadelphia Union at 4 p.m.

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Orlando City

Orlando City Showing Signs of Adjusting to Eduard Atuesta’s Absence

The Lions have looked much better on offense the last two games, and there’s a couple of reasons why.

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21 hours ago

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May 16, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Much has been made of Orlando City’s difficulties in creating chances and scoring goals when Eduard Atuesta has been unavailable due to injury. It’s not hard to understand why either. The Colombian was unavailable for three of Orlando’s four scoreless draws this year, and he only played nine minutes as a substitute in the stalemate against the New York Red Bulls on April 12.

When he was healthy and got the start against Atlanta United two games later, the Lions won 3-0 and he created the most chances of anyone in the game with three. Orlando then promptly reverted to being offensively stunted in the following game against the Chicago Fire, and was only able to manage its fourth scoreless draw of the year, despite playing over a half the game with a man advantage.

There certainly seemed to be plenty of evidence pointing towards Atuesta being the missing cog in Orlando City’s offense. While he only has two assists in eight games, he does a ton of work in linking the defense to the attack and is great at finding attacking players in dangerous areas, as evidenced by his 17 key passes. In the 0-0 draws with the Philadelphia Union, CF Montreal, and the Fire, Orlando just didn’t look right without him, although the Red Bulls game was a much better performance that was ultimately derailed by Rodrigo Schlegel’s sending off.

While he hasn’t played in either of Orlando’s last two league matches, a 3-3 draw against the New England Revolution, and a 3-1 win against Charlotte FC, the offense clearly hasn’t had any problem creating chances. If anything, the Lions should have scored more goals if not for a couple instances of less-than-crisp finishing in each match.

So, why the sudden change?

Well for one thing, the Designated Players are firing on all cylinders again. Martin Ojeda scored a hat trick against New England, and he and Luis Muriel scored Orlando’s first two goals against Charlotte. Ojeda didn’t start either of the two games against Atlanta and Chicago because he was dealing with a minor injury, but now that it’s in the rearview mirror, he’s been a man possessed. Muriel probably should have had at least one goal of his own against the Revs but seemed oddly reluctant to shoot, although he still completed three dribbles and delivered three key passes. The Charlotte game was then his turn to come out of the gate swinging, as he narrowly had a goal ruled out for offside just two minutes in, before hammering a venomous shot from distance just six minutes later that gave Kristijan Kahlina all sorts of trouble and opened the scoring.

It isn’t just getting contributions from the big guns though, because we need to acknowledge the play of rookie Joran Gerbet in these last two games. He’s the man who’s been asked to fill in for Atuesta next to Cesar Araujo, and he’s getting more and more comfortable in that role. Against the Revs he had an interception, a key pass and an assist, and completed a long ball and a through ball while recording a passing accuracy of 86.5%. Against Charlotte, he recorded an interception, three clearances, a completed dribble, and two successful long balls, and he had an outstanding passing accuracy of 98%. They weren’t all simply backwards or sideways passes either. There were plenty of times when he progressed the ball upfield to an attacking player and helped keep the Lions moving forward, and that’s exactly what you want out of the guy playing that position.

He still has a way to go before reaching Atuesta’s level, but that’s to be expected for a guy that’s playing the first professional season of his career. What’s most important is that he’s getting more comfortable, contributing, and proving that he can be a legitimate option to rotate into the starting XI when Atuesta is unavailable or when fixture congestion dictates changes to the lineup.

It’s worth mentioning the caveat that the last two games haven’t been against the strongest opposition the league has to offer. The Revs were on a four-game winning streak before playing Orlando, but three of those four wins were against weak or shaky teams in Atlanta, Toronto FC, and Charlotte, while the fourth team (NYCFC) has been difficult to get a read on. I’m not saying the Revs are a paper tiger, but it’s tough to know how good they really are despite a good run of recent form. Then you have Charlotte, which was above the playoff line but also on a three-game losing streak coming into the match that has now been convincingly extended to four.

At the end of the day, you can only beat who’s in front of you, but I’d encourage us all to not get too carried away until we see the same results against sterner opposition. For better or worse, that’s exactly what we’ll get in the Lions’ next three matches, which will be against a capable, albeit flawed, Inter Miami side on the road, at home in the U.S. Open Cup against a Nashville SC team that’s fourth in the East, and at home against the Portland Timbers, who are currently fourth in the West.

Ultimately, we can only judge this team on what we’ve seen from it, and over the last two games we’ve seen a side that’s had no trouble creating chances. Despite the continued absence of the important Atuesta, the Lions are adjusting thanks to contributions from their heavy hitters and the improving play of the rookie Gerbet. Only time will tell if those improvements are sustainable, but for now its a hell of a lot of fun to enjoy.

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Lion Links: 5/16/25

Orlando City players make MLS Team of the Matchday, Luis Muriel focused, Orlando Pride plays tonight, and more.

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1 day ago

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May 16, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC

Happy Friday! I’ve had a pretty good week so far and am looking forward to three straight days of Orlando soccer. The Orlando Pride will get us started tonight and then we have Orlando City B on Saturday before Orlando City plays on Sunday. It should be a fun next few days, and hopefully one filled with celebrations too. Let’s dive into today’s links!

Lions Make MLS Team of the Matchday

There’s plenty of purple in the latest MLS Team of the Matchday following Orlando City’s 3-1 win over Charlotte FC. Martin Ojeda and David Brekalo were both selected, while Oscar Pareja was chosen as the top coach from the midweek slate. Ojeda’s strike in the first half is also up for Goal of the Matchday as his strong run of form continues. The only outfield player on this Team of the Matchday that didn’t score is Brekalo, who had two assists, so it’s nice to see him receive deserved recognition for an excellent performance that included a great setup on Orlando’s third goal. Pareja has the Lions on an 11-game unbeaten streak across all competitions and is managing things well so far during this busy May.

Luis Muriel Staying Focused in Sophomore Season

With five goals so far this season, Orlando City forward Luis Muriel has already mirrored his scoring total from all of last season. Staying mentally prepared has been key for the 34-year-old in his second year with Orlando, and he spoke about what’s changed for him after not quite reaching expectations in his first year.

“Coming to a league like this isn’t easy. A lot of times from the outside, you aren’t able to measure up or really see what the league is. Sometimes you can underestimate things, thinking it’s easy,” Muriel said. “That leads you to take things on in a different way, the work, the matches.

“When you go into ‘MLS Mode’ you realize how good the league is, how competitive it is, how demanding the league is to be able to do things well. That’s when things start to flow, to go well. I think that’s the difference between this year and last.”

He’s finding his footing in the league now and was a force to be reckoned with against Charlotte on Wednesday. Muriel is aware that the Lions will need him to be at his best when they travel to take on Inter Miami on Sunday for an important rivalry clash.

Diving Into Justin Ellis’s Ascent

Victor Olorunfemi of Top Drawer Soccer gave a great profile on Orlando City B forward Justin Ellis and his growth with the club. Ellis, who just celebrated his 18th birthday on Wednesday with his MLS debut, is having a great year after a solid season with OCB last year. The high school senior was the top scorer at this year’s Generation Adidas Cup with six goals to help Orlando’s U-18 team win the tournament. He can create chances just as well as he can convert them and is quick to give credit to the coaches and staff that have helped him develop. The U.S. youth pool is deep, but Ellis could be a name to keep an eye out for ahead of the U-20 World Cup in September.

Orlando Pride Match Headlines NWSL Weekend

The Orlando Pride’s match tonight against the Kansas City Current is the premier matchup this week in the NWSL. While I wouldn’t call it a rivalry just yet, these two teams had great games last year. The Current are still out for revenge after Orlando beat them while shorthanded last summer and won again in the NWSL playoffs in Orlando before winning the NWSL Championship in Kansas City. First place in the league is on the line and it should be a thrilling match featuring the league’s top two defenses and attacking threats like Barbra Banda, Temwa Chawinga, Marta, and Debinha.

NWSL Contenders and Underperformers

We’re about a third of the way into the NWSL season and ESPN‘s Jeff Kassouf dove into how each team is meeting its expectations so far. Despite their stumbles in recent weeks, the Pride are near the top of the table and have plenty of time to get things firing on all cylinders. Two of the California teams are enjoying surprising success so far, with the San Diego Wave up in fourth while Angel City FC is in fifth and could become a real contender once Alexander Straus takes over as head coach. NJ/NY Gotham FC and the North Carolina Courage are sleeping giants of sorts, so it will be interesting to see when they start climbing up the table.

Free Kicks

  • You’ll need a paid subscription for the full details, but Orlando City right back Alex Freeman continues to impress this season. Freeman is finding success in a way different from his father Antonio Freeman, who led the NFL in receiving yards for the Green Bay Packers in 1998.
  • This year’s MLS pre-match jerseys to celebrate Pride month are out and they’re a vibrant and funky design.

Love lifts us up 💜The new 2025 Pride Pre-Match Jerseys are here!🛒 orlsoccer.co/fbpri

— Orlando City SC (@orlandocitysc.com) 2025-05-15T18:56:08.764Z
  • Esther Gonzalez leads the NWSL with seven goals this season and has agreed to a contract extension with Gotham FC that will last through 2027.
  • FIFA representatives, including FA Chair Debbie Hewitt and UEFA President Alexander Ceferin, walked out of FIFA’s annual congress in protest of FIFA President Gianni Infantino arriving three hours late. Infantino has spent this week in the Middle East visiting leaders in Saudi Arabia and Qatar with Donald Trump.
  • FC Barcelona officially won this year’s La Liga title after a 2-0 win over Espanyol. Phenom Lamine Yamal scored a sensational goal in the match, which is fitting considering how crucial he was to Barcelona winning the league this year.
  • Predictable names like Luis Enrique and Antonio Conte are on the list of top European coaches this year, but this article also shines a light on coaches who navigated tough waters in small boats. Alexander Blessin has St. Pauli on the verge of survival in the Bundesliga and Filippo Inzaghi improved Pisa by 30 points in Serie B to secure promotion.

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend!

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Orlando City

Orlando City vs. Inter Miami: Three Keys to Victory

What do the Lions need to do to secure a victory in Sunday’s edition of Tropic Thunder?

Published

2 days ago

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May 15, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City / Mark Thor

The first Tropic Thunder match of the season is here. As I recently said on The Mane Land PawedCast, I am both looking forward to and dreading this match. I think that is an appropriate feeling. Orlando City is in the midst of a congested May schedule, but every match matters.

Inter Miami tops my list of hated teams at this point. As such, I very much want the Lions to win and for Florida to be purple. What does Orlando City need to do to earn all three points on the road against their in-state rivals?

Pocket Messi

Orlando City must keep Lionel Messi from having too big of an impact on the match. There are plenty of other players that the defense will need to worry about, and I’ll get to them. What I’m looking for is a frustrated Messi — Messi that feels he should be getting calls on the lightest of touches but is not.

The pair of players that I’m expecting to keep an eye on Messi are Cesar Araujo and Rodrigo Schlegel. The lion’s share of that burden will fall to Araujo. I want him to be hounding Messi every time he gets the ball. If Messi is able to get past Araujo, I want Schlegel to be right in his face. We’re all sick of MLS and Apple TV putting his smug mug in our faces at every opportunity. It’s time for two of Orlando’s defenders to take the shine off of Messi.

Deal with the Rest

Assuming Araujo can limit Messi, Orlando City still has to deal with Miami’s talented attacking players not named Messi. Miami and Orlando entered Wednesday night’s game with the same number of goals scored (21) and allowed (15) this season, although the Herons conceded more at San Jose (3) than the Lions (1) did at home against Charlotte. Each scored three times on Wednesday. However, the memory of the last time the Lions faced Miami at Chase Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale is a 5-0 loss. That isn’t something we want to see again.

Theoretically, no match is more important than another, although an argument could be made that Tropic Thunder is no mere match. I fully expect a starting back line of Alex Freeman, Schlegel, Robin Jansson, and David Brekalo in front of Pedro Gallese to stop Miami’s attack. A clean sheet is the objective.

Alex vs. Alba

As you can tell, this is a very defensive heavy Three Keys, but given what happened in this fixture last year, I don’t think it’s out of line. Alex Freeman has been good this season. He has secured the starting spot at right back and seems unlikely to give it back. One of the things he is good at is getting into the attack with Marco Pasalic. That isn’t what I’m looking for from him this weekend.

Miami’s Jordi Alba is a dangerous player that Freeman will be expected to help contain. Alba has five assists, seven successful crosses, and 13 key passes so far this season. If Freeman is still getting up the pitch to assist in the attack, he will need to make sure he isn’t allowing Alba free rein to get behind him and serve as a provider in Orlando’s half of the field.

That is what I will be looking for Sunday night. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Vamos Orlando!

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