Orlando Pride
Pride Scoring Just Enough in Undefeated Run
The Orlando Pride are riding an unbeaten streak, but could get more out of their attack.

The Orlando Pride have started the 2024 NWSL season undefeated through five matches and sit fifth in the table. After three draws to start the campaign, they won their next two matches with 1-0 victories. In these matches, the Pride played well enough to win by multiple goals, but instead found themselves fighting for narrow wins late due to missed opportunities to extend their lead. For this team to meet or exceed their ambitions this season, they will need to score more goals from the quality chances they’re creating.
The most important fact of the young season is that the Pride are getting results. They have possessed the ball well, created chances, and scored in each match. However, much of the plaudits must go to the team’s defending. The Pride currently boast the league’s second best defense in terms of goals conceded at only four. This rigid defense secured back-to-back clean sheets against the Utah Royals and San Diego Wave, ensuring one goal was enough for all three points in each match.
On the other end of the pitch, the Pride have created a significant number of opportunities to score but have not rewarded themselves by putting the ball in the net. Through five matches, Orlando has taken more shots than its opponents four times, matching its opponent’s shot total in the other match. While this puts the Pride third in the league in shots taken, they are 10th in the league in shooting accuracy, with only 31% of their shots being placed on target.
For all the opportunities created in the final third, the Pride have generated 8.7 expected goals (xG) per FBref, enough for fifth in the league. This means if the Pride were finishing their chances at an average rate for a club in the NWSL, they would have scored roughly nine goals at this point in the season. However, with only four goals attributed to Pride players, the team’s underperformance relative to its expected goals (-4.7) is the lowest in the NWSL by a wide margin. On the other end of the spectrum, the Kansas City Current have been ruthless when attacking, scoring 17 goals despite only marginally better expected goals (9.4) than the Pride. Neither team should count on their current five-game form to continue for a full 26-game season. The Pride will certainly need to work to make sure their scoring form improves.
Going beyond the numbers, it is important to look at how the Pride are putting the ball in the net. First, only Marta and Yates have scored, contributing two apiece, which matches the tally of own goals benefitting the Pride. Interestingly, these players occupy similar positions, with Yates subbing on for Marta, or vice versa, each match until the most recent time out against San Diego, when they started together. All four goals have been one-touch finishes from in the box, though the degree of difficulty on Marta’s finishes has been a bit higher.
The similarities in the way the Pride are scoring don’t end there either. Each of the six total goals scored by the Pride has come from one of two distinct attacking situations. In the first situation, Kerry Abello, the left back, has the ball at her feet on the left side of the opponent’s box before firing it into a dangerous area. Against Louisville, she received the ball out wide, used her footwork to get half a yard of space, and crossed the ball across the six-yard box, where an opposing defender deflected it into their own net. Against Utah, Abello made a late run into the box, fielded an overhit cross from Ally Watt, and sent it back across the six to Marta, who finished in style, securing the 1-0 victory. Abello’s most recent contribution came against San Diego. As has been an encouraging theme to start the season, Abello received an inviting pass from Angelina, drove into the box, and hit a hard shot across the goalkeeper that was saved and went into the path of Yates for the tap-in.
These goals created by Abello are owed to her unique skills. Though she has been filling in at left back due to Rafaelle’s injury, Abello had often played in the attack before this season. As a coach who knows how to maximize the talent at his disposal, Hines has given Abello the freedom to join the attack and make late runs off the left side. When she does, she has been poorly marked by the opponent, creating mismatches on that side of the pitch and opportunities for herself and teammates.
The second main scoring avenue for the Pride has been set pieces. Angelina, who joined the club in the off-season, has been the primary set-piece taker. Against Racing Louisville, her free kick from 40 yards out was flicked on by Amanda Allen into the path of Yates, who redirected it past the goalkeeper. Against Angel City FC, Angelina’s corner from the right was lofted to the far side of the box where Marta was able to volley brilliantly for the equalizer. Then, against the Chicago Red Stars, Angelina’s corner from the left was sent dangerously into a crowd near the goalkeeper, and a Chicago defender deflected it into her own net. With her right-footed deliveries, Angelina has contributed to half of all the goals scored by Orlando in 2024.
The last piece of the goal-scoring puzzle is the attacking scenarios that haven’t results in goals. So far, the wide midfielders and forwards have not scored or assisted. The majority of minutes at these positions have been played by Adriana, Julie Doyle, and Ally Watt, who combined for nine goals last season — six from Adriana alone. These players are capable of building on last year’s totals, and while the goal contributions are lagging, they are an integral part of the way Seb Hines wants his team to play.
After the game against San Diego, Hines described a key aspect of the team’s attacking philosophy. “We want that threat in behind,” he said. “We want a player who is going to keep the back line honest because it’s such a threat, and with that it opens up little pockets of space for Marta to get on the ball, for Summer to get on the ball.”
As Hines said, a large amount of the attacking threat for the Pride has come from balls played into space out wide or over the top. Doyle, Watt, and Adriana are all pacey players and have gotten several opportunities to drive at defenders in transition. As shown by the high shot output, these plays are generating chances, but either by bad luck or poor finishing, they have not yet yielded the goals they deserve. One thing that can help turn these chances into goals is the addition of Barbra Banda, a prolific scorer and the second-most expensive signing in NWSL history, who has now debuted for Orlando.
The Pride should not feel compelled to change what they are doing in the attack since they are creating a good number of chances. They will just hope that they can add the final touch that caps their strong attacking play with the goals to match. Yates said after her match-winning goal against San Diego, “I think we’re still finding our composure in and around the box. I know I should’ve had another one. I probably think about the one I missed more than the one I scored.” If Yates and her teammates can convert just one to two more chances per game, there will be many more wins coming their way.
Orlando Pride
Orlando Pride Offense through the Lens of Goal-Creating Actions
Can an analysis of the Pride’s offense in 2024 using goal-creating actions help project how they will perform in 2025?

We are one week away from the season opener for Orlando City and three weeks away from the season opener for the Orlando Pride, wrapping up what has felt like a long off-season. Oddly enough, both off-seasons were the shortest in club history, but they have felt extra long, probably because of the elongated conversations around several players and whether these players would stay in Orlando, leave Orlando, or come to Orlando.
At this point, the rosters are probably pretty close to being locked in to what they will be when the seasons open, but there still may be some final changes, and if there are, hopefully they will be positive ones for the teams in purple.
Several weeks ago, I wrote about how the Pride were bringing back all of their goals and nearly all of their minutes played from 2024, and while that has changed now with Adriana’s departure to Al Qadsiah FC in Saudi Arabia, the Pride are still bringing back most of their goals and minutes and will likely be among the favorites, if not the favorite, when sportsbooks start posting their NWSL futures odds. As of this moment, I cannot find anyone who has odds posted, and very few sites have released their season previews and power rankings, but I have a hunch that the defending champions, bringing back nearly every key contributor, will be near the top of those lists. And they should be because, and let’s revel in this once again, they are the defending champions!
The Pride are bringing back two players who combined for 28 goals in NWSL play last season. If we include the playoffs, then Barbra Banda scored 17 goals and Marta added 11, and they ranked second and fourth, respectively, for most goals scored. What interested me, however, was that they only combined together to create four of those goals as a partnership.
Using Opta’s tracking and fbref.com’s database of goals, I was able to create a ranking of the most prolific partnerships during the 2024 NWSL season. For every goal scored, Opta tracks what they call goal-creating actions, which are the two plays immediately preceding a goal that led to a player scoring a goal. For example, let’s flash back to the playoff semifinal when Banda gave the Pride a 3-1 lead against the Current by smashing a ball into the net harder than a home run off the bat of Elly De La Cruz (my son’s favorite baseball player). In related news, I am also excited for baseball season.
In the video below, Banda is the goal scorer, and the prior two plays are a completed pass by Haley McCutcheon to Kylie Strom and then the assist on a completed pass from Strom to Banda. Opta tracks those as the two goal-creating actions for Banda’s goals, with Strom’s pass being the final action preceding the goal.
Staying in that same game, I am sure you remember Marta’s wondergoal (wondergoal is still underselling how great of a goal this was — this was an all-time great run down the field) that made the score 3-1. On that play, Banda received the assist, as she passed the ball to Marta, but the two goal-creating actions were actually both by Marta as she beat multiple defenders and the goalkeeper off the dribble to get herself into shooting position. Opta’s tracking shows this goal as scored by Marta, from two consecutive goal-creating actions of Marta take-ons. Yes Banda passed the ball to Marta, but this goal was created by Marta’s magic, and the GOAT taking on and beating multiple defenders.
Opta tracks the following seven different types of goal-creating actions:
- Fouled
- Interception (stealing a pass)
- Pass (live-ball)
- Pass (dead-ball)
- Shot
- Tackle (stealing the ball directly from the other team’s player)
- Take-On (beating a defender off the dribble)
During the 2024 NWSL season there were 502 total goals scored, including the playoffs and including own goals. Opta’s tracking does not have an assist for every goal, nor does it have a goal-creating action for every goal, and that makes sense for how soccer is played. Sometimes goals happen unassisted, as a player, usually a striker, makes a tackle or interception themselves and then is in on goal and scores unassisted, or a player wins a loose ball in the box and slots it home, or a player finishes a rebound and the official scorer does not give the asisst to the player who took the original shot.
Opta’s tracking shows 481 non-own goals in 2024, with 312 of those goals (approximately 65%) having an assist. Of those 481 non-own goals, 447 (approximately 93%) had a primary goal-creating action, and this also makes sense, as it is much more likely, based on the list of goal-creating actions, that there was one of those than there was a true assist. I am much more interested in the goal-creating actions than I am the assists, as I believe they are better descriptors of how goals happened.
Looking at the Pride, which I know is really why you are here, the following table lists the player combinations that led to more than two goals during 2024:
Player Combination | Goals |
---|---|
Adriana and Barbra Banda | 5 |
Barbra Banda and Marta | 4 |
Ally Watt and Barbra Banda | 4 |
Adriana and Marta | 3 |
Barbra Banda and Julie Doyle | 3 |
For these counts it does not matter who created the goal and who scored it, these were the two Pride players involved in the final product. It may be a bit of a surprise to see that the top combination was Adriana and Banda, but Adriana scored three goals in 2024 that came directly from a foul on Banda (5/11 vs. Bay FC), a rebound from a Banda shot (6/30 vs. Angel City), and a foul on Banda (10/20 vs. Gotham). Banda scored two goals that resulted from an Adriana live-ball pass (5/19 vs. Seattle) and a rebound from an Adriana shot (7/6 vs. Kansas City). Adriana and Banda’s five goal combinations tied them for fourth in all of NWSL in 2024, with the combination of Esther González and Yazmeen Ryan of Gotham FC leading the league with seven.
It is a fair criticism of this statistic to say something along the lines of, “Well, Adriana did not intend to miss her shot and for Banda to score the rebound, so who really cares if it was an Adriana shot or someone else’s shot that Banda rebounded?”. Conversely, Adriana had to put a shot on target and have struck it well enough that it could not be saved and held, and Banda had to beat other players to the ball to score it, and both players had to have earned the right to be on the field at the same time.
I do not think goal-creating actions are the be-all, end-all, but I do think they tell more of a story than just assists. As another example, the action that immediately preceded five of Banda’s 17 goals was her winning a take-on against her defender. That total led the league in 2024, and she and Portland’s Sophia Smith were the only two players with more than three take-ons that led directly to goals in 2024. Two of those five goals for Banda had teammates credited with assists, but just as with the Marta goal against Kansas City when Banda was credited with the assist, the goals really came more from the effort by Banda as the goal scorer rather than from the pass that gave her the ball initially.
On a different note, those top combinations I showed tally up to 19 of the 54 goals scored by the Pride in 2024. The Pride benefitted from three own goals, meaning they scored 51 goals themselves, so those top combinations did not even account for half (37%) of the team’s goals last season. That is the sign of a team that is diverse in its attack, and even though Adriana is gone, they bring back everyone else who was involved in all of their goals, plus they will have Grace Chanda, Simone Charley, and Prisca Chilufya as additional offensive options in 2025. Losing Adriana will hurt, but I think the Pride will have her departure covered.
Goals are exciting, and of course are how teams win games, so as watchers and analyzers of soccer, we spend a lot of time thinking about how they happened. I like goal-creating actions as a statistic but I know on many goals there are different plays that happened in succession that led to the goal, and the goal-creating action stat only shows the final two plays. Those final two plays are critical though, so I think it is a good statistic to analyze, just in conjunction with others as well.
It is no accident that Banda was all over that list of top Pride combinations, she led the league in goal-creating actions and goal-creating actions plus goals, and with her available for the full season in 2025 I expect that she is going to be right near the top again this season, if not the league leader for the second consecutive season.
I cannot wait to watch the Pride’s offense this year. I think they are going to be creating goals and goal-creating actions at an even higher rate than last season.
Vamos Orlando!
Orlando Pride
Orlando Pride Acquires Spanish International Oihane Hernandez
The Pride have acquired Spanish right back Oihane Hernandez from Real Madrid Femenil, signing her to a two-year deal.

The Orlando Pride defensive signings continue, but this time it’s a new player instead of a new contract. The club announced the signing of Spanish international defender Oihane Hernández this afternoon to a two-year contract through the 2026 season with a mutual option for 2027.
“Oihane is a technically gifted defender who excels in both defensive organization and distribution from the back,” Pride Vice President of Soccer Operations and Sporting Director Haley Carter said in a club press release. “She brings world-class experience and a championship mindset from her time with Spain’s national team. Oihane’s ability to perform in high-pressure situations and her tactical understanding and ability to read the game will be invaluable assets as we continue building a championship-caliber roster. We’re delighted to bring her to the City Beautiful.”
The 24-year-old has been a regular for the Spanish Women’s National Team and was a member of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup champions.
“I’m excited to join the Orlando Pride and begin this new chapter in my career,” Hernández said in the club’s release. “The club’s vision and ambition really influenced me to make the move to Orlando. “I am impressed by the professional environment and the enthusiasm of the staff, teammates, and passionate fanbase. I am ready to give everything for the badge and build on the team’s success.”
Hernández joins the Pride from Real Madrid Femenino for an undisclosed fee. The right back spent the last two seasons at Real Madrid, making 31 appearances and recorded a pair of assists. Prior to moving to the Spanish capital, she played for Athletic Club Femenino in Bilbao, representing the club from 2019 to 2023. She made 109 appearances for the club, scoring three times.
Internationally, Hernandez came up through the youth ranks with Spain, playing in the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, the 2017 UEFA Women’s Under-17 Championship, and the 2018 UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship. That led to her making her senior team debut on Sept. 2, 2022 in a World Cup qualifier against Hungary.
During the 2023 World Cup run, Hernandez played in six games for the eventual champions. She started in the round of 16 and quarterfinals before coming off the bench in the World Cup Final against England.
More recently, Hernandez played for Spain in four games of the 2024 Summer Olympics. She won a bronze medal in that tournament.
What It Means For Orlando
Hernandez comes in to be the starting right back for the Pride. It’s interesting that the signing comes on the same day that the club awarded Cori Dyke a new contract. During her 2024 rookie season, Dyke became the Pride’s starting right back, taking over when Brianna Martinez was injured and playing well in the stretch run and postseason.
This move creates more depth at a position that was already well stocked. Prior to this move, the players that would likely play right back other than Dyke were Martinez, Haley McCutcheon, and Emily Sams. However, this move allows McCutcheon to remain in the defensive midfield and Sams to remain at center back, where she won the NWSL Defender of the Year last season.
Orlando Pride
Orlando Pride Extend Contract of Defender Cori Dyke through 2027
The Pride extend a second defender through 2027 in as many days with a new deal for Cori Dyke.

Just a day after locking down defender Emily Sams through 2027, the Orlando Pride have done the same with defender Cori Dyke. The Pride announced this morning that Dyke’s contract has been extended through the 2027 season. This extension comes on the heels of an outstanding rookie season, in which she stepped into the starting right back role down the stretch, helping Orlando win the NWSL Shield and NWSL Championship in 2024.
“Cori has consistently demonstrated her value both on and off the field since joining the Pride, and we’re thrilled to secure her future with the club,” Orlando Pride Vice President and Sporting Director Haley Carter said in a club press release. “Her tactical intelligence, versatility, and leadership qualities make her an integral part of what we’re building here in Orlando. Beyond her technical abilities, Cori embodies the culture and commitment to excellence that we strive for. This extension is a reflection of the hard work and dedication she brings to this organization every day and we’re excited to see her continue to grow and contribute to our team’s success.”
The Pride selected Dyke in the second round (No. 22 overall) in the 2024 NWSL Draft out of Penn State. She signed a one-year contract on March 11, 2024. However, she impressed enough to inked a new deal through 2025 with an option for 2026 on July 10, 2024. Dyke has impressed the club in her short time with Orlando, earning yet another new deal.
The 24-year-old native of San Jose, CA made 21 appearances (11 starts) in the Pride’s 26 NWSL regular-season games during her rookie campaign, logging 1,095 minutes. She didn’t score a goal, but she notched one assist. Dyke attempted one (off-target) shot and completed 425 of her 542 pass attempts (78%) in her first professional season. Defensively, she finished with 20 tackles, 11 interceptions, and 23 headed duels. In the Pride’s playoff run, Dyke started all three games, playing 254 minutes, helping Orlando lift its second trophy of the season.
Dyke also appeared in two of the Pride’s three matches in the NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup last year, starting both and recording 180 minutes.
The Pride recorded a clean sheet in 12 of Dyke’s 26 appearances a year ago, including in the NWSL Championship match against Washington.
Dyke played in 108 games (all starts) for the Penn State Nittany Lions in her college career, recording 9,069 minutes, nine goals, and nine assists. She played as a central midfielder for the first four years in college, but moved to center back for her final season. Despite moving to the back line, the 2023 season was her most productive offensively, as she recorded five goals and six assists.
Dyke received several accolades during her five collegiate seasons. As a freshman, she was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team and Freshman Best XI First Team by Top Drawer Soccer. During her final season in the midfield, she was named to the 2022 Big Ten Women’s All-Tournament Team. Dyke moved to center back for her senior season and was named Big Ten Defender of the Year. She was also named All-Big Ten First Team and the United Soccer Coaches named her a second-team All-American and first-team All-North Region.
On the international stage, Dyke has represented the U.S. Women’s National Team from the U-14 through U-23 levels, helping the U-19 team win a CFA Tournament in 2017.
What It Means for Orlando
Carter locking up players she believes will be part of the team’s core moving forward is nothing new. Dyke was thrown into a difficult position as a rookie and helped keep some of the league’s best attacking players quiet in the second half of the 2024 season and throughout the playoffs. She provides plenty of versatility with major college experience in central midfield and at center back in addition to having shown her ability to play fullback at the professional level last season.
Any time you can extend the contract of a young, talented player, it can only be seen as a positive. Dyke’s role in 2025 remains to be seen, as the team is getting players healthy again and defender Carson Pickett is going through a full training camp under Seb Hines. The back line would be just fine if it remained as it was at the end of 2024, but there is some belief that it can be even better in 2025. Where Dyke fits in will be revealed when the season starts, but she is an excellent option whether starting or providing depth and pushing her teammates to be better.
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