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Orlando City vs. Inter Miami: Preview, How to Watch, TV Info, Live Stream, Lineups, Match Thread, and More

The Lions meet the Herons in the first Tropic Thunder battle of 2024.

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Dan MacDonald, The Mane Land

Welcome to your match thread for a Saturday afternoon Tropic Thunder matchup between Orlando City and the team’s Publix Enemies, Inter Miami CF at Chase Stadium (4:30 p.m., FOX, MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+). It’s the first of two scheduled meetings between the sides this season with the return leg in Orlando set for Wednesday, May 15. It is the only scheduled meeting in Fort Lauderdale.

Here’s what you need to know ahead of the match.

History

Orlando City is 5-4-4 in the series in all competitions, 2-3-0 on the road in the MLS regular season, and 2-4-0 away in all competitions. The most recent meeting resulted in a 1-1 draw in Orlando on Sept. 24, 2023. Duncan McGuire brought Orlando back from a 1-0 deficit after David Ruiz had given the Herons a 1-0 lead early in the second half.

The most recent meeting in South Florida took place on Aug. 2 of last year in Leagues Cup action. The Herons were fortunate to not see Lionel Messi sent off with a second yellow late in the first half and even more fortunate to get a soft penalty call on Antonio Carlos as they won, 3-1. Messi opened the scoring after being ignored in the box early. Cesar Araujo made up for his uncharacteristic defensive lapse by scoring 10 minutes later. Josef Martinez put Miami back on top with the Downy-soft penalty just after halftime and Messi sunk in the dagger in the final 20 minutes.

The teams also met in Fort Lauderdale in MLS play on May 20, 2023, with Orlando City winning, 3-1. Ercan Kara’s early goal was canceled out by Leonardo Campana shortly before the hour mark, but Martin Ojeda and Rafael Santos found the net in the second half to power the Lions.

Inter Miami won at home, 4-1, on Oct. 5, 2022. Campana scored in the game’s first minute and Orlando City never settled in. Gonzalo Higuain added two goals — one from the spot — and Ariel Lassiter also scored before Kara pulled one back to spoil the shutout.

The first regular-season meeting of 2022 resulted in a 1-0 Orlando City win at Exploria Stadium on July 9, as a stoppage-time own goal by Damion Lowe was the difference between the Lions earning just one point or all three. The ball was sent into the box by Jake Mulraney.

The teams also met at Exploria Stadium on May 25, 2022 in U.S. Open Cup action, with the two sides needing extra time after a scoreless 90 minutes. In extra time, Miami got a goal from Jean Mota against the run of play, but Facundo Torres quickly equalized for Orlando. The match ended 1-1 and Orlando won the ensuing penalty shootout, 4-2. Bryce Duke was denied by Mason Stajduhar and DeAndre Yedlin missed the net during the spot kicks, while all four Orlando shooters scored.

The intrastate rivals played to a scoreless draw in Orlando on Aug. 27, 2021. Tesho Akindele missed a penalty in the match, but the Lions had several other good opportunities to score (but didn’t) in a wasteful performance. Orlando and Miami battled to a 1-1 draw at Exploria Stadium on Aug. 4, 2021. Carlos scored in first-half stoppage time but was knocked into concussion protocol on the play by Kelvin Leerdam. Kieran Gibbs equalized in the 66th minute on a header in front of a less-than-attentive Ruan. Akindele had a goal called back after video review for being offside and the teams split the points. Earlier in the season, the Lions came from behind in Fort Lauderdale to win 2-1 on a pair of brilliant goals by Chris Mueller and Nani on June 25, 2021.

In the final meeting of 2020, the Lions saw their 12-match unbeaten streak end on Oct. 24 in a 2-1 road loss in Fort Lauderdale. Miami defender Leandro Gonzalez Pirez’s header in the 89th minute was the difference after a Daryl Dike goal and an own goal off Robin Jansson saw the game tied up at halftime. The teams met in Orlando on Sept. 12, 2020 with Orlando battling to a 2-1 win on Mauricio Pereyra’s goal. The Lions had taken the lead on an own goal by Andres Reyes. Former Lion Brek Shea tied things up in the 65th, before Pereyra answered with a nice goal off the left post in the 69th minute.

The first meeting in Fort Lauderdale opened Phase 1 of Major League Soccer’s return to regular-season play after the MLS is Back Tournament. That one was an uncharacteristically sloppy match for the Lions, who fell 3-2 in Inter Miami’s first-ever home match. It was Miami’s first franchise win after an 0-5-0 start. Orlando trailed by more than one goal for the first time all season in that game. Dike and Nani provided the offense for Orlando, but Julian Carranza’s brace and Rodolfo Pizarro’s insurance goal were enough to lift the Herons.

The first Tropic Thunder match went Orlando City’s way, with Nani scoring late to lift the Lions to a 2-1 win over the upstarts from South Florida in the opening match of the MLS is Back Tournament. Despite it being a tournament match, it was also a league game. Juan Agudelo opened the scoring for the Herons, but Mueller equalized, setting the stage for Nani’s 97th-minute winner.

Overview

The Lions are coming off a 3-1 win over Canadian Premier League side Cavalry FC Tuesday. That victory gave Orlando City a 6-1 aggregate score across two legs and the Lions advanced to the Round of 16 in Concacaf Champions Cup. Despite heavy rotation, Orlando got goals from Nico Lodeiro, Ramiro Enrique, and Kyle Smith to advance.

Orlando City last played in a regular-season match a week ago at home against CF Montreal, drawing 0-0. Tonight’s match represents Orlando’s first road game of the 2024 MLS season.

Inter Miami is coming off a 1-1 draw on the road against the LA Galaxy last Sunday. The Herons (stop me if you’ve heard this before) got an enormous break when Mark Delgado was sent off with a second yellow in the 87th minute. Messi scored five minutes later against the shorthanded Galaxy and Miami claimed a point. Delgado’s second yellow was, of course, overturned unanimously by the MLS Disciplinary Committee, but the damage has been done.

The Herons are 1-0-0 at home, having dispatched Real Salt Lake 2-0 in Inter Miami’s home opener Feb. 21.

Miami is one of the favorites in 2024 and is playing confidently under Gerardo Martino and is one of the league’s heavy favorites to win MLS Cup. The Lions must do what they can to limit Messi’s involvement as much as possible. Miami’s attack is formidable enough that it helps the team’s defense, as it is often difficult to dispossess the Herons and maintain extended spells of possession long enough to get at Inter Miami’s back line. That’s exactly what the Lions love to do, so today’s match will be an interesting battle of wills.

It’s a rivalry game, so anything can happen. History suggests it’ll be tight.

“We’re very optimistic after advancing in the Champions Cup and in the performance that we had (at home) in the opener,” Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja said. “We’re very confident to keep going in this journey. I know we’ll be busy in the next few weeks, but the boys are ready. We’re ready to compete. Now, we’re refocusing on going to Miami, the first time against our rival and getting a result there. Then we’ll think about the game on Tuesday (against Tigres), but first is focusing on our next rival. We already have our feedback, already have our reviews in, but now we’re ready.”

The Lions don’t have any players listed on the team’s availabilitly report. Miami will be without Benjamin Cremaschi (sports hernia), Facundo Farias (knee), Ian Fray (knee), Franco Negri (knee), and Robbie Robinson (medical evaluation), while Ryan Sailor (oblique) is questionable.

Match Content


Official Lineups:

Orlando City (4-2-3-1)

Goalkeeper: Pedro Gallese.

Defenders: Rafael Santos, Robin Jansson, Rodrigo Schlegel, Dagur Dan Thorhallsson.

Defensive Midfielders: Cesar Araujo, Wilder Cartagena.

Attacking Midfielders: Ivan Angulo, Martin Ojeda, Facundo Torres.

Forward: Duncan McGuire.

Bench: Mason Stajduhar, Kyle Smith, Michael Halliday, David Brekalo, Felipe, Jeorgio Kocevski, Nico Lodeiro, Ramiro Enrique, Luis Muriel.

Inter Miami (4-3-3)

Goalkeeper: Drake Callender.

Defenders: Jordi Alba, Tomas Aviles, Nicolas Freire, DeAndre Yedlin.

Midfielders: Diego Gomez, Sergio Busquets, Julian Gressel.

Forwards: Robert Taylor, Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi.

Bench: CJ dos Santos, Ryan Sailor, Sergii Kryvtsov, Shanyder Borgelin, Jean Mota, Lawson Sunderland, David Ruiz, Noah Allen, Leonardo Campana.

Referees:

REF: Jaime Herrera.
AR1: Bruno Rizo.
AR2: Regis Cardoso.
4TH: Ivan Cid Cruz.
VAR: Sandro Ricci.
AVAR: TBA.


How to Watch

Match Time: 4:30 p.m.

Venue: Chase Stadium — Fort Lauderdale.

TV/Live Stream: FOX, MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+.

Radio: Real Radio 104.1 FM (English), Acción 97.9 FM, 810 AM (Spanish).

Twitter: For rapid reaction and live updates, follow along at @TheManeLand, as well as Orlando City’s official Twitter feed (@OrlandoCitySC).


Enjoy the game. Go City!

Lion Links

Lion Links: 3/14/25

Orlando Pride face the Chicago Stars tonight, 2025 NWSL season set to kick off, San Diego FC’s plan to stop discriminatory chant, and more.

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride / Mark Thor

Happy Friday! The Orlando Pride’s season starts today to kick off another three straight days of Orlando soccer. Orlando City is in action on Saturday, and then we have Orlando City B to enjoy on Sunday. Before we jump into today’s links, let’s all wish a happy birthday to Executive OCSC Vice President of Soccer Operations and General Manager Luiz Muzzi!

Orlando Pride Take On Chicago Stars FC Tonight

The Orlando Pride’s first game of the 2025 NWSL season is finally here, with the team set to begin its title defense at home tonight at 8 p.m. against the Chicago Stars. Before the match, the club will raise banners to celebrate a historic season last year that included winning the NWSL Shield and NWSL Championship. It’s an unfamiliar position for the Pride to start a season from, as the club has undergone quite the transformation in both culture and expectations in recent years.

“It’s going to be such a special moment,” defender and vice-captain Kylie Nadaner said. “I got here when things weren’t great in this club, and there were times where I don’t think that I would ever have predicted that this would be possible. So when that banner is raised, it’s going to be such a special moment, and to see this star on our chest—every time I see it, I’m just so proud and honored to be a part of it.”

The Pride’s season will start with a matchup against a Chicago team they eliminated in the first round of last year’s playoffs. The Stars won’t be the only team with revenge on their mind when facing the Pride, and Orlando will have to navigate the season with a large target on its back. It’s still a bit surreal to acknowledge that considering where this club was only a few years ago.

2025 NWSL Season Kicks Off Tonight

Tonight’s matches are just the first in what should be an exciting start to the NWSL season across the country. While most of us will likely be watching the Pride, the Washington Spirit are also in action at 8 p.m. tonight when they face the Houston Dash. Saturday’s slate features four games with staggered start times for a nice day of soccer, including an intriguing late match pitting NJ/NY Gotham FC against the Seattle Reign. The weekend wraps up on Sunday night with a Cali clash between Angel City FC and the San Diego Wave. If in need of a refresher on each team after a busy off-season, ESPN provided a nice guide heading into this season.

San Diego FC Launches Plan to Stop Anti-Gay Chant

After the use of a homophobic chant in its inaugural home game earlier this month, San Diego FC has announced a plan for addressing it. Starting as soon as Saturday’s home game against the Columbus Crew, there will be increased communication to fans reinforcing that the chant has no place at the stadium. There will be increased security measures as well, with the plan noting that offenders will be identified and ejected. FIFA’s protocol to abandon the match if the behavior persists is also part of the club’s announced plan. Hopefully this all will help nip the problem in the bud.

Europa League Quarterfinals Are Set

Only eight teams remain in this year’s Europa League after some exciting round of 16 matchups. A hat trick by Bruno Fernandes lifted Manchester United to a 4-1 win over Real Sociedad at Old Trafford, while fellow English club Tottenham also advanced after a 3-1 home victory against AZ Alkmaar. As for the Italian clubs, an early red card to Mats Hummels doomed AS Roma in its 3-1 loss to Athletic Club and Lazio’s 1-1 draw with Viktoria Plzen was enough to advance. Fenerbahce beat Rangers 2-0, but Rangers ultimately came out on top in the penalty shootout.

In the quarterfinals, Manchester United faces a Lyon side that breezed through the round of 16, and Rangers will battle Athletic Club. On the other side of the bracket, Tottenham plays Eintracht Frankfurt and Lazio is matched up against Bodo/Glimt.

Free Kicks

  • Enjoy this look into the Pride’s history of home openers over the past nine years in the NWSL.
  • NWSL players will be able to decrease their yellow card accumulation through good behavior this season.

NEW 2025 NWSL FEATURE: Yellow card accumulation total can be decreased through “Good Behavior Incentives”

Taylor Vincent (@tayvincent6.bsky.social) 2025-03-13T14:41:34.708Z

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

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Orlando City’s Designated Players Delightfully Productive to Start the Season

A performance evaluation of Orlando City’s Designated Players through three games and how they compare to the rest of the league.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

There will come a point someday in the future when Major League Soccer will stop using all its silly roster rules and allow teams to build their rosters however they would like to à la the rest of the world, but until then we must continue to live in the alphabet soup of acronyms like BAM, GAM, HAM, and TAM (two of those are actual MLS roster-building methods, one is a food often eaten with green eggs — back when eggs were affordable — and the other is onomatopoeia; I am confident you can identify the two acronyms that are MLS allocation money).

The other commonly used term, as it relates to roster-building methods in MLS, is DP, or Designated Player — a player who can be paid any amount as their salary while having a fixed amount that counts against the salary cap. The amount depends on the age of the DP. Players above the age of 24 count as $743,750 against the team’s salary budget; ages 21-23 count as $200,000; and players aged 20 or younger count as $150,000. You can read all you ever wanted to know about this subject and more by checking out the 2025 MLS Roster Rules and Regulations. Bring snacks. And a pillow.

Orlando City has three Designated Players on the 2025 roster: Luis Muriel, Martín Ojeda, and Marco Pašalić. Among the 30 teams in MLS, 11 teams, including Orlando City, have three Designated Players, 17 have two, and two teams only have one, for a total of 69 DPs on rosters as of Week 4 of the 2025 MLS season.

Only 61 of those 69 Designated Players have played thus far this season, however, as five are currently injured (CF Montréal’s Giacomo Vrioni, LA Galaxy’s Joseph Paintsil and Riqui Puig, New England’s Tomás Chancalay, and Portland’s Jonathan Rodríguez). In addition, one is on loan until June (NYCFC’s Talles Magno), one still does not have his paperwork in order to play in MLS (LAFC’s Cengiz Ünder), and one has been a healthy scratch in each game this season, as his team was actively looking to transfer him to another club (Toronto’s Lorenzo Insigne).

Most clubs use their Designated Player spots for attacking players, which makes sense considering attacking players tend to command the highest salaries, and with a DP only counting a set amount against the salary cap, teams can afford to pay high salaries to bring in attacking talent without the risk of jamming up their salary cap utilization. Only three of the 69 DPs in MLS this season are primarily defenders — Inter Miami’s Jordi Alba, Nashville SC’s Walker Zimmerman, and NYCFC’s Thiago Martins — and frankly, I am surprised it is even that many.

Orlando City has deployed 16 Designated Players since entering MLS, with all of those players in attacking roles while wearing purple. During some years, the performance by the club’s Designated Players was, shall we say, underwhelming, but through three games in 2025 (I know, I know, it is only three games), Orlando City can make a case that the performance of its DPs has been nearly the best in the league.

Let’s make that case. Right here. Right now. Bonus points if you remember this outstanding adidas commercial using Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now.”

Ultimately, soccer matches come down to two measures: goals scored and goals allowed. Being that nearly every Designated Player plays in an attacking position, we can focus more on the goals scored as a measure of comparison. In order to score a goal, you need to create a shot, so I used Opta’s tracking on fbref.com to aggregate every Designated Player’s performance thus far in 2025 and normalize it to a per-90-minute basis.

Every blue circle in the table below is the average performance by a team’s Designated Players per 90 minutes for shot-creating actions and goals scored (example: the Houston Dynamo are the lonely circle closest to the bottom left corner; the Dynamo’s two Designated Players create, average, exactly one shot per 90 minutes and zero goals per 90 minutes, which is not ideal). The purple bullseye is Orlando City, which has DPs averaging 4.73 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes and scoring 0.57 goals per 90 minutes. The orange circle is the MLS average.

The ideal location on a chart like this would be for your team’s circle to be as far to the upper right as possible, with DPs creating lots of shots for their teammates and scoring lots of goals as well. If you had to choose one axis, you would of course prefer to be higher on the y-axis than the x-axis (your seventh grade Algebra teacher promised you that you would use the cartesian plane in real life someday), since goals scored are more important than shots created.

The Mane Land’s Ben Miller wrote a piece in our Monday newsletter, exclusively available to those who subscribe (which you can do by clicking on this hyperlink) about the goal-scoring performances of Orlando City’s three Designated Players thus far this season. Expanding on what Ben wrote, here are the per-90-minute stats for Orlando City’s three DPs thus far:

PlayerMins PlayedSCAGoalsAssistsGoal Contributions
Luis Muriel1513.580.600.601.20
Martín Ojeda2436.670.370.370.74
Marco Pašalić2343.460.770.381.15

The combined averages of these players’ performances are the aforementioned 4.73 shot-creating actions and 0.57 goals scored per 90 minutes. Orlando City’s DPs rank third in the league for shot-creating actions and fifth in goals scored. Seattle’s DPs (Jordan Morris and Albert Rusnák) are the reverse — fifth in shot-creating actions and third in goals scored — tying them with Orlando City at an average of fourth. Both teams trail expansion team San Diego FC, which is off to a strong start with two wins and a draw in its first three matches, and which has DPs (Anders Dreyer and Hirving “Chucky” Lozano) who rank fourth in shot-creating actions and second in goals scored, leading all clubs with an average of third across the two measures.

Looking at this a little differently, we can use standard deviations to compare just how much better or worse each club’s Designated Players compare to the league average. The axes look flipped from the last chart, but they are not. Shot-creating actions are still on the x-axis and goals on the y-axis. In this case, on the x-axis we are comparing a team’s average per 90 minutes in shot-creating actions to the league average, and we can see that Orlando City, again located in the purple bullseye, is 1.33 standard deviations better than league average.

The Lions are also 0.99 standard deviations better than league average in goals per 90 minutes, making them one of only six clubs who have Designated Players performing better than league average in both metrics (positive values are better than league average, negative values are worse than league average), and in a smaller group of three clubs that can claim to have had the best performance in terms of both creating shots and scoring goals.

The two circles located in the vicinity of Orlando City are again Seattle and San Diego, performing better in goals per 90 minutes but not as well in shot-creating actions. The outlier on the y-axis is D.C. United, as that club’s DPs are averaging 1.04 goals per 90 minutes, nearly three standard deviations (read: a lot) more than league average. The outlier on the x-axis is Nashville, which is surprising given that Zimmerman, a central defender, is one of the team’s DPs. Nashville is averaging nearly six shot-creating actions per DP per 90 minutes — almost 2.5 standard deviations more than league average.

If you recall your statistics classes, the general rule is that 95% of data points fall within two standard deviations above or below the average, so when any person or any team is more than two standard deviations better than the average either a) they are doing incredibly well, or b) the sample may not yet be big enough to feel confident in the standard deviations. In this case, it is probably both, as the teams have only played three games.

Even though the samples are small, it is still completely OK to feel great about the initial performances of Orlando City’s three Designated Players. The group has combined for four goals and three assists, and Muriel, Ojeda, and Pašalić have been a driving force behind a strong start to the season on the offensive end of the field.

Here’s to hoping that Orlando’s Designated Players will continue their torrid pace when the club returns back to the New York City metro area to play the Red Bulls on Saturday and their performance evokes a phrase from another Fatboy Slim song, and come Saturday, we find ourselves praising them like we should.

Vamos Orlando!

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Orlando City at New York Red Bulls: Three Keys to Victory

What do the Lions need to do to bounce back on the road and secure a victory against the New York Red Bulls?

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Dan MacDonald, The Mane Land

Orlando City heads north for the second week in a row, but this time to Red Bull…er…Sports Illustrated Stadium to take on the New York Red Bulls. The Lions are coming off a disappointing loss to New York City FC. A win gets Orlando City back to .500 before returning to Inter&Co Stadium next week.

On paper this looks like a low-scoring match, so it will probably be a barn burner. What does Orlando City need to do to earn all three points on the road against the New York Red Bulls?

Oh Captain, My Captain!

Robin Jansson is back, but the defense still gave up two goals against New York City FC. That’s eight goals shipped in three games for those who are counting. It’s not particularly surprising that Orlando City is 1-2-0 given the leaky defense. It doesn’t get any easier this Saturday with yet another road trip to play a New York team, albeit this time in New Jersey. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse, but we do know they will at least be playing on a normal-sized soccer pitch this week.

The Red Bulls aren’t exactly prolific scorers so far this season with only two goals so far — one from Emil Forsberg and one from Mohammed Sofo — but that doesn’t mean they can’t score this weekend. Now that the captain is back, the defense needs to get things sorted out. I’m hoping that the normal spacing of SI Stadium will allow the defense to refocus with Jansson back in charge.

Break on Through

New York may not score a ton of goals, but it gives up even fewer. The Red Bulls have only allowed one goal this season. It came in the match against FC Cincinnati off a long pass and off the head of Kevin Denkey. Even then, there were two defenders on him and it was a race between Denkey and keeper Carlos Coronel to see who would reach the ball first. I’m saying it’s not easy to score against them.

On the flip side, Orlando City has been able to score seven goals in its first three matches. Those goals have come from six different players. I think that there will be two players I’ll be watching in particular in the buildup. Jansson is fairly accurate at delivering long passes like the one on which Cincinnati scored. We also know that one of Eduard Atuesta’s strengths is connecting the defense to the offense. If the two can break the lines of the opposition, then the Lions have enough options up top to spread out the chances.

Use the Space

If Orlando City never plays in Yankee Stadium again it will be too soon. Luckily, the passing lanes and spacing will be back to normal standards this weekend. That should mean better passing from Orlando City, and the ability to run the offense how Oscar Pareja prefers.

As such, I want the Lions to take their time, be methodical, and strike when the time is right. That doesn’t mean they have to build out of the back all night. If the Red Bulls are creeping up, go route one. Use whatever space New York gives, but don’t let up. You can’t win if you don’t score, and one goal may determine this match.


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

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