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Orlando City vs. Chicago Fire: Final Score 3-1 as Lions Lose Second Straight Game

Lions were wasteful in front of goal and two defensive lapses and a late transition goal undo what could have been a solid road performance.

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5 years ago

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Orlando City scored first but conceded once in first-half stoppage time and twice in the second half to fall 3-1 at Soldier Field. The Lions (6-3-3, 21 points) will rue missing on the scoring chances they created, which should have been sufficient to build a good lead on the road, but instead they’ll come home with no points as Chicago (3-7-2, 11 points) won consecutive matches for the first time this season.

Andres Perea opened the scoring to put the Lions on the front foot, but poor marking let Boris Sekulic tie it at the death of the first half. A bad defensive lapse allowed Robert Beric to put Chicago ahead in the second half, and Chinonso Offor scored an insurance tally late in stoppage time.

“Sad at the result, but happy to see all the good things that the boys did in the game,” Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja said after the game. “I have to say that the boys fought for the game all the time and we couldn’t just put the ball in the back of the net today.”

Pareja rotated his lineup heavily in the midfield and forward lines but couldn’t do much at the back. Brandon Austin started again in place of Pedro Gallese behind a back line of the only four healthy defenders on the team: Kyle Smith, Robin Jansson, Rodrigo Schlegel, and Michael Halliday. Uri Rosell got his first start in central midfield, alongside Junior Urso, with Perea and Silvester van der Water shuttling the ball forward into the attack, featuring Tesho Akindele and Benji Michel up top.

The first good look of the match went to Chicago out of nowhere. Przemyslaw Frankowski got his head onto a long ball in the box and headed just over the bar and onto the roof of the net in the fifth minute.

The Lions got their first shot on a Michel header off a free kick service from van der Water, but his effort was hit weakly into the turf in front of Bobby Shuttleworth for an easy save. In the 17th minute, Urso headed on goal off a corner kick but Shuttleworth fought it off. Michel followed and saw his shot cleared off the line. Perea sent van der Water into the area in the 21st minute but the Dutchman hit his right-footed effort at Shuttleworth.

The Lions did a good job deflecting Chicago shots, including a potentially dangerous one by Beric in the 28th minute.

Orlando got forward off a cleared corner kick in the 30th minute and Michel ended up with the ball, making a nice move around a defender, but another deflected his shot out for a corner. On the ensuing set piece, Schlegel nodded it weakly at Shuttleworth.

The breakthrough came in the 34th minute when Halliday got down the right flank and sent a cross into the area. A defender got a touch on it but couldn’t prevent it from reaching Perea, who smashed it up under the bar for his first MLS goal to make it 1-0.

“I’m really happy for my first goal with Orlando City,” Perea said, but added that the result kind of took the shine off of it. “Everybody’s sad because we had the chances to score in the first half, and maybe in the beginning of the second half.”

Most of the remainder of the half was played in the middle of the pitch until Chicago earned a couple of late corners. Orlando dealt with them but then switched off at the worst possible moment.

At the death of the first half, Smith strayed too far from Sekulic and Alvaro Medran made him pay for it. Urso was a step slow in closing down Chicago’s playmaker, who sent an inch-perfect cross over Smith that Sekulic nodded back across goal over Austin and in to tie the match in stoppage time. It was essentially the last action of the half and the teams went to the locker room even at 1-1.

“It was tough to struggle for sure, because you have the game in control at that point and the half was about to end,” Pareja said about the late first-half goal. “And the lack of concentration that we had in that moment cost us the equalizer. So we just come into the half with that frustration. Obviously it was difficult. We have to be better.”

Orlando out-shot Chicago 8-7 in the first half (6-1 on target). Chicago led in corners (5-2), possession (52.4%-47.6%), and passing accuracy (79.5%-73.8%).

Michel should have restored the Orlando lead in the 47th minute. A nice passing play led to van der Water finding him on the left. Benji was alone against the goalkeeper but fired his shot right at Shuttleworth.

Chicago nearly took the lead in the 55th minute when Halliday blocked a pass but it bounced right back to a Fire player who then fed it across the goal for Beric to finish, but the flag was rightfully up. The Chicago striker was a step offside.

Van der Water got his head to a backside cross in the 58th and headed it softly back across goal where it bounced twice in lots of space before Chicago recovered it. No Lions were crashing that side of the goal and the Dutchman was visibly upset when he saw that. Three minutes later, van der Water got to the end line first and kicked a high ball back into the area. Akindele got to it but headed it right at the goalkeeper on another wasted chance.

Michel freed himself for a shot in the 63rd minute and looked as if he’d finally score, but his shot hit the heel of a lunging Fire defender and deflected just over the bar. The Orlando Homegrown showed his frustration after the shot went harmlessly out of play.

At this point in the game, van der Water and Rosell especially looked winded and in need of a sub, but Pareja held his changes. That turned out to be costly.

Beric fired over the bar in the 71st after two Lion defenders prevented each other from clearing a corner kick delivery. The Fire forward got his goal a minute later, though. Medran fed a simple ball straight up the middle that hit him in stride. Smith kept Beric onside on the run and Jansson couldn’t get a foot on the ball to redirect the pass. Beric finished past Austin and gave Chicago a 2-1 lead in the 72nd minute.

Pareja brought on Nani, Mauricio Pereyra, and Sebas Mendez in the 76th minute, but at that point the Lions were chasing the game. Pareja waited three additional minutes to send Chris Mueller — the team’s hottest player entering the match — into the game.

Urso went for the spectacular in the 86th and damn near got it. The Bear went up and smashed a bicycle kick on target but Shuttleworth was there to make the save. Two minutes later, Mueller sent a dangerous cross through the six-yard box but none of the three Lions crashing could give it the touch it needed to get in.

Smith had a good look in the 94th minute but his shot sailed over the bar. Two minutes later, the Fire put it away. Smith’s cross into the box was too low and easily cut out and the Fire countered. Mendez was unable to commit the necessary professional foul to prevent the break, and the hosts headed down field with numbers in behind the Orlando defense, which was pushed up to chase the tying goal. Offor finished the play and made it 3-1.

“You know, I think we had a lot of opportunities and then just maybe lost focus a couple times in the back,” Smith said. “And at the end of the game we were pushing forward. They got another goal, a little disappointed. But yeah, we just have to move on to the next game and get a good week of training in and get back on the winning streak.”

Orlando City finished with more shots (19-13), more shots on goal (9-4), more possession (53.1%-46.9%), and greater passing accuracy (79.1%-79%). Chicago held a slight edge in corners won (9-8).

“We have to keep going because there’s more than 20 games left,” Pareja said. “Our objectives (don’t) change and our vision and desire is going to be the same.”

“It’s a game that, it’s just gonna make us better,” Perea said. “We’re gonna keep our feet on the ground, keep developing the team, (and) keep learning from this.”

The Lions now get a bit of time to rest and heal up with the next game set for July 17 against Toronto. At this point in time, that’s another “road match” at Exploria Stadium.

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Flashback Friday: June 10, 2023 vs. Colorado Rapids

Let’s take a trip down memory lane to a booking-laden match at home that took place a little less than three years ago.

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5 hours ago

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June 12, 2026

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Dan MacDonald, The Mane Land

The World Cup is now officially underway, and while that means Orlando City is on break, we can’t have you forgetting about the Lions while all the international action is taking place. That means its time for another edition of Flashback Friday, where we hop in the trusty time machine and reminisce on OCSC matches of yesteryear.

Last week we relived a rousing road win over the New York Red Bulls from June, 3 2023, and this week, we actually pick up right where we left off, on June 10, 2023 as the Lions returned home to take on the Colorado Rapids.

Coming off a 3-0 win over the Red Bulls in the previous match, Oscar Pareja decided to not mess with a good thing, and kept Orlando City’s same starting XI from that victory. Pedro Gallese was in net behind a back line of Rafael Santos, Robin Jansson, Antonio Carlos, and Kyle Smith. Wilder Cartagena and Cesar Araujo played the double pivot; Ivan Angulo, Mauricio Pereyra, and Facundo Torres were the attacking midfielders, and Ercan Kara was deployed as the striker.

In typical June fashion for the City Beautiful, kickoff was delayed by just under an hour as the stadium was pounded by storms, and the delay did not look to have done any favors for Orlando’s sharpness. That said, OCSC did win a corner kick less than a minute into the game, and Torres had a tame shot saved in the eighth minute, but the Lions weren’t consistently sharp with their passing in the early moments of the contest.

The teams traded chances just before the 15-minute mark, with Kara sending a header too high before Cole Bassett sent a shot straight to Gallese. Carlos then picked up a yellow card in the 24th minute, which evened things out between the two teams after Lalas Abubakar was cautioned for the Rapids after just six minutes. Those two bookings proved to be a harbinger of things to come, because Colorado went down to 10 men in the 39th minute after midfielder Braian Galvan caught Angulo with a high boot while his studs were showing.

Pereyra had Orlando’s best chance of the opening 45 minutes in stoppage time but could only send his effort right at goalkeeper Marko Ilic, and that was the last significant action of the half. The Lions ended the half with an edge in possession (59.7%-40.3%), shots (7-2), shots on target (2-1), and passing accuracy (85.3%-79.4%), while both teams won two corners.

Pareja made two moves at halftime, bringing on Rodrigo Schlegel for the once-booked Carlos, and Martin Ojeda for Cartagena in an effort to go more offensive against a shorthanded Rapids side. The Lions certainly looked brighter going forward as the second half got underway and had a few dangerous moments before finally breaking the deadlock in the 55th minute.

Pereyra played a ball across the top of the box for Torres, who took a couple of touches before sending a ball to the net that took a wicked deflection off Andreas Maxsø that carried it past Ilic.

It wasn’t the prettiest goal the Lions have ever scored, but for a team that was guilty at times of passing up good shots in favor of the perfect look at goal, it was proof that sometimes you just need to take shots in dangerous areas.

Fortunately, Orlando seemed to take that lesson to heart. Kara went close in the 65th minute despite shooting through traffic, Angulo had a shot deflected by Abubakar three minutes later, and Torres had another deflected effort go just wide of the post four minutes after that.

The game changed again in the 75th minute, when the Rapids had another player sent off. Abubakar lasted for 69 minutes on a yellow card but got burned by Angulo in midfield and hauled him down in order to prevent the Lions from potentially working a transition opportunity. He had some teammates behind him, but the referee showed him a second yellow card. Pareja smelled blood in the water and just three minutes later he brought on Ramiro Enrique for Smith, who had been given a yellow card in the 52nd minute.

Ilic made a great save on Pereyra in the 81st minute to keep the score at 1-0 and keep the Rapids in the game, but Orlando got its second goal just two minutes later. Torres had the ball on the right side of the box with a Colorado player backing off him, and that gave him ample time to get his head up and pick out a man. He played a ball to Enrique at the top of the box, who had plenty of time to take a couple of touches and send a low shot into the bottom corner past a diving Ilic for his first goal as an Orlando City player.

Somewhat surprisingly, the game started to get a little stretched after the Lions doubled their advantage. Colorado had a shot blocked in the 81st minute, Kara sent a shot very close to the post six minutes after that, and Gallese saved a Darren Yapi attempt in the 88th minute to keep his clean sheet alive. Aside from Pareja handing Alejandro Granados his MLS debut, that was the last significant action of the match, which finished 2-0 to the good guys.

Unsurprisingly, considering Colorado’s deficit in players, the Lions dominated all of the game’s most important statistics. OCSC finished with the advantage in possession (65%-35%), shots (15-4), shots on goal (6-2), corners (5-3), and passing accuracy (89.4%-81.5%).

The victory made it back-to-back wins for the first time in 2023, stretched Orlando’s unbeaten run to six, and gave El Pulpo his 100th clean sheet for the team in all competitions.

Marcus Mitchell had the helm for Player Grades in this one, and Torres got his nod for Man of the Match with a goal, an assist, and a grade of 7.5 out of 10. Several other Lions graded out at 7 out of 10, with only one player grading below a 6.

While it was a weird win, it unfortunately was the final game of the unbeaten streak, as the Lions fell to a familiar defeat at Gillette Stadium the following week, although things got back on track soon afterward. I’ll see you back here in a week for another trip down memory lane. Vamos Orlando!

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Lion Links: 6/12/26

USMNT plays Paraguay tonight, red cards rain down in World Cup opener, Sporting Kansas City linked with Yann Gboho, and more.

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9 hours ago

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June 12, 2026

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Image of Alex Freeman sliding in celebration of a goal.
Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Happy Friday, Mane Landers! The World Cup is in full swing and the U.S. will play today, so it’s a pretty exciting Friday to say the least. I’m a bit of a bundle of nerves about how the team will do, but I’m still looking forward to catching the game. If you have any gameday rituals, be sure to share, so that we can conjure up enough luck and support for the team tonight. Let’s get to the links!

USMNT’s World Cup Campaign Begins Today

The United States Men’s National Team will take on Paraguay at 9 p.m. tonight in its first match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. There’s plenty of pressure on the U.S. to perform well as one of the host nations, and this will also be Head Coach Mauricio Pochettino’s first time coaching at a World Cup. Pochettino stated that all 26 players are available for selection, including center back Chris Richards, although he may not necessarily start. Former Orlando City defender Alex Freeman, who is the youngest player on the U.S. roster, could make his World Cup debut tonight, so be sure to root for our hometown hero should he take the field. Hopefully, the Yanks can start this tournament off on the right foot with a big win in California.

World Cup Opener Features Three Red Cards

This year’s World Cup began in Mexico City, with Mexico beating South Africa 2-0 in a match that included three red cards. All three were straight red cards given in the second half in separate incidents, as Sphephelo Sithole and Themba Zwane were sent off for South Africa before Mexico’s Cesar Montes was shown red in stoppage time. There hasn’t been a World Cup match with that many red cards since the record of four was set in 2006 in a match between Portugal and the Netherlands. As for the game’s goals, Julian Quinones pounced on a mistake by South Africa to give Mexico an early lead and Raul Jimenez doubled that lead while South Africa was reduced to 10 men.

Sporting Kansas City Linked With Yann Gboho

While the World Cup roars on, the rumor mill is in full force as clubs make plans for summer reinforcements. Sporting Kansas City is reportedly pushing to sign Toulouse winger Yann Gboho, who recorded 10 goals and three assists across all competitions this past season. The surprising aspect of this pursuit would be that Toulouse values Gboho at an eye-watering $20 million transfer fee, which would be a club record by a country mile. Kansas City needs all the help it can get on offense, as it has scored just 14 goals in 14 games so far this season.

Jose Mourinho Officially Returns to Real Madrid

It’s been a bit of an open secret over the past few weeks that Jose Mourinho would become Real Madrid’s next manager and it’s now official, with the 63-year-old signing a three-year contract with the Spanish club. Mourinho helped Real Madrid win a La Liga title and the Copa del Rey over a decade ago before his departure in 2013 after three seasons with the club. Now, he joins a Real Madrid side that has finished second in the league standings and been eliminated in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League the past two seasons. I, for one, can’t wait to see how one of the biggest personalities in soccer works alongside a locker room of star players that seemed in disarray this past season.

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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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Lion Links: 6/11/26

Wilder Cartagena linked with move to Sporting Cristal, Orlando Pride hire Dr. Nicole Surdyka, Barbra Banda injury update, and more.

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1 day ago

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June 11, 2026

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Jermey Reper

The World Cup is finally here! Today starts what should be an exciting month of international soccer featuring more teams than ever before. While I wasn’t able to part with the arm and leg necessary to afford a ticket to one of the games, I’m still looking forward to watching along when I can with the rest of the world. Let’s get to the links!

Wilder Cartagena Linked With Move to Peruvian Club

You’ll need a translation tool to check out the full details unless you are fluent in Spanish, but Sporting Cristal of Peru’s top flight is reportedly interested in signing Orlando City midfielder Wilder Cartagena. The 31-year-old is currently under contract with Orlando through 2026, with the contact also including a club option for 2027. He was a crucial part to Orlando’s success in 2024, but he missed all of last year and has only started one game so far this season due to injuries. It’s not much more than a rumor as of now, but it’ll be something to keep an eye on during this break in the league schedule.

Barbra Banda Sustained a Hamstring Injury

Zambia Head Coach Nora Hauptle stated that Orlando Pride forward Barbra Banda is dealing with a hamstring strain. Banda didn’t play in either of Zambia’s matches during this international break, but Hauptle also noted that she should recover in the next week or two and will be fine for the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations at the end of July. Banda was injured late in the Pride’s 3-1 win against Bay FC on May 29 and it was unclear how severe the injury was. Hopefully she’ll be good to go before the Pride’s match against Angel City FC on July 3.

Dr. Nicole Surdyka Named Orlando Pride Director of Medical & Performance

The Orlando Pride have hired Dr. Nicole Surdyka as their new director of medical and performance. She’ll oversee the Pride’s medical operations, nutrition, and more while also working with Orlando Health. Dr. Surdyka has over a decade of experience that included leadership roles with OL Reign and the LA Galaxy and has studied extensively into developing frameworks for health and performance in women’s soccer.

“Nicole is one of the most respected practitioners in our field, and her expertise in women’s football, return‑to‑play, and high‑performance systems will elevate every aspect of our medical and performance environment,” said Caitlin Carducci, Orlando Pride VP of Soccer Operations & General Manager. “Her leadership, her commitment to evidence‑based practice and her passion for supporting athletes make her an exceptional addition to the Pride.”

Analyzing Paraguay Ahead of USMNT World Cup Match

The United States Men’s National Team will play its World Cup opener on Friday when it hosts Paraguay at SoFi Stadium. It will be the 10th match between the two nations, with the USMNT most recently winning 2-1 against Paraguay in November of last year. There’s a familiar face on Paraguay’s roster in Orlando City midfielder Braian Ojeda, with Miguel Almiron and Andres Cubas as other MLS midfielders called up. Paraguay’s defense is anchored by center back Gustavo Gomez, who you may remember as the player who put former Lion Alex Freeman in a headlock during that aforementioned November friendly. As for Paraguay’s attack, the Yanks will need to keep Julio Enciso and Antonio Sanabria from wreaking havoc. Paraguay is a physical team that’s also strong in the air, so we’ll see how the USMNT deals with that on Friday.

England Beats Costa Rica 3-0 at Inter&Co Stadium

Orlando City’s Inter&Co Stadium hosted a friendly between England and Costa Rica on Wednesday, with England winning 3-0. Declan Rice gave England an early lead, but Costa Rica kept the Three Lions off the scoresheet until the substitutes came on for England in the second half, with Anthony Gordon and Ollie Watkins both scoring. England got the full Orlando experience due to a heavy storm that delayed kickoff, but Inter&Co Stadium earned praise for its drainage system that had the pitch ready to roll in no time. Enjoy this satisfying time-lapse video of the transformation provided by the stadium.

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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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