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

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3 years ago

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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

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Orlando City

Orlando City Showed Defensive Improvement Against D.C. United

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

Published

14 hours ago

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March 28, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Lion Links: 3/28/25

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

Published

18 hours ago

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March 28, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

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

Orlando Pride Prepare for the San Diego Wave

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

NWSL Provides Entertaining Slate of Weekend Matches

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

USMNT Roster Predictions for Concacaf Gold Cup

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

FA Cup Quarterfinals Kick Off This Weekend

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

Free Kicks

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

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Orlando City

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

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

Published

2 days ago

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March 27, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

We will see.

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