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Orlando City at Chicago Fire: Player Grades and Man of the Match

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Orlando City went to Chicago and will bring home one point that should have been three after a 0-0 draw against the Fire. We may never know if Ercan Kara actually handled the ball in the area, because the available replays were inconclusive at best, but referee Ismir Pekmic not only believed he saw Kara do it from those replays, which he watched repeatedly for several minutes, but after the game he also claimed Kara did it intentionally.

You really have to hand it to PRO — every year they find new ways to remove points from Orlando’s final total and absolutely lack any humility when doing it. If Kara clearly and obviously handled the ball intentionally on a goal originally ruled good, that should show up on the video in a matter of one viewing (because that’s how “obvious” works) rather than requiring several minutes of review.

Anyway, the Lions have to grin and swallow it yet again. They were at least able to keep a second straight clean sheet without the suspended Robin Jansson and get a result on the road.

Here’s how I saw the individual performances of the men on the pitch.

Starters

GK, Pedro Gallese, 7 — The Peruvian international did his job with four saves out of four on target and controlled his area for the most part. He didn’t have any especially spectacular saves. Of the four, the toughest was a rocket from outside the area that wasn’t too much of a reach for him and he was able to parry it over the bar for a corner, showing good control. The other three were fairly soft and right to him. He looked confident and passed at a strong 90.5% rate and connected on two of his four long balls. It was a good night for El Pulpo.

D, Joao Moutinho, 6 — The Portuguese fullback was mostly solid through the night, settling in after an early turnover to Xherdan Shaqiri. He didn’t allow attackers to get down to the end line for dangerous crosses and kept most of the play on his side out wide. He contributed two tackles, an interception and a clearance defensively while dealing with Chicago’s most dangerous midfielder much of the evening. He was able to get on the ball a lot, but like many of the Lions, he had trouble unlocking the Chicago defense, as the Fire’s back line and central midfielders did a good job on their own end. Moutinho passed at only a 71.2% rate. He connected four of his 10 long balls but none of his four crosses, but created a scoring chance from his left back position on a night when the Lions had few of those.

D, Rodrigo Schlegel, 6.5 — Schlegel got his first start of the season with Jansson sidelined after last week’s second yellow card. The Argentine and central defense partner Antonio Carlos were aggressive, often coming up the field to crowd Shaqiri. He had a scary challenge in the area early on against Fabian Herbers that had the home crowd screaming for a penalty. I think it was a good no-call, with Herbers flying in out of control and getting a piece of the ball, but it looked more a case of the attacker getting into Schlegel than the other way around. He and Carlos did well to limit Kacper Przybylko’s looks at goal, which was his primary focus. The Polish striker was limited to just one shot attempt. Schlegel had a tackle, an interception, a blocked shot and three clearances. His 80.5% passing rate wasn’t bad on a windy night in Chicago, although he was successful on only one of six long balls. His biggest knock was conceding four free kicks, with a couple of them coming from dangerous spots.

D, Antonio Carlos, 7 (MotM) — The Brazilian continued to show that preseason is overrated with his second strong showing of the year. He helped limit Przybylko to one weak header attempt and, as usual, had more territory to defend than his central defense partner due to Ruan serving as a de facto wingback further up the pitch. Carlos had two interceptions, a team-high four clearances, and a blocked shot. His 82.4% passing rate was tops among all outfield starters, although he connected on only three of 10 long balls. He had a shot attempt on a late set piece but his header went wide.

D, Ruan, 6.5  — The Brazilian speedster was creating issues down Chicago’s left side for Miguel Navarro and Herbers throughout the night, helping force turnovers, but he couldn’t quite get his crosses right in the attack, going only one of five for accuracy. He attempted one unsuccessful long ball and completed 21 of his 28 passes (75%). Defensively, he did well overall with a tackle and three clearances. He nearly allowed a goal to Brian Gutierrez in stoppage time but his positioning wasn’t a problem so much as his height on that play.

MF, Cesar Araujo, 6.5 — The MLS U22 Initiative midfielder has basically made the No. 6 role his own very quickly. Tasked with the difficulty of defending Shaqiri in the middle of the pitch, the young Uruguayan held his own. He had only one tackle, but largely worked well in either denying the ball to dangerous areas with his movement and positioning or forced the Fire to go wide into the channels. His 50 passes were the most by any non-back line player on the team and he completed 80%, including one of his two long balls. He unlocked the defense with a key pass, attempted one shot (off target), and drew a team-high five fouls (along with two of his teammates). His yellow card was laughably soft as he attempted to reach out and slow down an opponent but he whiffed.

MF, Júnior Urso, 6 — The Bear should have scored a goal, blasting a shot in off a defender in the 73rd minute, stepping into a layoff pass by Facundo Torres. Alas, the referee stole his moment along with two vital points. That would have been Orlando’s only shot on target in the game if it hadn’t been erased for…reasons. He had one key pass on 71.4% passing but was dispossessed a worrying, team-high five times. Still, he did well defensively with a tackle and two interceptions and kept the Orlando press organized.

MF, Facundo Torres, 6 — In their opening game, the Fire saw Inter Miami use the tactic of fouling Shaqiri a lot. It seemed that Chicago coach Ezra Hendrickson borrowed that tactic against Orlando, as his team employed it often, including five of them against Facu. One of those fouls, by Herbers, prevented an Orlando counter-attack and was sufficiently vicious that I honestly thought the red card would come out but it was only yellow. Torres was fouled well over those five times but only five were called as Pekmic allowed several two-handed shoves and clips from behind to go unpunished — mainly through the opening 45 minutes. Torres recorded one shot and three dribbles. His 62.1% looks quite pedestrian until you look at the rate of Orlando’s other starting attacking midfielders, though he was unsuccessful on three long balls and two crosses. His layoff for Urso should have been an assist if not for…well, you know. Defensively, he contributed a tackle and two interceptions.

MF, Mauricio Pereyra, 6 — The captain wasn’t able to leave his usual mark on the game. His passing was just 55% as the Chicago defensive midfield and back line played aggressively all night, which is a tactic that was successful because the wind prevented Orlando’s ability to play over the top into spaces in behind. Pereyra attempted one shot and created one chance. He was successful just once on six long balls and on one of three long balls. He had one tackle, an interception, and a clearance. Like Araujo and Torres, he was fouled five times and, much like Torres, it should have been more than that.

MF, Benji Michel, 3.5 — The Homegrown winger had a tough night offensively, although his defensive hustle was evident while he was on the pitch. After he was subbed off for Tesho Akindele, Chicago fullback Boris Sekulic was able to get forward more often. Benji’s passing rate of just 16.7% was simply dreadful and his hold-up play was lacking (four unstable touches, dispossessed once), forcing Oscar Pareja to sub on Tesho. He recorded a tackle and an interception on defense but had no shot attempts and no key passes on the offensive end.

F, Alexandre Pato, 6 — Much like his attacking teammates, Pato was roughed up quite a bit whenever Orlando got the ball in the attacking half, and for some reason he wasn’t even able to get some of the calls Pereyra and Torres got, drawing just two foul calls. He had one key pass on 63.6% passing but no shot attempts. He had one chance to get into a good shooting position but took an uncharacteristically heavy touch and the chance evaporated. He was active defensively with one tackle, an interception, and two clearances.

Substitutes

MF, Tesho Akindele (52’), 6 — Tesho’s lack of lateral quickness allowed Sekulic to dribble past him a couple of times but the Lions’ hold-up play got noticeably better when he came on for Michel. His work rate and pressure was evident as always, as the Canadian posted two interceptions and a blocked shot. He passed at a 77.8% rate, giving the Lions something that had been lacking on the left, but he attempted no shots and didn’t create scoring chances on a night when the Fire were dealing with any attack by simply crushing guys. He did well to switch the play on the disallowed goal, getting the ball over to Torres on the left. That provided the space to score the goal, but…yeah.

F, Ercan Kara (72’), 5.5 — The Austrian came off the bench and made a difference in his first minute on the pitch, winning an aerial ball in the box, which led to Urso’s goal. It should have been a game-changing play. It’s possible that the ball hit his arm, but nothing shown on TV or on the referee’s monitor — which was shown on television and seemed to have the exact same two angles we saw — should have resulted in any overturned call. Kara was officially only credited with three touches and he completed his one pass attempt. He didn’t have a shot or a key pass but chipped in one defensive clearance. It will be nice to see what he can do when he’s 90-minute fit and fully integrated.

MF, Andres Perea (88’), N/A — Perea came on late for a tiring Torres but didn’t play enough minutes to warrant a grade or impact the match. He completed one of his three passes and won an aerial on his eight touches.


That’s how I saw the performances in Orlando City’s road draw. It’s difficult to look beyond the statistics sometimes but Chicago did a great job of playing the weather conditions, crowding the Lions up high to force low-percentage balls over the top on a gusty night and fouling everywhere. The Fire’s strategy was helped by a referee who was quite lenient until midway through the second half (which is, not coincidentally, when Orlando started looking more dangerous) and by Orlando’s complete lack of ability to hold onto the ball on the left side for the first 50+ minutes.

Be sure to vote in the poll below for your Man of the Match.

Polling Closed

PlayerVotes
Rodrigo Schlegel1
Junior Urso6
Pedro Gallese17
Antonio Carlos23
Cesar Araujo14
Other (tell us who in the comments)1

Opinion

Orlando City Has Been Better than Expected Halfway Through the Season

While there was plenty to worry about at the start of the season, Orlando has had a good first half of 2025.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

With 18 matches in the books, we’ve moved just past the halfway point of the 2025 Major League Soccer season, and based off my feelings before Orlando City played its opening game of the season, the Lions have performed above expectations so far. There were plenty of valid reasons to be concerned heading into the year. Orlando had sold its all-time leading goal scorer, and there were questions about whether he’d been adequately replaced. There were worries about depth at multiple positions, and the defense was coming off an uncharacteristically poor year. Here we are though, with the Lions sitting fifth in the Eastern Conference, just three points out of second place and seven points out of first. So how did we get to this point?

For one thing, Marco Pasalic has been much better than I (and I think a lot of other people) expected him to be. The Croatian has six goals and four assists across 18 matches, and is second on the team in both categories. He scored 10 goals in 49 appearances in the Croatian first division before coming to Orlando and was extremely one-footed, which was enough evidence to sow real doubt about whether he could adequately replace the impact of Facundo Torres.

So far, it’s mostly been so good. His direct style of play is a good complement to the styles of Martin Ojeda and Luis Muriel, and he’s largely hit the ground running in a league that can be difficult to adapt to. It hasn’t been perfect, as he’s still very one-footed, and can sometimes disappear if he’s stringently man marked, but on the whole there’s been much more good than bad.

Speaking of Ojeda and Muriel, they’ve also had strong years. Ojeda in particular has continued his great second half of the 2024 season and has nine goals and five assists in 18 games to show for it. He looks fast, confident, and decisive and is a far cry from the player who struggled frequently during his first year as a Lion. Muriel has cooled off a little after a scorching start to 2025, but he still has six goals and three assists in 18 matches. He looks vastly improved from last year, when he looked a little off the pace of play and quickly lost the starting striker role. He still has a tendency to not be as selfish as he needs to be in front of goal, but he’s been much better than 2024.

I mentioned depth being a big concern, and not just at one position. At the beginning of the season Orlando City was, and arguably still is, thin at striker, center back, defensive midfield, and fullback. Duncan McGuire was injured to start the year and is now injured again, leaving Orlando with two true strikers in Muriel and Ramiro Enrique. There was no true backup left back, only one reliable backup center back, and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson starting at right back meant that defensive midfield depth consisted of rookie Joran Gerbet and the Swiss army knife that is Kyle Smith.

Things have mostly worked out though. David Brekalo has supplanted Rafael Santos, meaning the Brazilian is now a proven backup option at the position, and Smith has filled in there as well. That means that in games in which Rodrigo Schlegel or Robin Jansson are unavailable, Brekalo fills in at center back, Santos starts at left back, and Smith is the backup for both positions, so it isn’t a flawless system. Gerbet has been playing better and better and got some valuable minutes when Eduard Atuesta and Cesar Araujo were unavailable. His emergence has been a crucial piece of the puzzle this year. So too has the rise of Alex Freeman, as his locking down the right back role has allowed Thorhallsson to fill in at defensive midfield, attacking midfield, and right back. The situation isn’t perfect, as a couple untimely injuries to the wrong guys would leave the Lions looking pretty threadbare, but so far it’s just about worked.

Another big concern was the defense. The Lions conceded 50 goals in the regular season last year, which was tied for the second-most of any Eastern Conference playoff team and fourth-most of any playoff team. With no defensive signings and the aforementioned depth concerns, there were plenty of reasons to worry about Orlando’s ability to keep the ball out of the back of the net.

Things have looked much better in 2025, though. The 22 goals OCSC has conceded are the fifth-fewest in the league, and Pedro Gallese’s eight clean sheets are tied for most in the league. Aside from a few egregious defensive performances against the Philadelphia Union, Atlanta United, and the Chicago Fire, things have mostly been tidy at the back, and when they haven’t been, El Pulpo has been around to pick up the slack. Again, things haven’t been perfect, as there have been moments where individual and collective errors have hurt the team, but it’s been better.


I thought the Lions would struggle this year. Going into the start of the season, we were talking about a team that lost Torres, arguably didn’t do enough to strengthen the team across the board, was facing depth issues, and was dealing with a leaky defense — all while pretty much every other contender in the East got stronger on paper. Instead, OCSC tied a club-best unbeaten streak and is just three points out of second place.

That being said, the East is so tight that Orlando is only five points above the playoff line, and injuries to the wrong guys could easily topple the fragile ecosystem that is the depth chart, but so far things are going better than I thought they would be. There are still a lot of matches to play, but this isn’t a bad position to be in at the halfway mark.

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 6/20/25

Orlando Pride take on Racing Louisville FC tonight, Orlando Pride players called up by Zambia, USMNT beats Saudi Arabia, and more.

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride / Jeremy Reper

Happy Friday! June continues to fly by as we enjoy the buffet of soccer here in the U.S. this month. I’ll be spending most of the weekend working, but I am hoping to get some reading done after being gifted some books for my birthday. But enough about me, let’s jump right into today’s links!

Orlando Pride Face Racing Louisville Tonight

The Orlando Pride are on the road tonight for a match against Racing Louisville FC at 8 p.m. in the final game before a league break until August. Going into the break with four straight wins would be nice for the Pride, but they’ve struggled at Lynn Family Stadium over the years. Louisville enters this match following a 4-2 loss to the league-leading Kansas City Current and has scored eight goals over the past three games. Orlando’s defense has been phenomenal this year, conceding just eight goals this season and only one during this win streak. Midfielder Cori Dyke spoke on how the team is finding its groove and shutting out opponents.

Zambia Calls Up Orlando Pride Trio

Barbra Banda, Grace Chanda, and Prisca Chilufya were all called up for Zambia’s CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations roster ahead of this summer’s tournament. Banda has eight goals this season with the Pride and had four goals at last year’s Olympics, including a hat trick against Australia. The Copper Queens claimed third place in the 2022 edition of this tournament, and they’ll need to be at their best to win this summer against tough opponents like South Africa and Nigeria. Zambia’s tournament campaign will kick off on July 5 against the host nation, Morocco.

USMNT Beats Saudi Arabia to Qualify for Quarterfinals

The United States Men’s National Team won 1-0 against Saudi Arabia to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals of this year’s Concacaf Gold Cup. After a scoreless first half, the Yanks broke through in the 63rd minute thanks to a free kick. Sebastian Berhalter served the ball on a silver platter to Chris Richards, who buried it for the crucial goal. The defense did well to secure its second shutout of the tournament, with Orlando City’s Alex Freeman starting at right back yet again. The USMNT will play Haiti on Sunday and should be able to win the group for a smoother path in the knockout stage.

FIFA Club World Cup Roundup

An MLS club finally won a game during this year’s FIFA Club World Cup, with Inter Miami beating Porto 2-1 in Atlanta. Lionel Messi scored the winner from a free kick to complete the comeback after conceding an early goal. The Seattle Sounders had a rougher day, falling 3-1 to Atletico Madrid, with Pablo Barrios scoring a brace. Former Lion Facundo Torres started for Palmeiras in the Brazilian club’s 2-0 win over Egypt’s Al Ahly.

Today’s action features more soccer at Inter&Co Stadium, with Benfica and Auckland City squaring off in the City Beautiful. Our Michael Citro will be on hand to report on it. Elsewhere in the U.S., Chelsea will take on Flamengo, LAFC will face ES Tunis, and Bayern Munich will play Boca Juniors.

Free Kicks

  • Canada Head Coach Jesse Marsch, who is already serving a suspension for misconduct during the Nations League, is under investigation by Concacaf for incidents during this Gold Cup. Reports detail that Marsch disregarded regulations and used offensive language toward match officials.
  • Kylian Mbappe was discharged from the hospital after suffering from a case of gastroenteritis. It’s unclear if or when he’ll play for Real Madrid during the Club World Cup.
  • Carlos Cuesta was hired as Parma’s next head coach after five years with Arsenal as an assistant coach. The 29-year-old becomes the second-youngest coach in Serie A history.
  • Manchester City was fined over $1 million by the English Premier League for repeated delays regarding kickoff times.

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

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Orlando City

In 2025, OCSC Stands for Orlando City Scorers Club

How Orlando City’s top offensive performers this season compare to the rest of MLS…and the Premier League.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Last week, I wrote about the state of Orlando City at the halfway point of the season, focusing mostly on the team’s accomplishments on offense and defense through 17 games. For this week, let’s look at some of the top performing Lions, because it’s always fun to talk about offensive success. I do not apologize if you take offense to my desire to only focus on offense, because that would be defensive, and there is no place in this article for defense.

Many moons ago, back in January during the preseason, I wrote an article looking at the best offensive seasons in Orlando City’s MLS history. I used a derived metric called game score to rank the seasons, and I’ll quickly explain again how that is calculated:

Goals Scored + Expected Assists + 0.0113 (Progressive Carries + Progressive Passes)

I went into much more detail about why that is the calculation in the original article, but the quick and dirty version is that scoring goals, completing passes to players in dangerous scoring areas, and progressing the ball by dribbling and passing are core components of a strong offensive player. Think of the game score as an offensive value calculation, and think of it simply as a value for which more is better and the most is best.

Opta only tracked the last three contributing statistics (expected assists, progressive carries, and progressive passes) from 2018 onwards, and the chart below shows Orlando City’s 10 best MLS regular seasons since 2018. It also shows the season that currently ranks 11th — Martín Ojeda’s 2025 season, which, as a reminder, is only in game 18 of a 34-game regular season. This means, if you get the extrapolation machine out, Ojeda is on pace for a season-long game score of 26.5, which would rank as the highest full season game score in Orlando City history.

  • * The 2020 season contained only 23 games due to COVID-19
  • ** Ojeda’s stats are through 18 matches; MLS teams have played between 16-19 matches

Ojeda’s 14.1 currently ranks only behind Sam Surridge of Nashville (15.7), Anders Dreyer of San Diego (16.6), and some player from Miami who clearly wants to play for Orlando since he has lion as part of his first name (Messi, 16.8). During Ojeda’s first two seasons, he only accumulated 12.1 and 12.5, respectively, so this is already by far his best season in purple and it is just barely halfway complete.

Ojeda is not the only Orlando City player who is on pace to jump into the club’s all-time top 10 by the end of the season, as teammates Luis Muriel (10.76, on pace for 20.3) and Marco Pašalić (10.46, on pace for 19.8) are both in the top 30 in MLS this season. Muriel is 24th, and Pašalić is 27th. Orlando City is the only team in the league with three players in the top 30, or really the top 27 (shout out to my son, for whom 27 is his favorite number).

One last point on Ojeda: if we were to extrapolate his performance through 18 games to 38 games, his season game score would bump up to 29.6. Why did I choose 38? Well, 38 happens to be the number of games played in the world’s most popular league, England’s Premier League. I am well aware that the Premier League is a different level of competition than MLS, but just for fun I ran the numbers on the 2024-2025 Premier League season, and a season-long game score of 29.6 would coincidentally also rank Ojeda fourth in England, right behind Cole Palmer (29.7) and in front of Alexander Isak (29.2). I do not think Ojeda would actually finish fourth if he was in the Premier League, but my point is more that the frequency of Ojeda’s contributions for Orlando City thus far this season have been similar to that of Palmer for Chelsea and Isak for Newcastle, which is pretty heady company.

Speaking of heady, we also need to talk about the player who is leading Orlando City in aerial duel wins, Alex Freeman. Heady, aerial duels…you got the segue, right? Don’t answer that.

Freeman has been on a rocket ship in the last year, going from Orlando City B starter to Orlando City starter to U.S. Men’s National Team starter, and he likely will also be the MLS All-Star Game starter, too. My mention of his leading the team in aerial duel wins, while noteworthy, was really just a convenient way to cut over to talking about him and his season-long game score of 8.1.

According to Opta’s positional tracking, only two MLS defenders have accumulated game scores of more than six thus far this season — Philadelphia’s Kai Wagner at 6.88 and Freeman’s 8.1. The extrapolation machine says 8.1 through 18 games puts Freeman on pace for a final score of 15.2, which would be the second best performance by an MLS defender since tracking began in 2018. Freeman is going to miss at least a few more games due to being with the U.S. team during the Gold Cup, so that 15.2 will likely not happen, but wow, what a great first half of a season for Orlando City’s right back.

Going back to the Premier League for comparative context…actually, please sit down and buckle up first. Are you good? Ok.

Going back to the Premier League for comparative context, there is none. Freeman’s performance blows away every defender’s from that league. It will likely surprise few that the defender with the best season game score in the Premier League this season was Trent Alexander-Arnold, who accumulated a score of 13.5 during Liverpool’s championship run. That 13.5 was 15% better than the defender who finished in second place, and yet, if we extrapolate Freeman to 38 games, he would be on pace for 17.0, which is 26% better than Alexander-Arnold. Mind the gap.

Once again, I do not mean to say that Freeman is as skilled or would contribute like Alexander-Arnold did in the Premier League. It is instead that Freeman’s contributions to Orlando City’s offense are unlike that from any defenders in the Premier League. Freeman’s performance thus far this season places him 43rd in the overall MLS rankings, first among defenders, and ahead of strikers such as Christian Benteke, Emmanuel Latte Lath, and Brandon Vazquez. He ranks fourth on Orlando City, and the Lions are not only the only club with three players in the top 30, but also the only club with four players in the top 45.

Two teams had four players in the top 45 during the 2024 MLS season, and one of them was the LA Galaxy, the eventual MLS Cup champions. I am not saying that Orlando City having four players in the top 45 this season means they will win MLS Cup, but I am not not saying it either. I am saying I would like it to happen though, and saying that loudly and clearly.

The game score metric is not the be-all, end-all of measuring offensive prowess, but I think it does a good job of creating a ranking system where the eye test matches the math. Most fans would point to Ojeda as the player who has driven Orlando City’s offense more than any other this season, and being that the team is on pace to have one of the best, if not the best, goal-scoring seasons in the club’s MLS history, it should track that Ojeda is also on pace to have one of the best, if not the best, individual offensive seasons in the club’s MLS history as well.

There are 16 more MLS games to go, and the great thing about sports is that in any game anything can happen, and that is why we love to watch. It is awesome that all three Designated Players and Freeman are off to great starts, but nothing is guaranteed for the back half of the season. That’s why they play the games, as the saying goes. For all we know, Ramiro Enrique could come on like gangbusters in the final games and rip off double-digit goals to end as the team’s leading scorer.

Ramiro, this is a bold strategy, and I am on board for it. The more goals the merrier. Feel free to bring us fans some goals for Christmas in July.

Orlando City does not have a game this weekend, with next match coming June 25 on the road in St. Louis. Winning that game would give the Lions their third winning streak of the season and would be something I would very much like, since I will be doling out the grades for that game. And since I have been writing about the offense this week, how about three goals and three points?

Vamos Orlando!

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