PawedCast Episode 333: Alex Freeman Interview, Nashville Rewind, Pride-Angel City, OCB, and More

After a win at Philadelphia, Orlando City’s homecoming wasn’t a fun one Saturday, but if one looks beyond the scoreline of the Lions’ 2-0 loss to Nashville SC, the performance didn’t match the result. The Lions — for the most part, anyway — controlled the match, generated the most chances, and honestly should have scored a couple of goals. They didn’t. Instead, they got caught twice by the visitors, who created only a few chances, but converted on two of them, and the first was a gift.

We break down a frustrating home loss but we also aren’t ready to call for anyone’s head just yet, and we explain why. We also select our Man of the Match picks and look forward to Orlando getting healthy and rested for a meeting on April 15 with Minnesota United on the road.

We don’t normally talk about OCB second, but the Young Lions are the club’s only undefeated professional side after a 2-1 win over Huntsville City in the club’s home opener. Alex Freeman scored both goals for OCB and the team was albe to withstand a lot of pressure against the visitors to improve to 2-0-0.

Speaking of Freeman, he joined us as this week’s guest and we asked him about his experiences in camp, what Oscar Pareja has told him he needs to do better to get first-team minutes, how he adjusts to playing for OCB and then quickly changing gears for international play, and much more. Big thanks to Alex for coming on the show and to a couple of our Founders for submitting some questions.

The Pride dropped a heartbreaker in their home opener but man, did they ever create some scoring chances against Angel City. The visitors had to rely on a penalty and a last-gasp header, in addition to numerous missed opportunities by the home team to take three points out of Exploria Stadium for the first time. Ally Watt had a rough match in front of goal but better days lie ahead if Seb Hines can get that kind of performance out of his team each week. We also discussed NWSL expansion and the Pride’s recent signing of three young additions to the team.

The OCSC academy teams won their groups at the Generation Adidas tournament and will be in action today as a result. It’s always nice to see the kids doing well against difficult competition.

Finally, we dove into our mailbagbox, which asked us about bar brawls, how Orlando City spends money on players, and (of all things) the Tampa Bay Rowdies’ home crowd. 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.

Stay safe and enjoy the show!

Here’s how No. 333 went down:

0:15 – The Lions dropped a game they could have won (but didn’t) and a lot of people are upset about it. We’re going to try to stay rational and positive for the time being and explain why others should do so too.

41:41 –Alex Freeman scored twice and that really made us want to talk to him. So we did.

54:16 – The Pride played better but got the same result, although with a better scoreline. Also, the academy teams were cooking over the weekend and the mailbagbox was full.