PawedCast Episode 295: Toronto Rewind, Pride-Current, OCB, Austin Preview, and More

• RSS feed for The Mane Land PawedCast.
• Subscribe with iTunes.
• Subscribe with Google Play.
• Subscribe with Stitcher.

Orlando City had a nice bounce-back game in league play on the return trip to Canada. The Lions went to BMO Field and came home with three points for the first time ever. Orlando had never won in that venue but — thanks to Alexandre Pato’s exquisite delivery and Kyle Smith’s well-timed noggin flick — brought home a 1-0 victory. We break down the Toronto away match, give our picks for Man of the Match, discuss which Lions showed up on MLS Team of the Week, and check in on last week’s predictions. We also touched briefly on the midseason MLSPA salary reveal.

The Orlando Pride came home to play the Kansas City Current. For 60 minutes, the Pride played great soccer. However, the Current turned the game around in the final half hour, dominating chances and possession in the final third. It seemed inevitable that Kansas City would score at least one, but the visitors took the lead early in stoppage time. The Pride did well to fight back and Orlando equalized on a late Toni Pressley penalty to earn a come-from-ahead-then-come-from-behind draw at home.

We gave our thoughts on the Pride match as well as OCB’s first game in three weeks. The Young Lions still can’t score goals, falling 1-0 to Philadelphia Union II on the road. OCB is doing a lot of things well — especially goalkeeper Javier Otero — but there seems to be no bite in the attack or enough quality in connecting the lines in the midfield.

This week’s mailbag asked about which soccer leagues we like best, television characters that are easy to dislike, and the biggest surprises and disappointments on Orlando City’s roster at this point in the season. If there’s anything — and we do mean anything — you want us to address on the next show, just ask by tweeting it to us at @TheManeLand with the hashtag #AskTMLPC.

And we closed the show by giving our key match-ups and score predictions for Sunday’s trip to play Austin FC for the first time.

Stay safe and enjoy the show!

Here’s how No. 295 went down:

0:15 – Orlando City shut out another opponent on the road, our Man of the Match, and Team of the Week observations.

31:26 – The Pride picked up a point, but it could have been three. But it could have been none. Plus our thoughts on OCB’s match on Monday.

51:28 – The mailbag calls and we answer. Oh, and our picks for the Austin match.