Orlando City vs. Philadelphia Union: Five Takeaways

Orlando City hosted Eastern Conference opponent Philadelphia Union in the friendly confines of Exploria Stadium in a mid-week matchup. Unfortunately, it was one of those draws that felt like a loss since the Lions gave up a 2-0 lead to end the match at 2-2. Here are the things I took from the match.

McGuire’s Magic

Duncan McGuire scored his sixth goal of the season in the 13th minute of the match to give Orlando City the early lead. It was a very McGuire-ish goal in that it took a workmanlike effort to make it happen. Martin Ojeda’s cheeky pass to put it on McGuire’s foot was sublime — so much so that McGuire took a heavy first touch. Normally, a forward would lose that ball, but McGuire challenged the defender, won the ball back, and slotted it past Joe Bendik into the bottom left hand corner of the goal. It was a perfect example of persistence and skill producing a goal.

The magic continued in the 54th minute, when he inadvertently redirected Ojeda’s shot past Bendik for his second of the night. I say magic because he immediately went to apologize to Ojeda for “taking” his goal, but upon review I don’t think Ojeda’s shot makes it past Bendik without the re-direct. The goal makes it seven for the rookie on the season if it gets credited to him. It was given to Ojeda by Opta.

Set Piece Defense

The Philadelphia Union had seven corners in the match, but Orlando City was able to successfully defend each and every one of them. Set piece defense hasn’t historically been a strong point for the Lions, but I guess they have been working on it in training because the Union were unable to convert on those chances. I was holding out hope that Orlando could get a win thanks to the set piece defense but it was not to be.

Stajduhar’s Mixed Bag

Mason Stajduhar was good most of the night. He made several big saves, including one in the 48th minute and another the 52nd minute. Both of those saves were one-on-one opportunities for the opposition, but Stajduhar got big and made the stops. He absolutely misjudged Philly’s first goal in the 60th minute. It was a cross by Jack McGlynn and he played it as such, but he recognized the danger too late after it cleared Mikael Uhre and his center backs, and it ended up inside the far post. When it came to the Union’s second goal, there was nothing he — nor any goalkeeper — could have done about it.

VAR-a-Kara

Ercan Kara came on for a cramping McGuire in the 80th minute. It didn’t take long for Kara to make an impact as he won the ball in Orlando’s half, took the ball all the way up the field into the box before he squared the ball in front of the goal. It took a deflection to Ivan Angulo, who put it into the back of the net for the Lion’s third goal. Just kidding. VAR hit the rewind button all the way back to when Kara won the ball and determined his elbow hit the defender and the goal was disallowed. I’m not saying that it didn’t happen, but if you call that one, then there should have been a whole lot more calls throughout the match.

Bad Cardiac Cats

Orlando City gave up the equalizer in the 90th minute. Sometimes the Cardiac Cats giveth and sometimes they taketh away. Blowing a two-goal lead is not good. If you had told me the Lions would earn a point from the Philadelphia Union before the match, I would have been thrilled. It’s the fact that Orlando gave up two second-half goals, including the late equalizer, that has me disappointed. I’ll take the Lions that score a late equalizer instead of the Lions that give one up.

That is what I took from the 2-2 draw at Exploria Stadium. Orlando City is on short rest with a cross country trip to play Seattle this weekend. The Lions are still above the playoff line in seventh, but no longer have the match in hand that the club had prior to the game. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.