Orlando City’s slate of June matches has come to an end, and the Lions are now staring down the barrel of a busy group of July matches. OCSC will play six games this month, with an even split between home and away games. I did a pretty decent job at forecasting the three June games, as I accurately predicted wins (scorelines not withstanding) against the Colorado Rapids and St. Louis City SC, although my powers of divination went a little haywire as the Lions lost to FC Cincinnati rather than battling to a draw. Time to test my prophetic tendencies against a larger sample size, as I peek into the crystal ball and predict Orlando’s July contests.

Saturday, July 5 — at Charlotte FC

Things get started Saturday when the Lions hit the road to take on Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium. This will be the second meeting between the two teams this year after OCSC took down Charlotte 3-1 back on May 14 at Inter&Co Stadium. Charlotte is currently 10th in the Eastern Conference with 25 points from 20 games. The team has been in a rough run of form recently, having lost all three games in June to the Philadelphia Union, Sporting Kansas City, and Chicago Fire. While Orlando will be without the services of Alex Freeman, Charlotte is missing both Tim Ream and Patrick Agyemang, who are also with the United States Men’s National Team. Given the opposition’s current form and the key players Charlotte will be missing, I like Orlando’s chances in this one.

Prediction: Orlando City 2-1 Charlotte FC.

Saturday, July 12 — vs. CF Montreal

Montreal is another team that OCSC will be playing for the second time, following the first meeting of the year that ended in a scoreless draw, which saw Rafael Santos sent off after picking up a pair of yellow cards on the road. While Orlando was offensively anemic on that occasion, the fortunes of the two teams have gone in different directions as Montreal is last in the East with 14 points from 20 matches. The Canadians were better during June and won games against the Houston Dynamo and New York City FC while losing to FC Cincinnati. They’ll be coming off short rest after a match against Forge FC on July 9, and will then have to play the Union midweek on July 16. I like the Lions’ chances at home, and I’ll back them to make it two wins in a row.

Prediction: Orlando City 2-0 CF Montreal.

Wednesday, July 16 — vs. New York City FC

The Lions then get a second match in a row at home and a second match against a team it played earlier in the year. The first time around it went the way things usually do for OCSC at Yankee Stadium, as the good guys lost 2-1 in a disjointed effort. Orlando will get the chance to even the series, but it won’t be easy against an NYCFC team that always seems to give the Lions a tough time. That being said, the Pigeons have just one road win this year, which came against Toronto FC back on April 26 in a 1-0 win. OCSC will be on short rest, but I think New York’s road struggles give the men in purple the slight edge they’ll need.

Prediction: Orlando City 3-2 NYCFC.

Saturday, July 19 — at New England Revolution

Orlando then hits the road for its second meeting of the year with the Revs, following a wild 3-3 draw at home back on May 10. The Revs are currently 11th in the East with 24 points from 18 games, and they’ve got a tricky run of games leading up to Orlando’s visit, with a road match against Austin FC on July 12, and a road game against the New York Red Bulls on July 16. That being said, Orlando has historically had a positively horrific time at Gillette Stadium, and only picked up its first-ever win at that venue last July. Despite the differences between Orlando and New England in the standings, this one just feels like a bridge too far. Coming off a crowded run of games and playing at a place they’ve traditionally struggled, I don’t see the Lions getting the job done here.

Prediction: Orlando City 1-2 New England Revolution.

Friday, July 25 — at Columbus Crew

The Lions then get a rare Friday game when they hit the road to take on the Columbus Crew in the first meeting of the year between the two sides. The Crew are currently fourth in the East with 37 points from 20 games, and Diego Rossi is having a typically great season with nine goals and four assists in 19 games. The two teams are closely matched from a statistical standpoint, as they’ve each given up 26 goals, and Columbus has scored 31 while Orlando has 37. As Andrew DeSalvo noted, the Lions have played five games so far against teams in the top third of the league rankings for points per game, and the 1.4 ppg Orlando is averaging against those teams is tied for sixth best in the league. Columbus is a team that usually gives the Lions a tough time, and the good guys will have a trio of Leagues Cup games against Liga MX sides looming on the horizon. I think OCSC will drop points on the road for the second game in a row.

Prediction: Orlando City 0-1 Columbus Crew.

Wednesday, July 30 — vs. Pumas

It’s hard to have a good read on the Mexican side, as the Apertura season doesn’t start until July 12. In the 2024 Clausura season, Pumas finished 10th and narrowly qualified for the play-in portion of the final league phase. It advanced to the bracket proper as the seventh seed, but lost in the first round to Cruz Azul by an aggregate score of 4-2. As far as Concacaf Champions Cup, Pumas was knocked off by Vancouver on away goals in the quarterfinals. Orlando will have the advantage of playing at home, as it will do for all three of its group stage games in Leagues Cup. I expect Oscar Pareja to come out with guns blazing in an effort to start the competition off strong with a win, and that’s exactly what I think the Lions will do.

Prediction: Orlando City 2-1 Pumas.

If everything goes as predicted, the Lions will have a pretty tidy month of July. All we can do now is sit back and see how things unfold. Vamos Orlando!

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.

Orlando City hadn’t quite achieved juggernaut status as the Major League Soccer season turned from April to May, but a 12-match unbeaten run in the league is nothing to sniff at, despite there being a healthy number of draws interspersed with the victories. Things turned sour as May drew to a close though, as the Lions lost three of their final four matches of the month and entered a two-week break with a whimper rather than a roar.

Losing is never fun, but in this case those three defeats don’t need to be entirely negative experiences, and there are plenty of lessons to be learned from those three bitter losses that will hold Orlando in good stead if it can implement the proper solutions.

More Squad Rotation

One of the biggest factors in Orlando’s rough finish to May was a lack of squad rotation. Oscar Pareja has always been a coach that likes to find his first-choice XI and stick to it almost religiously. He doesn’t normally tweak his lineups or tactics according to whatever opponent is on the slate, and very much values consistency. In periods of fixture congestion, that tendency can be to Orlando’s detriment, and that was very much the case against both Nashville SC and the Chicago Fire.

After beating Inter Miami 3-0 in an emotional rivalry match on May 18, Pareja made just one change for a U.S. Open Cup match against Nashville SC three days later. Ramiro Enrique slotted in for Luis Muriel up top, but every single other starter from the Miami game also got the nod midweek. With Nashville deploying a heavily rotated lineup mostly filled with backups, the gamble was a simple one: hope that OCSC’s A-team can open up a big first-half lead against Nashville’s B-squad before bringing mass changes in the second half to get guys some rest. Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, but the strategy backfired badly as the Lions lost 3-2. Orlando started well with Marco Pasalic’s 17th-minute strike, but the team faded badly afterwards and gave up a couple of very uncharacteristic goals to lose the game. Lapses in concentration and tired defending cost OCSC the game, and that isn’t something we can normally say about this team.

Then, after losing to Atlanta United 3-2 on May 28 due in no small part to Cesar Araujo’s red card, Pareja made two changes for a match against the Chicago Fire on May 31, with Muriel coming in for Enrique, and the other change being a forced one, as Eduard Atuesta replaced the suspended Araujo. Those starters looked noticeably gassed during the resulting 3-1 loss, and the fatigue manifested itself by players missing chances that would normally be converted or in sloppy, mistake-ridden defending.

May was a packed month with a whopping nine matches in 31 days, and most months won’t be that busy. August is set to be the busiest remaining period of the year with six games in 31 days, although that number could rise higher if the Lions make a run in Leagues Cup. The bottom line is that guys are going to need more rest as the season goes on. If the coaching staff doesn’t trust some of the guys currently available as backups, then they need to dip into the transfer market in one way or another and get some players that they do trust, because if the starting XI gets run ragged during busy periods it’s going to cost Orlando, plain and simple.

Cool Heads Usually Prevail

Orlando City has received three red cards on the season, which is tied for the second-most in the league. Unsurprisingly, the Lions are winless in games in which they’ve had a man sent off, with draws against the New York Red Bulls and CF Montreal and a loss to Atlanta United. The results against the Red Bulls and Atlanta were particularly difficult to swallow, as before going down to 10 men, Orlando had looked on track to get three points in each game.

Araujo’s red card against Atlanta was especially frustrating, as he allowed Mateusz Klich to get under his skin, grabbed him by the throat, and reduced his team to 10 men when OCSC was nursing a 2-1 lead on the road. It was completely unnecessary and was also the sort of thing that Orlando had looked to put in the rearview mirror after keeping its collective composure and not picking up any bookings in the 3-0 road win against Miami, while the Herons picked up four and looked noticeably rattled in the process.

It should go without saying, but the Lions can’t afford to get key players sent off. Six extra points could make a big difference in the standings at the end of the year, and that number could rise even higher if OCSC can’t put its disciplinary issues to rest once and for all.

Focus for the Full 90

There were moments in each of Orlando’s three May losses that the team committed bad defensive lapses or mistakes. Whether it was not playing to the whistle on Nashville’s third goal, Atuesta’s bad turnover against Atlanta, or the Lions collectively allowing Chicago to stroll through midfield to score a third goal, there were plenty of examples of bad breakdowns that were largely absent during the team’s unbeaten run. Can some of that be attributed to tired minds and tired legs? Maybe so — it’s a lot harder to play crisp and focused when the minutes have piled up. Regardless, its something that can’t continue to happen going forward. It’s possible that having more rotation in the squad will help that a lot, but it’s also on the players on the field to stay as mentally sharp as they can when they’re out on the pitch.

Clearly, a recurring theme here is that fresh legs and balanced squad rotation are top of my list of things I want to see change. I’m all for riding the hot hands, but tired legs make for tired minds, and tired minds make mistakes and are easier to rile up. Whether reinforcements come from the bench or an outside source, using more bodies will go a long way towards solving some of the issues that we saw in May’s three losses. All we can do now is wait and see what happens once the team returns from its break. Vamos Orlando!