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Orlando City vs. Tigres UANL, Concacaf Champions League: Final Score 1-1 as Lions Eliminated on Road Goals Tiebreaker

A late Ercan Kara goal made things interesting but Orlando City is out of the CCL despite a 1-1 aggregate.

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2 years ago

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Dan MacDonald, The Mane Land

Orlando City’s first foray into Concacaf Champions League play was a short one as the Lions drew 1-1 against Tigres UANL of Liga MX at Exploria Stadium in front of 21,112 fans. Even though Tigres couldn’t beat Orlando, the Lions must bow out of the competition due to the dreaded away goals tiebreaker after holding the Mexican side to a 0-0 draw away last week.

The Lions could hardly have had a tougher draw in their first outing and gave a solid effort but came up just short after Ercan Kara’s bicycle-kick goal in the 90th minute evened things up late. Duncan McGuire fired high with the goalkeeper out of position moments later on what turned out to be the last play of the match. The Lions were incensed that it was the last play after Honduran referee Said Martinez gave five minutes of stoppage time and then watched as Tigres players milked those five minutes with the typical dark arts of time wasting. Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja — who carries a stopwatch during the match — confronted Martinez after the match about not adding more time, but he was shown a red card for his troubles.

Pedro Gallese put on an incredible show in goal to give his team a chance but his teammates simply couldn’t generate anything offensively and wasted the few good chances they did create.

“We are proud of the effort we showed during the game,” Pareja said after the match, discussing what he said to his players in the locker room. “They played against a good rival and we were there. So, we will move on, but we were upset as well.”

Pareja’s lineup included Gallese in goal behind a back line of Luca Petrasso, Robin Jansson, Rodrigo Schlegel, and Michael Halliday. Cesar Araujo and Mauricio Pereyra were in the central midfield behind an attacking line of Ivan Angulo, Martin Ojeda, and Facundo Torres, with Ramiro Enrique up top. Enrique returned to action for the first time since leaving with a minor knock at halftime last Tuesday in Mexico.

The first half chances mainly belonged to Tigres. Although the shots weren’t that uneven in terms of numbers, there was a big difference in the quality of those chances. The visitors got things started in the ninth minute, when Luis Quinones intercepted Ojeda’s cross-field pass attempt and broke the other way. Near the top of the area he stepped into his shot and Gallese got over to make a good save.

The Lions cleared the ensuing corner and looked to break but Pereyra was called for a foul just outside the area and booked for it. Gallese touched the ensuing free kick over the bar but it may have been staying high anyway.

Orlando’s first attacking motion ended badly when Torres chipped the ball into the air and tried to turn and shoot in one motion. He got the movement wrong and fired way off target in the 14th minute.

One minute later, Gallese bailed out his teammates with a huge stop on Nicolas Ibanez’s header in front. Fernando Gorriaran fired just wide on the rebound off the save.

The Lions should have broken the deadlock in the 19th minute. Petrasso’s pass found Angulo in the box and the winger fired but missed just inches wide of the right post.

The miss was costly, as Tigres grabbed the lead moments later. A cross in from Orlando’s right should have been defended by Petrasso, who got caught ball watching. That allowed Sebastian Cordova to chest the ball down to himself and fire past Gallese from close range, giving the visitors a 1-0 advantage in the 21st minute. With a road goal in their pocket, it made the uphill climb for Orlando that much harder.

The Lions didn’t respond to the goal well, as Schlegel and Araujo both took unnecessary yellow cards within the next few minutes. Halliday had an opportunity on the break with numbers in the box in the 30th minute but he couldn’t beat his defender with the cross and the ball deflected out.

Orlando didn’t do much with a couple of set pieces in the latter stages of the first half but should have pulled level seconds before halftime. Petrasso’s pass deflected in front to Enrique just a few yards in front of goal but his shot hit goalkeeper Nahuel Guzman in the chest. The Lions thwarted the ensuing counter and that was it for the first half.

The visitors held more possession in the first half (53.5%-46.5%), and had more shots (8-5), shots on target (4-1), and corners (4-1). Orlando City passed slightly more accurately (84.9%-82%).

Orlando City looked more lively to start the second half and fashioned the first chance after the break. Off a Pereyra corner, the ball fell to Enrique’s feet. The forward poked it toward goal but it was blocked behind for another corner.

Gallese made a save on a free kick from distance in the 52nd minute on a ball that eluded the wall and was heading just inside the left post. The Peruvian international kept making big saves as his team pushed numbers forward as time grew shorter. He made vital stops in the 67th, 73rd, and 83rd, robbing Quinones on the last of those. He made another key save in the 84th. It was an unbelievable display as Gallese finished with seven saves and there weren’t many easy ones in the bunch. His save on Ibanez was absolutely filthy.

“Obviously for us he represents a lot of security,” Pareja said of his goalkeeper, “especially today after we pushed in the second half and the lines were higher and we left the spaces in behind. Very good to see him in a good form.” 

The Lions fought hard to get back on level terms and Torres had an opportunity in the 80th. Kara’s backheel sent the Uruguayan in and he sent a lunging toe poke toward the net. His shot was deflected by defender Igor Lichnovsky up into Guzman’s midsection for an easy save.

Second-half sub Kara was fouled just outside the area late in the match and fellow substitute Dagur Dan Thorhallsson lined up over the ball. His free kick was going just under the bar when Guzman got a touch to it at the last second, pushing it over the bar in the 89th minute. The ensuing corner led to the equalizer.

Torres took the set piece from the left corner and he picked out McGuire at the near post. The rookie’s header was cleared off the line but Kara turned around, tracked it down and sent an overhead kick looping back toward goal and in, tying the match at 1-1 in the 90th minute.

Martinez indicated a minimum of five minutes of stoppage time and Tigres used up nearly every second of it. Kara tried another bicycle kick in stoppage time and there were some shouts for handball but there was no call from the video assistant referee for Martinez to take a second look at it.

Orlando had a series of corners and set pieces but couldn’t get onto them. Guzman came off his line and initiated contact on one, drawing a questionable foul and then milking precious seconds by staying down. Tigres center back Samir was sent off for a second yellow in stoppage time as well.

The last set piece came agonizingly close to providing a winner. Guzman came off his line to try to catch a set piece cross but could only get a hand on it. With the keeper well out of position, McGuire smashed it toward goal but his shot was always rising and fizzed over the bar.

Martinez then signaled the end of the match and Pareja bolted onto the pitch to argue, earning himself a red card.

“We’re not bad losers. We’re respectful, but we’re not stupid,” Pareja said of what happened after the game. “We scored in minute 89 and between 89 and 96:45 it was four minutes, 50 seconds that they did not play the game. They didn’t allow us to play the game. Whether it was because their goalkeeper wasn’t playing — not restarting — substitutions, and even the celebration of the goal. So they need to understand that. I mean, you give five minutes, but they’re wasting time. They need to add more time.

“We are competing and they need to realize that. So, the two teams were very feisty and it was a great game. I think they needed to reevaluate on the referee how many minutes they need to add. And that’s frustrating.”

The Lions turned around possession in the second half, finishing with the advantage (54.1%-45.9%) as well as a higher passing accuracy (84.4%-81.1%). Tigres had more shots (15-12), shots on target (8-5), and corners (7-6).

It’s a tough way to leave the competition, and the away goals tiebreaker seems rather random, but them’s the rules.

“This team did not give up at all,” Pareja said. “We pushed, pushed, pushed and then we found the game — probably later than we want, obviously. And 89 minutes (we scored) but after that I thought we had the energy to score another one, including and that option that Duncan had. But it could be one more or two more. But again, the referee just cut the game.”

“I’d definitely say we gave it all and played till the end,” McGuire said. “So, I definitely think from now on the games that we play we have to play the way that we finished that game, giving it all and leaving it all on the field.”

Orlando City wraps up a brutal stretch of five games in 15 days on Saturday when Charlotte FC visits Exploria Stadium in league play.

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Orlando City

How Orlando City’s Offense Stacks Up Against What Atlanta Does Defensively

How Orlando City has performed against teams playing with three or four defenders, and how that may influence the playoff game against Atlanta United.

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11 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

The most famous quote about real estate is that “there are three things that matter in property: location, location, location.” Soccer coaches also like to think in threes, especially when it comes to points, but for a soccer coach, the three things that matter might be the rhyming triplet “formation, formation, formation,” as that is where they will have the biggest influence on every game that their team plays.

Throughout his tenure as head coach, Óscar Pareja has preferred to use a 4-2-3-1 as his formation (fbref.com’s lineup data shows that the Lions primarily played a 4-2-3-1 in 65% of their MLS matches this season, and 79% of their MLS matches during the last three seasons). The Lions have lined up in a 4-2-3-1 during each of their last 14 games, and my confidence level is strong to quite strong (can you believe Meet the Parents came out 24 years ago?) that they will do so once again on Sunday when they host Atlanta United.

Atlanta United also prefers to deploy a 4-2-3-1, but was less consistent than Orlando City this season during MLS play, as evidenced by the chart below that shows how Atlanta lined up this season:

The purpose of this image is a table to show how Atlanta United lined up in 2024 (mostly in a 4-2-3-1 but also in one of six other formations).

I am relying on the coders at Opta for their evaluation of the formation, as I do not watch a lot of Atlanta United matches (sounds terrible), but though Atlanta primarily played with four defenders in more than two-thirds of its matches, during the last two matches it played a 3-5-2, the only two matches all season in which interim coach Rob Valentino rolled out that formation. I suspect that the formation change was related partially to playing Inter Miami and trying to defend the Herons’ dynamic offense and partially due to an injury suffered by defender Brooks Lennon in the first game of that series. So, while Atlanta primarily played four in the back for most of the season, there is a good chance it will roll with what worked against Florida’s second-best MLS team when it plays Florida’s best MLS team this weekend.

Now, if you want to read more about Atlanta, then you can read our match preview, which will drop Sunday morning, but I want to look at how Orlando did against teams that play similar styles. Looking only at MLS games, the table below shows how Orlando City performed against different back line structures this season (the left side is how the Lions’ opponents lined up, the right side is how Orlando City performed against opponents in those formations):

Table embedded as an image showing Orlando City doing best in goal differential in 12 games against three-man back lines, second best against four-man back lines, and having played once against a five-man back line (a 1-1 draw).

Orlando City earned slightly more points per game — the stat that matters most — against teams that played four in the back, but the Lions had a better average goal differential when teams played three in the back. Atlanta will likely deploy one of those two formations. In both games against Orlando City this season, Sunday’s visitors went with a 4-2-3-1, but as mentioned earlier, they used three in the back in each of their last two matches, so it really could be either.

Soccer is not like baseball, where players primarily stay in the same spot throughout the game, so some of these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt, as players are not always rigidly in the same position throughout a match. A team may also primarily play with four in the back but switch to three when chasing a game, or five when trying to protect against a late goal.

That said, using the data around Orlando City’s opponents’ general formations, here are the attacking groups who played the most frequently against four defenders during the 24 MLS games where Opta coded the opponents as using a defensive group of four:

Table embedded as an image showing the most frequently used lineups against teams who deploy four defenders. The most frequently used attacking group has a plus eight goal differential for the season.

It is a little ominous that the main starting group, shown in row one, has played 666 MLS minutes against back lines of four this season, but do I like that green goal differential of +8 in those minutes, which is a strong +1.08 per 90 minutes. I like that goal differential more than I like all the things that Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin like on their song that is creatively named “I Like It.” Coincidentally, when people ask me what I think about that song, I say, “I like it.” I am very creative.

If we look at the lineups that Orlando City has used against back lines of three defenders then there are some pretty major differences in personnel groupings, but it must be noted that more than half of the games against teams playing three in the back came early in the season, when Ramiro Enrique was unavailable to play. Enrique, my presumed starter at striker, has played fewer than three games’ worth of minutes (265 total) against back lines of three this season, and only 28 minutes with the main starting group, which ranks 13th among all the attacking lineups for minutes played against three defenders. That group scored one goal in their 28 minutes together though, for a robust 3.21 goals-scored-per-90-minutes average.

While the team as a whole has been successful against three-man back lines, I do not expect any of the lineups shown in the table below to play more than a few minutes together this weekend, though the first row and the last row are strong groups and had a lot of success.

Table embedded as an image showing the most frequently used lineups against teams who deploy three defenders. The most frequently used attacking group has a plus three goal differential for the season.

I am sure that all week long the Orlando City coaching staff has been going back and forth on whether it is more likely that Atlanta reverts to its most commonly used four in the back, or if the Five Stripes try for three wins in a row with three in the back. I would prefer that Atlanta plays with zero defenders and goalkeeper Brad Guzan wears a blindfold, but I think that is unlikely to be the case.

Even though Atlanta defeated Orlando City both times while in a 4-2-3-1, based on available personnel and recent results, I believe that the team will come out in a 3-5-2 in Inter&Co Stadium in the conference semifinal. Good things come in threes, and Orlando City’s best offensive production this season has been against three defenders, so I am going to be hoping that this continues, and in the third game against Atlanta the Lions grab the three points. Three’s company!

Well, it is a playoff game, so there are no actual points at stake, but you know what I meant.

Vamos Orlando!

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Orlando City vs. Atlanta United: Three Keys to Victory

What do the Lions need to do to get a victory to advance to the Eastern Conference final?

Published

13 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Orlando City continues its playoff journey against Atlanta United Sunday at Inter&Co Stadium. The Lions are coming off an emotional penalty shootout win over Charlotte FC in their best-of-three, first-round series. Likewise, Atlanta United stunned everyone by taking out Inter Miami to advance in its own best-of-three matchup. Now, the rivals meet in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

What does Orlando City need to do to get past Atlanta United to advance to the Easter Conference final?

Beat Guzan

Brad Guzan made 16 saves over Atlanta’s three matches against Inter Miami, including seven in the 3-2 win on the road in Game 3. The 40-year-old former USMNT keeper is in excellent form and is a big reason why the Five Stripes are facing Orlando City. Converting chances against Guzan will be crucial to earning a result. There have been times this season when the Lions have struggled to convert their chances. Despite that, the team has done enough offensively to get to this point. Facundo Torres, Martin Ojeda, Duncan McGuire, Ramiro Enrique, and others have contributed and will need to do so this weekend.

Cartagena is Essential

Orlando City lost twice to Atlanta United during the regular season. What is interesting, and perhaps relevant, is that Wilder Cartagena was out for both of those matches. Cartagena was shown a straight red in the match against Minnesota United prior to the first match against Atlanta way back in March. He was shown a yellow card in the match against FC Cincinnati and then served a yellow card accumulation suspension for the final match of the season against Atlanta. Fortunately for Orlando City, Cartagena will be available for the match this weekend. I’ve mentioned before the importance of Cartagena to Orlando City’s success. When he and Cesar Araujo are on the field together, the defense is simply better. Cartagena is frankly one of the better defensive midfielders in MLS. Atlanta scored five goals in the series against Miami, and Orlando will need to keep the visitors from having that kind of offensive success.

Overcome the Past

That darn international break in the middle of the playoffs is something I don’t love. More precisely, I don’t like it because Orlando City often struggles after a break. It would have been nice if Orlando City could have ridden the momentum from the penalty kick victory into the Atlanta match, but that’s not to be. Now is the time for Orlando City to break some bad habits, including turning around its historical lack of success against Atlanta, and tendency to struggle in the first match after a break. Oscar Pareja needs to have the players in the right frame of mind, and the players need to execute the plan. A full house of supporters can also make a difference. Given it’s a Sunday afternoon match, there’s no reason not to pack the house.

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

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Lion Links: 11/21/24

Marta’s chance to shine in NWSL Championship, NWSL and MLS award winners announced, 2025 SheBelieves Cup details, and more.

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17 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride

How’s it going, Mane Landers? I’ve been spending most of this week plotting out some holiday shopping to make things a little less stressful for myself over the next few weeks. A big weekend filled with Orlando soccer awaits us, so make sure to get any errands or obligations out of the way sooner rather than later. Let’s dive into today’s links!

Spotlight Falls On Marta in NWSL Championship

There are plenty of storylines heading into Saturday’s NWSL Championship between the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit, including Marta’s opportunity to put an exclamation point on what has been an excellent season for the Pride. Orlando has been enjoying the fruits of its labor this season after a rebuild over the past few years that’s included plenty of change in the City Beautiful. Marta has been a constant, however, enduring some difficult seasons since joining the Pride and adapting her game She’s scored in both of the Pride’s playoff games so far and has a chance to author a storybook ending on Saturday.

Ann-Katrin Berger Named NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year

NJ/NY Gotham FC goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger was named 2024 NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year, beating out the Pride’s Anna Moorhouse and Utah Royals FC’s Mandy Haught for the honor. It was Berger’s first year in the NWSL and she’s the first European player to win the award. She only conceded 16 goals across her 22 matches for Gotham this season and was a key reason behind her team’s success. I’m not too surprised that Moorhouse did not win, considering how solid the Pride’s defense was as a whole, but this won’t take anything away from a record-breaking season for her.

Wilfried Nancy Named MLS Coach of the Year

Columbus Crew Head Coach Wilfried Nancy was voted 2024 MLS Coach of the Year after a historic season in which the Crew set club records in both points and goals. The Crew also won the Leagues Cup this summer and their 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup campaign included advancing past Tigres and Monterrey en route to the final. This is Nancy’s first time being named Coach of the Year and he has been a finalist for the award every year since 2021. The Frenchman received 40.02% of the vote, winning the award over Inter Miami’s Gerardo Martino and Colorado Rapids Head Coach Chris Armas.

2025 SheBelieves Cup Details Unveiled

The 10th annual SheBelieves Cup will take place next year and the tournament will return to its usual format where each of the four teams plays each other once. The United States Women’s National Team will host Japan, Colombia, and Australia in February in what should be an exciting tournament. The U.S. will take on Colombia on Feb. 20 in Houston before facing Australia in Arizona on Feb. 23 and finishing the tournament on Feb. 26 against Japan at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. These games will also be the first domestic games of 2025 for the USWNT as it prepares to qualify for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.

Eric Quill Named FC Dallas Head Coach

FC Dallas announced that Eric Quill will become the team’s next head coach. Quill joins Dallas after a great year with New Mexico United that included trips to the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals and USL Championship Western Conference semifinals. It’s also a reunion of sorts for Quill, as he previously coached North Texas SC and was named USL League One Coach of the Year with the club in 2019. Dallas missed out on the playoffs this season, with Peter Luccin coaching the team on an interim basis after the firing of Nico Estevez in June.

Free Kicks

  • District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser challenged Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer to a bet involving this weekend’s NWSL Championship, with embarrassing lightshows on the line.

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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