Orlando City vs. New England Revolution: Five Takeaways

Orlando City’s win streak ended as quickly as it started with Saturday’s 3-1 loss to New England. After a scoreless first half, a rain-soaked pitch opened up play and brought four second-half goals between the teams.

Here are the things I took from the match.

Ojeda Isn’t Torres

Just when Facundo Torres found his form for Orlando City, he was called upon for international duty. This allowed fellow Designated Player Martín Ojeda a rare opportunity to show that he is worth his money while the Uruguayan is absent. It became clear early on though just how well Ojeda has played recently as a late super sub. From the start of the match, Ojeda was set to play wide on the wing in the usual Torres role. And while Torres is known to drift inside and find himself on the ball, Ojeda did as well, only he often left the team narrow and didn’t always check back out to his wide starting position following a buildup or opportunity. Ojeda’s inability to stay wide allowed DeJuan Jones to attack Lions’ right back Michael Halliday throughout the night. Should Torres ever miss an extended period of time or find himself transferred, the front office will need to find a like-for-like change because Ojeda just isn’t it.

Depth Like Never Before

While the Lions entered the season with what appeared to be its best depth in recent years and maybe ever for second-choice players, it still is not deep enough to ever make a real push midseason against Supporters’ Shield-caliber teams amid injuries, international call-ups, and other competitions. It isn’t the second choice players in question though, rather those that find themselves third or lower in the depth chart. Sure, second-choice goalkeeper Mason Stajduhar is a clear step down from a world-class international goalkeeper like Pedro Gallese, however, even El Pulpo is likely only saving one of those three goals given up. The real problem comes when the club is down two goals and Head Coach Oscar Pareja looks down the bench to see four substitutes worth getting minutes with the first team at the moment. And even those players likely need to be called upon only if the game is under control or have multiple veteran players offering coverage surrounding them.

Creating in the Final Third

Orlando has shown countless times — not only this season, but in the past couple years — that it is a team that wants to overlap the fullbacks and whip in crosses. While that is a proven strategy around the soccer world, the Lions’ fullbacks Saturday night were not nearly clinical enough with their crossing. Both Rafael Santos and Michael Halliday missed badly with their crosses, sending them directly at the goalkeeper or even out of play. Santos has shown in recent games he can curl in dangerous crosses and Michael Halliday’s dime on McGuire’s goal shows the young Homegrown’s potential. They simply wasted too many good opportunities with their play from the wide areas.

César Araujo Continues to Impress

The moment I saw Araujo pick up a yellow card in the third minute my spirits dropped, as I knew we would be in for a long night. You never want to see your bruiser of a defensive midfielder have to play timid for the entirety of a game, however, his statistics by the end of the match ended up being his average outing. Even with midfield partner Wilder Cartagena out on international duty, Araujo was able to find himself on the ball 43 times, making a couple critical tackles, and an interception. Veteran midfielder Felipe, his 32-year-old partner on Saturday, is a very different player to have to work alongside, but I think it’s worth giving Araujo a nod for how well he kept things together in what was a trying situation against a potent New England attack of Carles Gil, Gustavo Bou, Bobby Wood, and Emmanuel Boateng. Sure, it wasn’t the result that we wanted in the end, but it definitely could have been much, much worse.

Turf Woes

It pains me to be writing this in the year 2023 when the league is getting more publicity and recognition than ever before, but the lack of stadium standards or enforcing even those that are in place is still a big disappointment. I am all for a home-field advantage, but when something as simple as putting in real grass keeps getting ignored, then it proves Commisioner Don Garber doesn’t care about creating a premium product. Would Orlando have won the match if it was played on a natural surface at Gillette Stadium? Maybe not, but it would have allowed the Lions to deploy all of their usual strengths and talents. Players like Ivan Angulo looked steps slower and saw his natural agility stifled by the inability to cut quickly for fear of slipping (or worse) due to the surface. Passes played that would likely find their target on another pitch go skipping by players as the turf plays fast and hard. The torrential downpour only added to how laughable requiring visiting teams to deal with this is. Create a standard and let’s see which players truly reign supreme week in and week out.

That’s what I took away from a 3-1 loss at Gillette Stadium. Hopefully the team can regroup once all its players are back in the fold and get that win streak started again. The result isn’t what we wanted, but Orlando City is still above the playoff line and with a game in hand to much of the competition.