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Orlando City vs. Atlanta United: Five Takeaways

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4 years ago

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Orlando City finished its two-match road swing with a trip to Mercedes-Benz Stadium to play Atlanta United on Sunday afternoon. The start was a bright one for Orlando City, culminating in Mauricio Pereyra’s free kick goal in the 10th minute. Things did not continue on that track afterwards, with the Lions fortunate to only concede once in a 1-1 draw.

Here’s what I took away from the match.

One Ain’t Enough

For the second time in a week, the Lions scored the first goal of the match and then didn’t do a lot afterwards. Regardless of what “they” say about a two-goal lead in soccer, I’ll take one of those any day of the week. And three would be even better. Orlando City has struggled to score goals for the majority of the 2022 season and one on the road is rarely going to lead to victory. A second goal against Colorado was much more likely than it was against Atlanta, given how the two matches unfolded. However, that second never came in either game and it amounted to four valuable points dropped, which is the difference between the Lions sitting fifth in the table, where they are now, and nine points behind Philadelphia, and sitting third — just five points out of first with a chance to get three points closer this Saturday when the Union visit Exploria Stadium. More goals please.

Mauri Magic

Pereyra’s goal may have been helped by two colossal Atlanta errors, but it was still a moment of magic. Taylor Twellman can (and did) complain about the “softness” of the call, and it’s true that players who lose the ball rarely get a call in the aftermath of a poor touch, but I don’t see that Victor Rivas had any choice but to call that foul. Facundo Torres — who struggled with his touch and his decision making throughout this match, although whether the former was due to heavy legs or the unfamiliar surface of Atlanta’s fake plastic grass, I don’t know — got booted pretty hard in the leg. Whether a player has the ball or has just fumbled it away isn’t the determining factor on what constitutes a foul. That was a legit call and an unfortunate play for Atlanta.

The bigger issue was with Rocco Rios Novo’s awareness. The Atlanta goalkeeper was apparently still trying to set up his wall when the whistle blew to start play. Pereyra didn’t immediately hit his shot. There were a good couple of seconds that went by with Rios Novo remaining behind his wall when the captain took his kick. And even if the keeper had been aligned properly, Pereyra’s shot was so good, it’s unlikely it would have been saved. That thing hit the inside netting inside the left post. It was an outstanding free kick and maybe Pereyra’s best since joining the team. If the goalkeeper being misaligned spoils it for some, I feel for their inability to experience joy.

Bright Start Quickly Fizzled

The Lions came out of the gate as the protagonists of the match that Oscar Pareja wants them to be. Orlando City controlled play early, won multiple set pieces, and made one of them pay off. But after the goal, the game completely switched. The Five Stripes controlled play for most of the remainder of the game. While the Lions did well to limit Atlanta’s ability to fashion anything threatening through the first half, it was clear that the hosts were far more likely to score than Orlando. The Lions have been largely toothless in transition this season, often peeling back and playing patiently at the first sign of pressure. But even transition opportunities aren’t going to materialize when outlet passes are offline or are predictable enough to allow defenders to cut them off.

Things got worse in the second half when the hosts realized they could easily sacrifice a fullback and a midfielder and add more bite to the attack. That’s when they started making life much more difficult for the Orlando defense and goalkeeper Pedro Gallese, who came up big again. It’s hard to blame short rest for Orlando getting pinned back when Atlanta played the same number of days before. Sure, the Lions had to travel, but the difference shouldn’t have been so pronounced. Atlanta has had issues getting outnumbered in the back in 2022 but Orlando couldn’t mount any kind of counterattack and the hosts grew more comfortable as the game went on. Essentially, Orlando was on its heels for 80 minutes and only handled its defensive duties well for the first 35 of those minutes.

Changes Didn’t Work

Pareja often goes to five in the back to add an extra player to clog passing lanes and deal with crosses as a means of seeing out games. Wednesday at Colorado, he used that to try to help the fullbacks, who the Rapids were abusing — particularly Kyle Smith, who struggled to deal with Sam Nicholson, only to then be stuck with a better replacement in Michael Barrios. Smith was again getting picked on Sunday but the change to bring on Antonio Carlos was an attempt to provide more opportunities to outlet to an actual player — having the option of the three central defenders sending outlet passes to a wingback or a midfielder rather than just the midfielders — and it just didn’t work. The back line was forced to play desperation kickball even with the additional wide options due to the intense Atlanta pressure and inability of the midfielders to string together a pass or two to give them a chance to regroup. The defenders had no sooner booted the ball up the field than they had to focus on who to pick up as the Five Stripes charged at them again. Tesho Akindele’s introduction for Ercan Kara was never going to work because the Lions couldn’t work the ball up the field far enough to find a forward anyway. Andres Perea’s introduction cost the team a goal because he kept his runner onside and also didn’t bother to track him or defend anyone on that set piece.

Sometimes Pareja gets the subs just right, but Sunday was not one of those days where his players were able to turn his ideas into reality. This likely was more to do with execution and circumstance than with the strategy, but either way, it didn’t come off as intended.

El Pulpo for President

For the second straight game, Orlando City’s outfield players can thank Pedro Gallese for the team getting anything from the match. Gallese was coming off a performance in Colorado that got him on the MLS Team of the Week. He was just as vital on Sunday with a couple of enormous saves late in the game to preserve the draw. He couldn’t do anything about the free header goal on the set piece, but he stopped a 2-v-1 down the stretch and absolutely robbed former Lion Dom Dwyer with one of the prettier saves in Orlando City history. His flying, one-handed stop of Dwyer’s drive should be immortalized on a poster, suitable for framing. That was the one that truly showed Gallese’s quality and athleticism.

That’s what stuck out to me from Sunday’s game. What did you see? Let me know in the comments section below.

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Orlando City

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

By

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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