Orlando City
Orlando City vs. CF Montreal: Final Score 2-0 as Lions Suffer First Road Loss
Once again the Lions were simply not sharp enough with the final details as they suffered their first road defeat of the season.

If Orlando City went to Montreal looking for revenge for last year’s road playoff loss, you’d never know it. The Lions (4-4-2, 14 points) were lethargic and sloppy as they suffered their first road loss, another 2-0 defeat to CF Montreal (4-6-0, 12 points) at Stade Saputo.
The hosts weren’t particularly good for much of the night either, but did enough in the attack to get on the board and got away with their few defensive mistakes as the Lions helped them by missing the target repeatedly on their best scoring chances. A Robin Jansson own goal and Romell Quioto’s strike moments later lifted Montreal to its third consecutive 2-0 victory.
“A game with two very different phases from our performance,” Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja said after the match. “First half, I thought we dominated the game. I thought we were very clear with our actions that the boys put on the pitch. We had enough actions to unlevel the score and surely (should) just be leading it. But we came out of the half with a zero-zero that was dangerous. The reaction from Montreal in the second half made a difference.”
Pareja’s starting lineup was the same as last Saturday’s starting XI at home against the LA Galaxy, with Pedro Gallese in goal behind a back line of Kyle Smith, Jansson, Antonio Carlos, and Michael Halliday. Cesar Araujo and Wilder Cartagena held down the central midfield behind an attacking line of Ivan Angulo, Facundo Torres, and Martin Ojeda, with Ercan Kara up top.
The first half began a bit lively but then slowed to kind of a crawl over the final 15 minutes. The Lions were often the better side in the opening 30 minutes but Montreal found some control as the pace slowed. Orlando City failed to take the lead in the first half by missing the target on decent looks at goal and because Gallese made one good save on Montreal’s best chance.
Angulo got a good look early in the game, taking the ball in the left corner of the box and cutting across to his right, unleashing a shot near the arch. He hit his effort wide of the right post and that was the theme of the first half for the Lions.
Halliday won a foul on Ariel Lassiter in the 13th minute near the right corner. The set piece delivery found Kara in front, but it was dipping and the Austrian center forward had a defender in front of him. He still got his head to it but beat it into the ground and it bounced up easily for goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois.
One minute after that half chance, Ojeda could have put the Lions on top. Cartagena did well to turn Montreal over in its own half and Ojeda had space outside the area. He fired a rocket toward the right side of goal but it stayed wide.
In the 19th minute, Halliday sent a dangerous cross into the box but it was just a bit too far in front of Kara at the near post and the ball took a deflection before Torres arrived and whiffed on his shot attempt. Seconds later, it was Torres firing wide right, as the Lions just couldn’t dial in.
Montreal’s best look came just after that, as Halliday got a foot on Lassiter’s nutmeg attempt but the ball bounced favorable for the former Inter Miami man. he took a shot from outside the box that was labeled for just inside the left post but Gallese made a good sprawling save.
The hosts started to get into the match over the rest of the first half, moving forward up the wings and getting both Orlando City’s starting fullbacks booked. Chinonso Offor got a head to a corner kick in the 32nd minute but his shot was right at Gallese’s chest.
Kara sent a free kick over the wall in the 38th minute after Torres drew a foul in a dangerous spot, but his shot didn’t have much pace on it and asked no questions of Sirois, who made an easy catch.
That was about it for a plodding end to the first 45 minutes and the teams went to the break without any stoppage time at all.
The Lions finished the half with more possession (58.1%-41.9%), shots (8-4), and passing accuracy (82%-80.5%). Both teams got two shots on target and Montreal won more corners (3-2).
The second half began pretty much how the first ended. Neither team was doing much and Orlando couldn’t find a final product. There were a few decent crosses into the area in the first 10 minutes after the break but no Lions could get onto them. Kara had a nice knockdown for Torres in the 54th minute but the Uruguayan had his shot blocked by defender Rudy Camacho.
Montreal got its goal on the dumbest play in a dumb game. Camacho came up the pitch and no one picked him up after he passed it away, although he continued his run. Of course the ball found him in the area on the rebound of Gallese’s save on Lassiter’s shot, and the center back fired off the right post. The ball came to Aaron Herrera on the right. The winger/fullback cut inside onto his left foot and fired a shot that would have gone 10 yards wide if it hadn’t hit Jansson and bounced in for the opening goal in the 62nd minute.
“One of their center backs got forward and that sure did create the overload,” Smith said. “And the cross came in and it was a little hectic. And then the ball popped out. I just remember the shot got off, hit the post, and then unlucky with the deflection, because I don’t think it was going to hit the target.”
“It was a moment where we lost concentration,” Pareja said. “We knew that their wingbacks are aggressive and we needed to control them. And then after that, our reaction was timid. It was not with the same intensity and the same fire that we had in the first half.”
Orlando tried to respond immediately but didn’t fashion much danger and that allowed the hosts to put the game away with a second. A ball out on the right side was played to Herrera, who ran away from Angulo and found a wide open Quioto near the penalty spot. Players of that quality don’t miss from there. Quioto didn’t, and the Montreal lead bulged to 2-0 at the 66-minute mark.
“We started probably shy. We were not the same,” Pareja said. “And then they started getting the spaces on the flanks and they were fine and precise more than us. Every team has a half, but we couldn’t score in the first and in the second Montreal did.”
Angulo could have pulled a goal right back in the 68th minute, freeing himself up nicely for a shot from the left but again he fizzed a shot just off target, slightly high and to the right.
Rather than throwing on additional attacking players, Oscar Pareja subbed off some attackers for others. Felipe, Duncan McGuire, Rafael Santos, Ramiro Enrique, and Gaston Gonzalez, but he withdrew Kara, Ojeda, and Angulo, along with Smith and Cartagena.
The substitutions made no real difference down the stretch. They did manage to win a few set pieces and get a couple of Montreal’s defenders booked, but that was the only effect they had on the proceedings.
The Lions’ best chances in the final 20 minutes resulted in Ojeda crossing to no one in particular when he seemingly had enough room to try a shot or hold the play for some runners to arrive; Halliday getting way under a half-volley effort with the goalkeeper out of position after he came out to punch away a cross; and a free kick from just outside the area that Felipe sent into low orbit. Jansson had a shout for a penalty when Herrera pulled him down from behind by his shirt but a review didn’t convince the video assistant referee to ask the on-field official to take a second look.
City’s frustration was evident in late yellow cards on Araujo, Enrique, and Felipe that were all unnecessary.
Orlando City finished with more possession (54.9%-45.1%), shots (13-7), passing accuracy (81%-79.4%), and corners (5-4), but the hosts had more shots hit the target (3-2). A lack of the final details have plagued Orlando throughout this first third of the season and this match was no different. Angulo, Ojeda, and Torres all could have hit their shots inside the goal frame, but as we’ve seen all too often in 2023, they simply couldn’t do it.
Kara put two of his four shot attempts on target and at least forced Sirois to do something, but the rest of the team went 0-for-9 in getting their shots within the goal frame.
“The game became very lazy,” Pareja said of the second half, following Montreal’s two quick goals. “Montreal started stopping the game in every second and then it was difficult for us to get back in the game.”
“I think an important piece is everyone maybe just look at themselves and what they can personally do better on,” Smith said about his team finding some consistency. “And then, if everyone just gets a little better, then the whole team gets better. And you know, once we get everyone being consistent, then as a team we’re more consistent.”
The Lions will stay on the road and pay a visit to Charlotte FC on Tuesday in U.S. Open Cup action. The next league game will be next Saturday in Columbus against the Crew.
Opinion
Orlando City Has Been Better than Expected Halfway Through the Season
While there was plenty to worry about at the start of the season, Orlando has had a good first half of 2025.

With 18 matches in the books, we’ve moved just past the halfway point of the 2025 Major League Soccer season, and based off my feelings before Orlando City played its opening game of the season, the Lions have performed above expectations so far. There were plenty of valid reasons to be concerned heading into the year. Orlando had sold its all-time leading goal scorer, and there were questions about whether he’d been adequately replaced. There were worries about depth at multiple positions, and the defense was coming off an uncharacteristically poor year. Here we are though, with the Lions sitting fifth in the Eastern Conference, just three points out of second place and seven points out of first. So how did we get to this point?
For one thing, Marco Pasalic has been much better than I (and I think a lot of other people) expected him to be. The Croatian has six goals and four assists across 18 matches, and is second on the team in both categories. He scored 10 goals in 49 appearances in the Croatian first division before coming to Orlando and was extremely one-footed, which was enough evidence to sow real doubt about whether he could adequately replace the impact of Facundo Torres.
So far, it’s mostly been so good. His direct style of play is a good complement to the styles of Martin Ojeda and Luis Muriel, and he’s largely hit the ground running in a league that can be difficult to adapt to. It hasn’t been perfect, as he’s still very one-footed, and can sometimes disappear if he’s stringently man marked, but on the whole there’s been much more good than bad.
Speaking of Ojeda and Muriel, they’ve also had strong years. Ojeda in particular has continued his great second half of the 2024 season and has nine goals and five assists in 18 games to show for it. He looks fast, confident, and decisive and is a far cry from the player who struggled frequently during his first year as a Lion. Muriel has cooled off a little after a scorching start to 2025, but he still has six goals and three assists in 18 matches. He looks vastly improved from last year, when he looked a little off the pace of play and quickly lost the starting striker role. He still has a tendency to not be as selfish as he needs to be in front of goal, but he’s been much better than 2024.
I mentioned depth being a big concern, and not just at one position. At the beginning of the season Orlando City was, and arguably still is, thin at striker, center back, defensive midfield, and fullback. Duncan McGuire was injured to start the year and is now injured again, leaving Orlando with two true strikers in Muriel and Ramiro Enrique. There was no true backup left back, only one reliable backup center back, and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson starting at right back meant that defensive midfield depth consisted of rookie Joran Gerbet and the Swiss army knife that is Kyle Smith.
Things have mostly worked out though. David Brekalo has supplanted Rafael Santos, meaning the Brazilian is now a proven backup option at the position, and Smith has filled in there as well. That means that in games in which Rodrigo Schlegel or Robin Jansson are unavailable, Brekalo fills in at center back, Santos starts at left back, and Smith is the backup for both positions, so it isn’t a flawless system. Gerbet has been playing better and better and got some valuable minutes when Eduard Atuesta and Cesar Araujo were unavailable. His emergence has been a crucial piece of the puzzle this year. So too has the rise of Alex Freeman, as his locking down the right back role has allowed Thorhallsson to fill in at defensive midfield, attacking midfield, and right back. The situation isn’t perfect, as a couple untimely injuries to the wrong guys would leave the Lions looking pretty threadbare, but so far it’s just about worked.
Another big concern was the defense. The Lions conceded 50 goals in the regular season last year, which was tied for the second-most of any Eastern Conference playoff team and fourth-most of any playoff team. With no defensive signings and the aforementioned depth concerns, there were plenty of reasons to worry about Orlando’s ability to keep the ball out of the back of the net.
Things have looked much better in 2025, though. The 22 goals OCSC has conceded are the fifth-fewest in the league, and Pedro Gallese’s eight clean sheets are tied for most in the league. Aside from a few egregious defensive performances against the Philadelphia Union, Atlanta United, and the Chicago Fire, things have mostly been tidy at the back, and when they haven’t been, El Pulpo has been around to pick up the slack. Again, things haven’t been perfect, as there have been moments where individual and collective errors have hurt the team, but it’s been better.
I thought the Lions would struggle this year. Going into the start of the season, we were talking about a team that lost Torres, arguably didn’t do enough to strengthen the team across the board, was facing depth issues, and was dealing with a leaky defense — all while pretty much every other contender in the East got stronger on paper. Instead, OCSC tied a club-best unbeaten streak and is just three points out of second place.
That being said, the East is so tight that Orlando is only five points above the playoff line, and injuries to the wrong guys could easily topple the fragile ecosystem that is the depth chart, but so far things are going better than I thought they would be. There are still a lot of matches to play, but this isn’t a bad position to be in at the halfway mark.
Lion Links
Lion Links: 6/20/25
Orlando Pride take on Racing Louisville FC tonight, Orlando Pride players called up by Zambia, USMNT beats Saudi Arabia, and more.

Happy Friday! June continues to fly by as we enjoy the buffet of soccer here in the U.S. this month. I’ll be spending most of the weekend working, but I am hoping to get some reading done after being gifted some books for my birthday. But enough about me, let’s jump right into today’s links!
Orlando Pride Face Racing Louisville Tonight
The Orlando Pride are on the road tonight for a match against Racing Louisville FC at 8 p.m. in the final game before a league break until August. Going into the break with four straight wins would be nice for the Pride, but they’ve struggled at Lynn Family Stadium over the years. Louisville enters this match following a 4-2 loss to the league-leading Kansas City Current and has scored eight goals over the past three games. Orlando’s defense has been phenomenal this year, conceding just eight goals this season and only one during this win streak. Midfielder Cori Dyke spoke on how the team is finding its groove and shutting out opponents.
Zambia Calls Up Orlando Pride Trio
Barbra Banda, Grace Chanda, and Prisca Chilufya were all called up for Zambia’s CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations roster ahead of this summer’s tournament. Banda has eight goals this season with the Pride and had four goals at last year’s Olympics, including a hat trick against Australia. The Copper Queens claimed third place in the 2022 edition of this tournament, and they’ll need to be at their best to win this summer against tough opponents like South Africa and Nigeria. Zambia’s tournament campaign will kick off on July 5 against the host nation, Morocco.
USMNT Beats Saudi Arabia to Qualify for Quarterfinals
The United States Men’s National Team won 1-0 against Saudi Arabia to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals of this year’s Concacaf Gold Cup. After a scoreless first half, the Yanks broke through in the 63rd minute thanks to a free kick. Sebastian Berhalter served the ball on a silver platter to Chris Richards, who buried it for the crucial goal. The defense did well to secure its second shutout of the tournament, with Orlando City’s Alex Freeman starting at right back yet again. The USMNT will play Haiti on Sunday and should be able to win the group for a smoother path in the knockout stage.
FIFA Club World Cup Roundup
An MLS club finally won a game during this year’s FIFA Club World Cup, with Inter Miami beating Porto 2-1 in Atlanta. Lionel Messi scored the winner from a free kick to complete the comeback after conceding an early goal. The Seattle Sounders had a rougher day, falling 3-1 to Atletico Madrid, with Pablo Barrios scoring a brace. Former Lion Facundo Torres started for Palmeiras in the Brazilian club’s 2-0 win over Egypt’s Al Ahly.
Today’s action features more soccer at Inter&Co Stadium, with Benfica and Auckland City squaring off in the City Beautiful. Our Michael Citro will be on hand to report on it. Elsewhere in the U.S., Chelsea will take on Flamengo, LAFC will face ES Tunis, and Bayern Munich will play Boca Juniors.
Free Kicks
- Canada Head Coach Jesse Marsch, who is already serving a suspension for misconduct during the Nations League, is under investigation by Concacaf for incidents during this Gold Cup. Reports detail that Marsch disregarded regulations and used offensive language toward match officials.
- Kylian Mbappe was discharged from the hospital after suffering from a case of gastroenteritis. It’s unclear if or when he’ll play for Real Madrid during the Club World Cup.
- Carlos Cuesta was hired as Parma’s next head coach after five years with Arsenal as an assistant coach. The 29-year-old becomes the second-youngest coach in Serie A history.
- Manchester City was fined over $1 million by the English Premier League for repeated delays regarding kickoff times.
That’s all I have for you all today. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend!
Orlando City
In 2025, OCSC Stands for Orlando City Scorers Club
How Orlando City’s top offensive performers this season compare to the rest of MLS…and the Premier League.

Last week, I wrote about the state of Orlando City at the halfway point of the season, focusing mostly on the team’s accomplishments on offense and defense through 17 games. For this week, let’s look at some of the top performing Lions, because it’s always fun to talk about offensive success. I do not apologize if you take offense to my desire to only focus on offense, because that would be defensive, and there is no place in this article for defense.
Many moons ago, back in January during the preseason, I wrote an article looking at the best offensive seasons in Orlando City’s MLS history. I used a derived metric called game score to rank the seasons, and I’ll quickly explain again how that is calculated:
Goals Scored + Expected Assists + 0.0113 (Progressive Carries + Progressive Passes)
I went into much more detail about why that is the calculation in the original article, but the quick and dirty version is that scoring goals, completing passes to players in dangerous scoring areas, and progressing the ball by dribbling and passing are core components of a strong offensive player. Think of the game score as an offensive value calculation, and think of it simply as a value for which more is better and the most is best.
Opta only tracked the last three contributing statistics (expected assists, progressive carries, and progressive passes) from 2018 onwards, and the chart below shows Orlando City’s 10 best MLS regular seasons since 2018. It also shows the season that currently ranks 11th — Martín Ojeda’s 2025 season, which, as a reminder, is only in game 18 of a 34-game regular season. This means, if you get the extrapolation machine out, Ojeda is on pace for a season-long game score of 26.5, which would rank as the highest full season game score in Orlando City history.
Player | Season | Season Game Score | Rank in MLS | MLS Best that Season |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nani | 2019 | 22.0 | 8 | 50.7 |
Facundo Torres | 2023 | 20.9 | 10 | 31.1 |
Facundo Torres | 2024 | 20.0 | 21 | 32.6 |
Facundo Torres | 2022 | 17.4 | 25 | 33.7 |
Duncan McGuire | 2023 | 16.3 | 26 | 31.1 |
Nani | 2021 | 16.2 | 26 | 26.6 |
Sacha Kljestan | 2018 | 15.6 | 46 | 38.0 |
Chris Mueller | 2020* | 14.8 | 11 | 21.8 |
Yoshimar Yotún | 2018 | 14.7 | 53 | 38.0 |
Dom Dwyer | 2018 | 14.3 | 58 | 38.0 |
Martín Ojeda | 2025** | 14.1 | 4 | 16.8 |
- * The 2020 season contained only 23 games due to COVID-19
- ** Ojeda’s stats are through 18 matches; MLS teams have played between 16-19 matches
Ojeda’s 14.1 currently ranks only behind Sam Surridge of Nashville (15.7), Anders Dreyer of San Diego (16.6), and some player from Miami who clearly wants to play for Orlando since he has lion as part of his first name (Messi, 16.8). During Ojeda’s first two seasons, he only accumulated 12.1 and 12.5, respectively, so this is already by far his best season in purple and it is just barely halfway complete.
Ojeda is not the only Orlando City player who is on pace to jump into the club’s all-time top 10 by the end of the season, as teammates Luis Muriel (10.76, on pace for 20.3) and Marco Pašalić (10.46, on pace for 19.8) are both in the top 30 in MLS this season. Muriel is 24th, and Pašalić is 27th. Orlando City is the only team in the league with three players in the top 30, or really the top 27 (shout out to my son, for whom 27 is his favorite number).
One last point on Ojeda: if we were to extrapolate his performance through 18 games to 38 games, his season game score would bump up to 29.6. Why did I choose 38? Well, 38 happens to be the number of games played in the world’s most popular league, England’s Premier League. I am well aware that the Premier League is a different level of competition than MLS, but just for fun I ran the numbers on the 2024-2025 Premier League season, and a season-long game score of 29.6 would coincidentally also rank Ojeda fourth in England, right behind Cole Palmer (29.7) and in front of Alexander Isak (29.2). I do not think Ojeda would actually finish fourth if he was in the Premier League, but my point is more that the frequency of Ojeda’s contributions for Orlando City thus far this season have been similar to that of Palmer for Chelsea and Isak for Newcastle, which is pretty heady company.
Speaking of heady, we also need to talk about the player who is leading Orlando City in aerial duel wins, Alex Freeman. Heady, aerial duels…you got the segue, right? Don’t answer that.
Freeman has been on a rocket ship in the last year, going from Orlando City B starter to Orlando City starter to U.S. Men’s National Team starter, and he likely will also be the MLS All-Star Game starter, too. My mention of his leading the team in aerial duel wins, while noteworthy, was really just a convenient way to cut over to talking about him and his season-long game score of 8.1.
According to Opta’s positional tracking, only two MLS defenders have accumulated game scores of more than six thus far this season — Philadelphia’s Kai Wagner at 6.88 and Freeman’s 8.1. The extrapolation machine says 8.1 through 18 games puts Freeman on pace for a final score of 15.2, which would be the second best performance by an MLS defender since tracking began in 2018. Freeman is going to miss at least a few more games due to being with the U.S. team during the Gold Cup, so that 15.2 will likely not happen, but wow, what a great first half of a season for Orlando City’s right back.
Going back to the Premier League for comparative context…actually, please sit down and buckle up first. Are you good? Ok.
Going back to the Premier League for comparative context, there is none. Freeman’s performance blows away every defender’s from that league. It will likely surprise few that the defender with the best season game score in the Premier League this season was Trent Alexander-Arnold, who accumulated a score of 13.5 during Liverpool’s championship run. That 13.5 was 15% better than the defender who finished in second place, and yet, if we extrapolate Freeman to 38 games, he would be on pace for 17.0, which is 26% better than Alexander-Arnold. Mind the gap.
Once again, I do not mean to say that Freeman is as skilled or would contribute like Alexander-Arnold did in the Premier League. It is instead that Freeman’s contributions to Orlando City’s offense are unlike that from any defenders in the Premier League. Freeman’s performance thus far this season places him 43rd in the overall MLS rankings, first among defenders, and ahead of strikers such as Christian Benteke, Emmanuel Latte Lath, and Brandon Vazquez. He ranks fourth on Orlando City, and the Lions are not only the only club with three players in the top 30, but also the only club with four players in the top 45.
Two teams had four players in the top 45 during the 2024 MLS season, and one of them was the LA Galaxy, the eventual MLS Cup champions. I am not saying that Orlando City having four players in the top 45 this season means they will win MLS Cup, but I am not not saying it either. I am saying I would like it to happen though, and saying that loudly and clearly.
The game score metric is not the be-all, end-all of measuring offensive prowess, but I think it does a good job of creating a ranking system where the eye test matches the math. Most fans would point to Ojeda as the player who has driven Orlando City’s offense more than any other this season, and being that the team is on pace to have one of the best, if not the best, goal-scoring seasons in the club’s MLS history, it should track that Ojeda is also on pace to have one of the best, if not the best, individual offensive seasons in the club’s MLS history as well.
There are 16 more MLS games to go, and the great thing about sports is that in any game anything can happen, and that is why we love to watch. It is awesome that all three Designated Players and Freeman are off to great starts, but nothing is guaranteed for the back half of the season. That’s why they play the games, as the saying goes. For all we know, Ramiro Enrique could come on like gangbusters in the final games and rip off double-digit goals to end as the team’s leading scorer.
Ramiro, this is a bold strategy, and I am on board for it. The more goals the merrier. Feel free to bring us fans some goals for Christmas in July.
Orlando City does not have a game this weekend, with next match coming June 25 on the road in St. Louis. Winning that game would give the Lions their third winning streak of the season and would be something I would very much like, since I will be doling out the grades for that game. And since I have been writing about the offense this week, how about three goals and three points?
Vamos Orlando!
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