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Orlando City Needs to Start Using the Scoreboard Again

A deep statistical dive into Orlando City’s offensive struggles. We’re warning you…there will be math (but we do it for you).

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1 year ago

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

One of the more memorable scenes in my favorite movie of all time, Bull Durham, is when the manager walks into the showers after another loss, yells at the team about their recent performance, and ends with “this (baseball) is a simple game: you throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball. You got it!?” Soccer is, of course, a little different but the concept remains the same. You pass the ball, you shoot the ball, you score the ball. Unless you are Orlando City, recently.

Anyone can look at the recent results for Orlando City and see that goals have been, shall we say, less than plentiful. But why is that happening? Well, one idea may be that another team in Orlando is using up all the goals, with the Orlando Pride having scored 19 (excluding opposition own goals) to Orlando City’s 15, with the Pride having played four fewer games to boot, but goals are not a zero-sum equation (I know you asked your math teacher for years when you would ever need to use equations in the real world; you’re welcome!), so let’s dive into what has been going on for Orlando City and take a look at what may be causing an average of 0.94 goals/game (again, excluding opposition own goals) in the 2024 MLS season after an average of 1.6 goals/game in 2023.

Wayne Gretzky famously said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” but I do not think a lack of shots taken is the main culprit for this Orlando City team this season. Yes, in the last match against the Red Bulls the Lions only managed five shots (all stats in this article are courtesy of fbref.com,  in collaboration with Opta, which codes thousands of matches every weekend across hundreds of competitions all over the world), but for the 2024 season, Orlando City is averaging 11.8 shots/game, 1.1 shots/game fewer than the league average of 12.9 but actually 0.1 higher than Orlando City’s 11.7 shots/game from 2023. Orlando City’s 11.8 shots/game ranks 23rd in all of MLS — not great, but the team with the most shots/game, St. Louis FC at 16.8, has only earned one more point than Orlando City after playing the same number of games, and the correlation (I told you there would be math) between shots/game and goals is relatively weak (r = 0.25, a strong positive correlation would be an r between 0.7 and the maximum r value of 1.0), so a higher value of shots/game does not necessarily lead to more goals.

What does tend to lead to more goals is more shots on target. I know, I know, you never would have thought of that. And as we look into shots on target for Orlando City in 2024, lo and behold, this is where we start to really see where the problems have arisen this season. Orlando City ranks 26th in MLS this year with 29% shots on target, so when you combine a rank of 23rd in shots/game with a rank of no. 26 in shots on target, you get a team that has scored a low amount of Goals as compared to the rest of the league. Orlando City’s 29% shots on target rate in 2024 is an 18% decrease from its 2023 shots on target percentage of 36% (7% raw decrease (36%-29% = 7%) but an 18% percent decrease (29%/36% – 100% = -18%), and the Lions’ 29% shots on target percentage is 1.28 standard deviations below the MLS average.

This is probably the time for me to tell you I was that high school math teacher who students asked about using math in the real world, and I did teach AP statistics, where we frequently talked about standard deviations and 1.28 standard deviations below the average is, in this case, to use a technical term, u-g-l-y and they ain’t got no alibi.

Is it as ugly as Bubba Sparxxx rapped about back in 2000? Was that just a question to make a pop culture reference about a song I enjoyed when I was in high school? Yes and yes. The first time I ever heard former Orlando City coach Adrian Heath interviewed he said, “Goals change games,” which of course is obvious and means that those who are taking the most shots need to be game changers. Looking at the table below, we can see who has been taking the shots and the differences between 2024 and 2023:

At first glance there is some good news. Orlando City’s leading shot takers this year are generally shooting on target around the league average, but it is on the clinical side, the goals per shot on target and goals per shot attempt where we can see that Orlando City is struggling.

We do see that Duncan McGuire continues to be clinical when he gets his shots on target, but the big drop for him is that last year he put nearly three out of every four shots on target and this year he is down to something much closer to the league average of around one out of every three. Among players with at least 17 shots last year (I chose this number because it would be 0.5 shots/game across 34 games and because it is my father’s favorite number), Duncan ranked first out of 244 MLS players in shots on target percentage and in goals per shots on target, and though his numbers this year are still above average, he is down to 43rd and 13th out of the 108 players who have taken more than 17 shots, respectively (keeping the same shot volume threshold for consistency). Four other major takeaways from me on this chart:

  • Facundo Torres was second on the list for most shots taken in 2023 and was an excellent finisher (this does include penalties, but they are shots and you have to make them), but in 2024 he is tied for fifth in shots with Dagur Dan Thórhallsson at only 15 shots taken.
  • Martin Ojeda remains a high volume shooter, but he is looking much more like Jordan Poole than Steph Curry this year with a lot of shots on target but not a lot of makes. And by not a lot I mean, sadly, zero.
  • Orlando City as a whole is taking shots from slightly closer to the goal but the team’s most frequent shooters are shooting from farther away than last year, and you do not need me as a math major to tell you that goalkeepers would prefer long shots over close shots.
  • Ercan Kara was a somewhat maligned striker for Orlando City, but he was pretty lethal when he got a shot off, putting more than two out of every five shots on frame and scoring at twice the MLS average on goals/shot. His 2023 shot volume is low on this chart because he left halfway through the season, but in his two years in MLS he scored at 21% and 22% on goals/shot, which put him in the upper echelon of shooters in the league.

Going back to McGuire and where he ranked in all of MLS, here is a heat map, but with the corresponding percentile ranks of Orlando City’s players among players who took at least 17 (hi Dad) shots (red to green scale — 0% (dark red, very low performance) to 100% (dark green, very good performance).

The comparisons between 2024 and 2023 are the most stark again in the columns involving goals, as in 2023 Orlando City’s most frequent shooters were scoring in the upper echelons of all MLS players, and this year there is much more red/orange than green for those with at least 17 shots. The other biggest differences of course surround who is taking the shots. Luis Muriel has arrived and has taken the most shots in 2024, but looking at his career shooting stats there is not a lot of evidence that being a lethal finisher is something in his skillset. Barbra Banda he is not, but then again nobody is Barbra Banda (except Barbra Banda), and expecting Muriel to change his playing style to be more of a finisher rather than initiator while adapting to a new league and teammates is lot to ask for someone who joined after the season began.

The bigger need for Orlando City is to get McGuire back on the field and to get Torres going, Facundo’s shots/90 minutes is down more than 50% from last season (largely owing to playing a lot of wingback over the last several weeks), and for someone who was in the 94th percentile in goals/shot in 2023 to have decreased their shot volume by so much is the opposite of what you want. Plus, Facundo is my son’s favorite player and he misses seeing Torres’ selfie celebration.

I want to end with a positive, however, and that is wrapped around the concept of regression to the mean. In the case of Orlando City this would actually likely be a positive regression as opposed to a negative one. During the last four years, MLS has been remarkably stable in terms of goals/shot on target (35%, 32%, 33%, 33%) and goals/shot (12%, 11%, 11%, 11%). Just because the league has been stable does not mean that Orlando City automatically will improve, but with the talent of the players on the squad and their history, I think it is more likely than not that Orlando City’s low performance so far in 2024 will come back up towards league average — much like a Major League Baseball player’s batting average on balls in play often evens out over time based on their level of skill.

Orlando City has talented players, including many who led the team to the best record in the team’s history last season, and I believe it is likely that we will start seeing small increases in goals/shot on target and goals/shot as the season progresses. I certainly hope we do, because it is much more fun when Orlando City masters this simple game and scores the ball, scores the ball, and scores the ball.

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Opinion

Four Games I Have Circled on Orlando City’s 2026 Schedule

Let’s have a peek at some games that I’m really looking forward to in 2026.

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1 day ago

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December 5, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Orlando City’s 2026 schedule has been out for a little over two weeks now, and I’ve had ample time to look over it, analyze it, and zero in on some games that I’m really looking forward to next year. There are always the usual suspects in the mix like home rivalry matches against the likes of Atlanta and Miami, but I didn’t want to focus on those obvious ones, so they won’t be included here.

Saturday, Feb. 21 vs. New York Red Bulls

Orlando City’s streak of playing a home match to open the season will somehow reach 12 seasons in a row when the Lions kick off the 2026 season against the New York Red Bulls. It’ll be our first chance to see OCSC in a competitive game during the new season, and after an off-season that will likely contain a fair amount of turnover, I for one will be even more anxious than usual to get a look at what sort of product we’ll be seeing on the field. The Red Bulls will also look different, as they’ll have a new manager and a good amount of new players after missing the postseason for the first time since 2009. This is probably my most obvious choice of the bunch, but I think it’s hard to fault me for being excited about a new season!

TBD U.S. Open Cup Match

There’s only a 50% chance that this will be a home game, but personally I’m just glad to see Orlando City in the U.S. Open Cup again. There’s obviously some good history with the club in the competition, but aside from that, I just generally think that the tournament should get more love and a bigger platform than it currently does. While I’d have obviously been thrilled if OCSC had managed to win Leagues Cup in 2025 and come away with a trophy, I’d have much preferred the Lions to make a deep run in the Open Cup, considering the rich history of the competition as a whole, in addition to what it means to Orlando specifically. The fact that defending champion Nashville SC isn’t in the field is mind boggling to me, but I’m damn happy that the Lions are.

Saturday, Sept. 12 vs. Toronto FC

Now I can understand why you might be surprised by this one, as Toronto isn’t exactly considered one of Orlando City’s rivals. This year’s Decision Day match left a bad taste in my mouth though. Was it less about what Toronto did on the field, and more about OCSC basically neglecting to show up to the field to begin with? Maybe. Do I care? No. Do I want vengeance and the ability to erase a pitiful performance from my mind all in one fell swoop? Absolutely. I need the scales to be balanced and for my own personal demons from the final day of the season to be exorcised, and the fact that I’ll be able to be in the stands to have that chance is all the more appealing.

Saturday, Nov. 7 vs. New England Revolution

Decision Day is (usually) a fun affair regardless of whether the match is home or away. Wild swings in the standings from minute to minute, nerves, and hopefully reason to celebrate when it’s all over. There’s just something about having all that happen at home, though. I’ve been in The Wall for plenty of Decision Days at this point, and the energy is just a little different than a normal regular-season game. Similar to home openers, the air almost crackles with the excitement of possibility and anticipation of what things are going to look like when the dust settles. Of course, there’s always the possibility of things going wrong and the Lions ending up low in the playoff standings or out of the postseason altogether, but we’ll cross that bridge if/when we come to it.

What games are you especially looking forward to next season? Be sure to let us know down in the comments. Vamos Orlando!

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 12/5/25

Format for 2025 U.S. Open Cup revealed, Orlando Pride players land on top 100 list, Bay FC hires Emma Coates, and more.

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1 day ago

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December 5, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride / Jeremy Reper

Happy Friday! We’ve already made it to the first weekend of December, which is either good news or a worrying reminder that less than four weeks remain of 2025. I’ll be spending the next few days working and getting some more shopping done, but I’m hoping to enjoy some rest and relaxation along the way. Let’s dive into today’s links from around the soccer world!

U.S. Open Cup Format Shrinks for 2026

The layout for next year’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup was announced and Orlando City will once again be participating. Orlando is one of 16 MLS teams in the tournament, which has been reduced to just seven rounds instead of eight. As a result, only 48 professional teams from around the country will be included and MLS teams join the fray in the round of 32. Orlando City and FC Naples are the only professional Floridian teams taking part next year and it will be weird not seeing the Lions beat the brakes off of the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Also, FC America CFL Spurs, which is based in Orlando, is one of three amateur sides from Florida to keep an eye out for when the first round kicks off in March.

Orlando Pride Trio Make Guardian’s Top 100 Players List

The Guardian released its annual list of the top 100 women’s soccer players in the world and Orlando Pride stars Barbra Banda, Marta, and Jacquie Ovalle all made an appearance on it. Banda was 14th and only second to Temwa Chawinga, who placed sixth, among NWSL players on this year’s list. Marta isn’t far behind in 19th, which is eight spots higher than last year. Ovalle’s still settling in with Orlando after dominating with Tigres and was 94th on the list.

For the data addicts out there, you can see how voting for this list shook out, but it’s not much of a surprise at this point that the judges valued players plying their trade in Europe highly. Of the Americans listed, Arsenal’s Emily Fox and OL Lyonnes’ Lindsey Heaps were ranked the highest at 24th and 27th, respectively. The Kansas City Current had one of the best seasons in NWSL history, but only four players made the list and Chawinga is the only one in the top 50. Still, it’s cool to keep up with some of the biggest names across the pond, especially with a Women’s World Cup on the horizon.

Bay FC Hires Emma Coates as Head Coach

Bay FC announced Emma Coates as its next head coach, with Gemma Davies joining as an assistant coach. Coates has been the manager of England’s U-23 team since 2023, developing players for the senior team while excelling in the U-23 European League. She and Davies were part of England’s extended technical staff for the past two Euros and the 2023 World Cup. Bay FC missed the playoffs this year and finished the season on an 11-game winless streak, so Coates will have her work cut out for her in regards to turning things around.

NWSLPA Files Grievance Against the League

The NWSL rejected a contract offer by the Washington Spirit to Trinity Rodman and the NWSL Players’ Association has filed a grievance with the league, alleging that the denial violates the collective bargaining agreement.

“Trinity Rodman agreed to a compensation structure in good faith that would allow her to remain loyal to her first professional club, consistent with both the CBA and NWSL Competition Rules,” union executive director Meghann Burke said in a statement provided to The Associated Press on Thursday. “The NWSLPA has challenged the League’s rejection of this agreement on the grounds that it violates her free agency rights, but this isn’t about Trinity Rodman. If NWSL can deny her free agency rights, they can deny anyone’s. The NWSLPA will not allow it.”

The deal offered by the Spirit is reportedly for four years, with backloaded compensation for 2028 and 2029. Rodman is a free agent after five seasons with the Spirit and there’s worry that she will be the latest young American to leave the NWSL for Europe. The league’s position in rejecting the deal was that the offer violated the spirit of the NWSL salary cap.

Free Kicks

  • Here’s a preview of Saturday’s MLS Cup final between the Vancouver Whitecaps and Inter Miami. From the star players to the unsung heroes, it should be a good match to end the MLS season.
  • Hugo Lloris signed a contract extension with LAFC through 2026, with an option for 2027. The 38-year-old has made 91 appearances across all competitions for LAFC since joining the club.
  • The North Carolina Courage have signed forward Ally Schlegel to a three-year contract. Schlegel scored eight goals for the Chicago Stars during the 2025 season.
  • NJ/NY Gotham FC announced its end-of-season roster decisions and forward Ella Stevens is a free agent and not re-signing with the club. Midge Purce is also a free agent, but she and Gotham are in negotiations for her return.

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and rest of your weekend!

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 12/4/25

Haley Carter joins the Washington Spirit, Celtic hires Wilfried Nancy, Philadelphia Union sign Ezekiel Allodah, and more.

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2 days ago

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December 4, 2025

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

How’s it going, Mane Landers? It’s been a bit of a hectic week for me, but I’ve at least been able to get quite enough done that should take out some of the stress that usually comes around this time of the year.

Haley Carter Joins the Enemy

Haley Carter, who departed the Pride on Nov. 18 to pursue new career opportunities, was announced as the Washington Spirit’s president of soccer operations. She joins an organization that’s come up short in the past two NWSL Championship and one of Carter’s top priorities will be retaining American forward Trinity Rodman. Helping the Spirit get over the hump will be a different kind of task than the rebuild she orchestrated with the Pride, so it will be interesting to see how she does.

Celtic Hires Wilfried Nancy

Wilfried Nancy is officially headed to Europe, with Celtic hiring him as its next manager. The Scottish club signed him to a two-and-a-half year contract and he’ll start today. Nancy leaves MLS after success with CF Montreal and the Columbus Crew, winning the MLS Coach of the Year award with the Crew in 2024. Celtic has won its past five games across all competitions and is currently tied on points with Hearts at the top of the Scottish Premiership. It will be Nancy’s first time coaching in Europe and we’ll see if he can help Celtic secure a spot in the next round of the Europa League.

Philadelphia Union Sign Ezekiel Allodah

The Philadelphia Union didn’t waste much time adding some firepower to the club’s roster for the 2026 season, signing Ezekiel Allodah from IF Brommapojkarna for a club record fee. The 20-year-old forward joins on a contract through 2028 with options for 2029 and 2030. Allodah has recorded eight goals and added an assist in 32 appearances with Brommapojkarna, which plays in Sweden’s top flight. Although I’m not looking forward to Orlando City having to deal with him on the field, it’s nice to see more young talent coming to the league.

Preparing for the World Cup Draw

The draw for next summer’s World Cup is on Friday and we’ll get to see just how unlucky the United States Men’s National Team is when the groups are revealed. The U.S., like Canada and Mexico, is in the first pot and gets to avoid some of the biggest contenders, but dangerous teams like Croatia, Morocco, and Norway are possible opponents. Drawing Ghana from the fourth pot seems inevitable to me. The lack of clarity in who will advance out of the playoffs adds some mystery and worry to it all as well. Fingers crossed!

Free Kicks

That’s all I have for you all this time around. I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday and rest of your week!

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