Orlando City
Orlando City vs. Nashville SC: Final Score 3-0 as Facundo Torres’ Brace Leads Lions
The Lions bounced back from last week’s loss in Kansas City with a home win by the same score over Nashville.

Orlando City started slowly but bounced back from a flat road performance at Kansas City with a 3-0 win over Nashville SC at Inter&Co Stadium. Facundo Torres scored a brace after Ivan Angulo opened the scoring as the Lions (10-10-7, 37 points) got their fifth consecutive shutout win over Nashville (6-13-8, 26 points) and climbed back to the .500 mark.
For Nashville, it was the club’s 10th consecutive match in all competitions without a win (0-9-1).
“We want to play well and keep growing as a team. And I saw a lot of positive areas today that made us feel that we had played a very serious and very professional game against a rival that created, in the first 15 minutes, a few chances and complicated our game,” Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja said after the match. “But the reaction was good. I thought we were precise in the way we were finishing. Today we were very clean on being precise.”
Pareja’s lineup included two changes from the team that lost at Sporting Kansas City a week ago, as Rodrigo Schlegel and Rafael Santos slotted into the back line in the starting XI for David Brekalo and Kyle Smith, respectively. Goalkeeper Pedro Gallese started behind a back line of Santos, Robin Jansson, Schlegel, and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson. Cesar Araujo and Wilder Cartagena started in central midfield behind the usual attacking line of Angulo, Martin Ojeda, and Torres, with Ramiro Enrique up top.
Orlando City started the match like it played for the final 80 plus stoppage time at Kansas City. Passes and clearances weren’t sharp and Nashville had the better of the early play. The visitors won the game’s first corner three minutes in and nearly paid it off. An inattentive Santos let Alex Muyl have a free run at goal and he met the set piece cross in the air. Muyl headed the ball down but got the angle wrong and the shot bounced off the ground in front of goal and landed on the roof of the net in the fourth minute.
Four minutes later, Muyl should have scored when Schlegel got caught wandering too far forward and Nashville came the other way. Muyl was alone on goal but Gallese came out and made a vital save.
“He’s fantastic,” Torres said of Gallese keeping the team in the game early. “We know that he is always behind us. We know the caliber player he is. He shows it through each and every one of his saves, and it gives us such confidence to know that we’ve got a player like Pedro behind us in goal and really covering us.”
“It’s the first time that I’ve seen Nashville pressing that much, pressing, pressing, pressing in the first part of the game,” Pareja said. “We remember a Nashville that has been more conservative, dropping the lines and playing with lines of five and things. Today we got surprised in those (first) 15 minutes too. We survived, but that was unexpected.”
Orlando’s first decent look at goal fell to Ojeda in the 10th minute but the Argentine sent his shot right at goalkeeper Joe Willis. Ojeda atoned for his shot seconds later. Willis tried a clearance but got it wrong. Ojeda picked it off and knocked it down to Angulo in front of goal. The Colombian, who was kept just onside by Josh Bauer, beat Willis to make it 1-0 in the 10th minute. It was Angulo’s fourth goal of the regular season.
The Lions needed only four minutes to double the lead. Ojeda made a great turn in traffic in the midfield to break Nashville’s pressure and found himself in space. He passed to Torres on the right, who in turn played Thorhallsson to the end line on the right flank. The Icelandic fullback crossed to the back post where Torres met the ball with a volley, knocking it past Willis to make it 2-0 in the 14th minute.
“(Torres) passed it and in my head I was thinking it was a little bit too long for me,” Thorhallsson said about getting the pass that led to his assist. “I ran to it and I saw him make a run inside, and I just thought, ‘I’ll put it into an area where it’s dangerous to get the ball,’ And the ball landed there and he was sprinting and shot and scored. Very nice, and a good goal. I’m happy with that assist.”
Nashville nearly pulled a goal back in the 20th minute when Sam Surridge hit the right post. The striker blew past Santos and met a well-placed Hany Mukhtar cross but headed it off the woodwork.
The next good chance fell Orlando City’s way with a foul drawn by Araujo. Ojeda’s free kick found Torres at the right post and the Uruguayan nodded it back across goal. Jansson met it in the air but was perhaps distracted by Enrique arriving at the same time, sending his shot just wide of the left post in the 26th minute.
Nashville came on strong in the final 20 minutes of the half, winning set pieces and creating danger from them. However, the Lions did well to bother shooters and win balls into the area.
The visitors came close in the first minute of stopapge time in transition when Surridge hit a shot just wide of the right post into the outside netting as Santos got caught drifting too far up the pitch. Orlando withstood a couple of late corner kicks and caught a break when Bauer headed just wide late in first-half injury time.
At the break, the Lions held the advantage in possession (54.3%-45.7%), shots on target (3-1), and passing accuracy (835%-73.9%). Nashville attempted more total shots (7-4) and corners (3-1).
Pareja said he spoke to his team at halftime about having more control in the second half.
“I said to the players, okay, we’re winning. We have no control of the game,” he said. “So, if you want to close this game in the best way possible, and it could happen that we score more goals or not, but we need control. And that we didn’t have in the first half. We had goals and we had actions and we had good behaviors as a group, but we didn’t have control.”
With Schlegel on a yellow card, Pareja subbed Brekalo on for the Argentinian center back to start the second half.
Orlando created the first chance of the second half in the 51st minute when Torres took a pass from Enrique on the right and tried to chip a shot into the left corner. Willis got a piece of the shot, knocking it up onto the roof of the net. Three minutes later, Enrique sent a soft shot at goal that Willis somehow misjudged. It nearly got through the keeper but he got a piece to knock it off the left post.
The Lions created something off a corner in the 61st minute after the initial cross from Ojeda was cleared. A second ball in found Araujo on the right, and he headed the ball back across the six. Brekalo tried to redirect it in with a backheel flick, but the ball had a lot of spin on it and stayed out.
The game settled in for a while after that, with both teams playing minly between the two penalty areas. Nashville tried to use its size and speed with direct play but the Lions did well to snuff out opportunities before they became dangerous.
Torres put the game to bed in the 85th minute with the setup coming from second half subs Nico Lodeiro and Duncan McGuire. Lodeiro got down the right and made a nice cutback pass to give the ball to McGuire in space. McGuire showed patience and waited for Torres to jump into the play on the left side and sent him a pass. Torres fired a blast just under the crossbar to beat Willis and make it 3-0 with his 10th goal of the MLS season. Lodeiro’s secondary assist gave him 10 assists on the season as well.
McGuire came close to adding a fourth in the sixth minute of stoppage time, breaking down the left and firing a heavy shot toward the near post. Willis made the save, but not a convincing one, doing just enough to stop the ball just in front of the line.
Forster Ajago scored late and would have spoiled the shutout had he not been obviously offside. The flag came up and moments later the game was over.
Orlando City finished with the advantage in possession (56.9%-43.1%), shots (13-12), shots on target (7-2), and passing accuracy (85%-79.9%). Both teams won five corners in the match.
“The second half was a much more complete game,” Pareja said. “I liked the discipline of the group. This is the way we can add points in the league, being disciplined and keep a zero on our goal, and when we have the chances, just put it in the back of the net. It’s as simple as that.”
“We could feel in the warm-ups and and even before the game, the energy of this team had changed from after what happened in in Kansas City,” Torres said. “Obviously, they got those early chances, but this team continued mentally strong with that feeling of great energy, and we were able to push through that and take the win tonight. But it was all about that energy.”
The Lions are off next weekend for the international break, returning to action Sept. 14 at home against the New England Revolution.
Opinion
Pedro Gallese’s Recent Form No Surprise
Pedro Gallese’s recent solid form isn’t anything new, you just need to know where to look.

One of the more frustrating narratives surrounding Orlando City at the beginning of the season was the assertion that goalkeeper Pedro Gallese was playing poorly and was costing the Lions points. The main point of emphasis from the detractors was the Lions’ 4-2 opening day loss to the Philadelphia Union, although he also got a lot of flak for his performances against Toronto FC, and during the 2-1 loss to New York City FC. That criticism has started to get quieter in recent weeks, particularly after he made the bench of the most recent MLS Team of the Matchday, but I don’t think he was playing nearly as poorly as some people made him out to be at the start of the season, and his recent performances haven’t come out of nowhere.
So let’s talk about those two big supposed “black marks” on his 2025 resume. Most of the chatter came from the opening game against the Union, with him coming in for criticism in two instances here, and here. I want to specifically address the mention of Gallese allowing six goals on 2.9 post-shot expected goals. Listen, I don’t actually have a problem with the xG stat the way some people do, and I truly think it can be incredibly useful when used properly in certain contexts. I just don’t think the numbers tell the full story here.
Against the Union, three goals came from inside or on the edge of the six-yard box, and were one-touch finishes. Gallese realistically had no chance on two of them (the first and fourth goals), and while the other one came from an acute angle and was mostly right at him, the ball is still coming so fast and from such a short distance that it still feels a bit nitpicky to place the blame entirely on him. Yes, he arguably could have done better, but there are plenty of goalkeepers in this league that aren’t saving that.
The other goal of the night came from a Rodrigo Schlegel error and a first touch shot from the edge of the box that came as El Pulpo was already moving laterally across his goal to shift with the rest of his defense, only for the shot to be heading for the opposite side of the net. Despite the distance the shot is coming from, that one also feels harsh to blame him for in my book. Again, I love xG when it’s used properly, but I just don’t think this is a fair application, as it doesn’t take into account where Gallese is at the time of the turnover-produced shot — only the shooter’s location. I find it pretty hard to look at each one of those goals and honestly say that he should save them. To me, there’s a big difference between something a goalkeeper could do more to save and something they should do more to save.
The other two goals out of the aforementioned six came against Toronto FC, and honestly it’s hard for me to put a ton of blame on him for either of them. The first came off a corner and was a header from inside the six-yard box, and although he should maybe do better considering the angle of the shot and his placement in the goal, the final shot comes from about three yards away. I’m sorry, but that just requires excellent reaction time, and while it’s the sort of shot that we do see saved in MLS sometimes, I’m not sure it’s one that we should expect to see saved. TFC’s final goal of the night was a great strike from distance in the bottom corner that also came through a few bodies, which meant Gallese didn’t see it until fairly late on. Again, to me this is a shot that he could do more to save, but not one that he should do more to save, and that’s an important distinction.
Honestly, the most justified criticism I’ve seen probably comes from here, when speaking about the 2-1 loss to NYCFC. Gallese gave up a huge rebound for the hosts’ second and eventual game-winning goal. Frankly, it wasn’t great at all and it ended up costing Orlando City a point. That being said, he did still make seven saves in that game and kept the Lions in it with a chance to salvage a late point.
Aside from the error against NYCFC though, El Pulpo has largely been mistake free and pretty blameless for the three goals he’s conceded. One was a penalty kick against the New York Red Bulls, and the second was a one-touch finish from about three yards away which also came against the Red Bulls. Go back and watch the film, and you won’t be shocked to hear that I hold him blameless for both. The goal he surrendered against the LA Galaxy wasn’t great, as Christian Ramirez’s flick isn’t exactly traveling at light speed. But, the shot also goes the opposite way of which Gallese’s momentum is already carrying him, so that’s something to consider. Aside from the rebound against NYCFC, this is the one goal he’s given up in 2025 that I really think he should have done better with.
The Peruvian has gotten a lot of praise (and rightly so) for the three straight clean sheets he’s kept in Orlando’s last three games. He’s made 11 saves during that time and got absolutely peppered late against Montreal, when Orlando went down to 10 men (again!). But he’s been making saves all year long, and the one game he didn’t register any (the season opener), was also a game where you can make a real argument that he couldn’t have done a better job of attempting to stop the ball going in than he already did. His save percentage of 73% is 19th out of 33, which is close to bang average; and his clean sheet percentage of 37.5% is tied for ninth.
Oh, and if we want to bring post-shot expected goals back into this, then let’s look at his post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed (PSxG-GA). PSxG-GA uses expected goals to provide a stat that is based on how likely a goalkeeper is to save a shot. The number can be either positive or negative, with a positive number suggesting either a better-than-average shot-stopping ability, or a goalkeeper that’s been luckier than most. Gallese’s PSxG-GA of 1.7 is tied for 13th out of 49 goalkeepers, which ain’t half bad, is it? It’s worth mentioning that some of the rankings are skewed by keepers who only spent a small amount of time on the field and either let in a ton of goals or very few, but that’s the funny thing about raw stats — they need context.
At the end of the day, I’m not trying to sit here and say that Gallese has been flawless this season, is completely blameless for each and every one of the goals he’s conceded, and that every ounce of criticism that’s come his way has been unfair. There are absolutely goals that he should have done a better job on, but even at the time they were written, I think some of the assertions that he was a massive weak point for the Lions were overblown and not properly justified. He’s had a few shaky moments, like any keeper, but the defense in front of him wasn’t doing him any favors at times, and he was still regularly making saves to keep Orlando City in games. While it’s nice that he’s finally getting some plaudits, he’s had himself a perfectly fine 2025 season for the most part. You just have to take the time to look.
Lion Links
Lion Links: 4/25/25
Orlando City gets ready for Atlanta United, Luiz Muzzi and Ricardo Moreira promoted, NWSL MVP candidates, and more.

Happy Friday! Today starts three straight days of Orlando soccer to enjoy, so make sure to plan your weekend accordingly. It was a fairly fast week for me, and I was able to read three books somehow. Before we dive into today’s links, let’s all wish a very happy 21st birthday to Orlando City winger Nicolas Rodriguez!
Orlando City Gets Ready for Rivalry Match
The Lions are back in action Saturday night against rival Atlanta United in what should be one of the more interesting matchups of the weekend. Both teams are looking for answers on offense heading into this match, as Orlando is coming off of three straight scoreless draws and Atlanta hasn’t won since March. Taking on a rival at home could be just what’s needed for the Lions to jumpstart their attack and return to the form they had earlier this season. Head Coach Oscar Pareja spoke on how it’s an important game to win for Orlando, as well as how the offense needs to exercise some calmness to finish its chances.
Orlando City Promotes Luiz Muzzi and Ricardo Moreira
Luiz Muzzi and Ricardo Moreira were both promoted by Orlando City, with Moreira taking over as the club’s general manager and sporting director and Muzzi becoming senior advisor to ownership, global soccer ventures. It’s a natural step up for Moreira, who joined the club in 2018 and has helped build a competitive roster that’s made the playoffs for the past five seasons. Muzzi’s new role is a bit of a mouthful, but he’ll be taking on an advisory role focused on the growth of the club while working closely with ownership.
“I am truly grateful to have had the opportunity to serve as Orlando City Soccer Club’s EVP of Soccer Operations and General Manager for seven seasons, and I am excited to continue my journey with the club in this new role,” said Luiz Muzzi. “I look forward to working alongside the Wilf family and the leadership team to help shape the future of the club and its continued success, both on and off the field, and I know Orlando City’s Soccer Operations will be in great hands under Ricardo’s leadership.”
Orlando Pride Players in the NWSL MVP Hunt
Now that we’re over a month into the NWSL season, ESPN‘s Jeff Kassouf highlighted the league’s early MVP candidates, and there are a couple of familiar faces in his rankings. Orlando Pride forward Barbra Banda is predictably in the mix in sixth on the list, as she has three goals and an assist to her name so far. But a surprise inclusion is midfielder Haley McCutcheon, who has impressed on both sides of the ball to earn ninth place in the rankings. While I think the MVP race will ultimately be between scorers like Banda, Temwa Chawinga, Ashley Hatch, and Debinha, it’s pretty great to see McCutcheon receive deserved praise for her performance this year.
MLS Transfer News Roundup
The transfer deadline may be over for MLS clubs, but deals that crossed the finish line are still coming in. The Columbus Crew added yet another forward by sending up to $1.2 million to the Houston Dynamo in exchange for Aliyu Ibrahim. The 23-year-old will maintain his U22 Initiative Player status in Columbus and recorded 12 goals and nine assists across 90 appearances for Houston. LAFC signed 26-year-old midfielder Ryan Raposo, who spent the past five seasons with the Vancouver Whitecaps and was a free agent this year. St. Louis City also made things official with Simon Becher by making his loan move a permanent one so that he stays with the club.
Free Kicks
- Enjoy this intriguing article that shines a light on how MLS team administrators manage the chaos of the transfer window. I would devour a television series following these kinds of crises throughout the season.
- St. Petersburg is exploring demolishing Al Lang Stadium, the home of the Tampa Bay Rowdies, to make room for an amphitheater. The proposed demolition would take place after 2028, so we’ll see if this comes to pass.
- Jamie Vardy is leaving Leicester City, ending a 13-year tenure there that will be remembered for winning the English Premier League title in 2016.
- Here’s everything you need to know before the second legs of the UEFA Women’s Champions League semifinals on Sunday. Chelsea will take on Barcelona before Lyon and Arsenal square off, with both English clubs trailing after the first legs.
- Real Sociedad announced that Head Coach Imanol Alguacil will step down following this season. Alguacil was hired in December of 2018 and led the team to victory in the 2020 Copa del Rey.
- Manchester United will take part in the inaugural women’s seven-a-side tournament next month, joining Bayern Munich, Ajax, Benfica, and four other teams yet to be determined.
- NBA Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd has joined Everton’s ownership group. I too would be looking for anything to take my mind off of the Dallas Mavericks’ season.
- Former Pride players Sydney Leroux and Ali Riley announced a weekly podcast, with the first episode set for Monday.
That’s all I have for you this time around. Mother’s Day is less than a month away, just as a warning. If the mothers in your life like romance books and you’re looking for a gift, I can’t recommend The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center enough. Have a great Friday!
Orlando City
Orlando City Was Hot, But Now Is Not — An Explanation
A comparison of the Lions’ start to the season vs. recent form.

Years ago, back during the early days of the new millennium, one of the first websites to ever “go viral” was the matchmaking site AmIHotOrNot.com. I, of course, never visited this site, as I had access to a mirror on the wall and already knew who was the fairest of them all (not me, the mirror was pretty clear about that). But as a college student during those years, I knew of the site and how it quickly was getting millions of views per day. Today’s topic is related to hot and not, but it is the significantly more important topic of Orlando City’s performance on the field during the 2025 season.
During the first six games of the season, the Lions looked better than any previous Orlando City team in the club’s MLS era in terms of early season offensive prowess. The squad led the league in goals scored, the Designated Players were scoring or contributing to nearly every goal, and with Duncan McGuire still to return to add even more firepower, it seemed like there might be the possibility of running out of purple smoke to shoot off in front of The Wall with how many goals Orlando City was scoring.
And then, with apologies to Prince, purple flames were doused by purple rain, and we found out what it sounds like when Lions fans cry. To understand why the offense went from 2.5 goals scored per game to being shut out in three straight matches for the first time since 2018 we need to first consider whether the start to the season was an aberration itself, and had our expectations misaligned for how this team would perform for the rest of the season. Let’s take a look at how the first six games of 2025 compared with the second half of the 2024 regular season (17 games):
Metric | 2024 Final 17 | 2025 First 6 |
---|---|---|
Goals per Game | 2.5 | 2.5 |
Shots on Target per Game | 5.6 | 5.5 |
Shots on Target % | 40% | 35% |
Goal Conversions per Shot on Target | 44% | 45% |
Medium + Long Passes Completed per Game | 215 | 208 |
Medium + Long Pass Completion % | 81% | 80% |
Completed Crosses + Switches per Game | 21.4 | 21.0 |
Progressive Carries + Passes per Game | 64.6 | 57.3 |
Points Earned per Game | 2.06 | 1.67 |
For the most part it looks like the beginning of the 2025 season picked right up where the 2024 regular season ended (I intentionally excluded the 2024 playoffs from the data because playoff games tend to be played differently than regular-season games). There were some major changes in personnel from 2024 to 2025, but even with the changes in players, the style of play and the formation used by Orlando City remained the same, and most of the offensive stats are nearly exactly the same. Six games is a decent enough sample size to say that those stats from 2025 were not a fluke, and the offensive output that we saw in the second half of the 2024 season could be reasonably expected to continue at a similar pace.
But then it did not. Oh boy has it not. Looking at the same chart, but comparing the 2025 first six games to the 2025 most recent three matches gets an immediate “not hot” vote and is as ugly as a Bubba Sparxxx song.
Metric | 2025 First 6 | 2025 Last 3 |
---|---|---|
Goals per Game | 2.5 | 0.0 |
Shots on Target per Game | 5.5 | 3.0 |
Shots on Target % | 35% | 31% |
Goal Conversions per Shot on Target | 45% | 0% |
Medium + Long Passes Completed per Game | 208 | 171 |
Medium + Long Pass Completion % | 80% | 74% |
Completed Crosses + Switches per Game | 21.0 | 12.6 |
Progressive Carries + Passes per Game | 57.3 | 42.0 |
Points Earned per Game | 1.67 | 1.0 |
The sharp-eyed observer will note that red cards are not noted anywhere above, and in those last three games Orlando City played nearly 50 minutes with only 10 players. In both of the games when a red card (the ultimate sum of two yellow cards by the same player) was given, Orlando City was ahead in expected goals at the moment the red card was issued, and while those do not count for anything officially, they indicate who was getting shots off from more dangerous locations. I thought Orlando City seemed more likely to score and take all three points in both games up until the dismissal of a player. Instead, of course, the Lions went down a player and immediately had to pivot to a more defensive posture, and with one fewer player on the field, they could not play (or at least maintain) the same style as they had been.
In addition to playing far more conservatively, in both games Orlando City substituted on a defender for a key attacking player within four minutes of the red card, removing Marco Pašalić in the game against New York and Luis Muriel in the game against Montréal. This was effectively a double negative, and not in the way that turns two negatives into a positive. It was more like f(x) = -2x, a function with a slope of -2 and…let me stop right there. It was bad, and hurt the offense to remove a key playmaker and goal scorer.
Another major issue is that the midfield engine of César Araújo and Eduard Atuesta have played a combined 11 minutes in the last three games, and all 11 of those minutes were played by Atuesta in the game against New York and after the red card. Araújo’s absence has definitely been felt, but as he is more of a deep-lying player and defensive destroyer, the team has been able to adequately replace him, but Atuesta’s offensive talents have been sorely missed. Atuesta may not have many goal contributions, but he is second on the team in shot-creating actions per 90 minutes (4.62) and first on the team in goal-creating actions per 90 minutes (1.20). That 1.20 is the highest in club history (fbref.com only has tracking back to 2018, so apologies to the legend Kaká) among players who played at least 500 minutes in a season, and it is nearly 50% higher than the player in second place in that stat, Mauricio Pereyra in 2020, when he averaged 0.82.
Might it be nice to be able to play a player who is creating a goal every 90 minutes? I think so. Joran Gerbet has played well, especially for a rookie, and specially especially (just go with it) for a rookie in the mentally and physically demanding role of a central midfielder. He has a ton of potential, but he is not yet as productive a player as Atuesta and when the Colombian playmaker returns the offense will get back a key cog that will help to create good shots, and in a game like soccer the difference between a goal and a miss is often a matter of inches, and a slightly better delivery on the pass can turn a shot into a shot on target and a shot on target into a goal.
Is it really as simple as just red cards and injuries, and that if Orlando City can keep its full complement of players on the field and get back some injured players, everything will go from not hot to hot again? Perhaps, but I think there is a style of play change that has also been causing some of the recent issues. I included rows on the charts above on the aggregation of completed crosses and switches (as in switches of the field) per game and medium and long passes completed per game, and from that chart you can see that the numbers are much lower in the last three games as compared to the beginning of this season and the final half of last season.
Those drops coincide with Rafael Santos playing only 59 minutes in the last three games, and with Alex Freeman not being able to get into the attack in the same way as he was in the season-opening games. There definitely is some overlap here with playing down a player and needing to keep defensive players back, but Santos’ offensive contributions (he is currently 20th in MLS in completed crosses + switches per 90 minutes), and even just the threat of him playing a long ball across the field to change the point of attack, have been missed by the Orlando City offense with him off the field. David Brekalo is an excellent defender, but his offensive contributions are more tied to his ability to win balls in the air, whereas Santos is among the league leaders in crosses and switches per 90 minutes, with Freeman one of his primary targets.
Brekalo playing left back certainly helped shore up a defense that had been leaking goals, and Santos was a major contributor to that with some poor defensive performances, but that tradeoff has removed a major threat to the Orlando City offense. Freeman’s reduction in offensive contributions has not helped, but I think the loss of Santos’ early crosses, long switches, and overlapping runs contributed more to the nearly 400-minute dry spell without a goal from open play. The Lions need him to find his form again, though he will not be able to do it against Atlanta, as he will be suspended.
Three games without a goal is unpleasant as a fan, but Orlando City battled in all three games and at least came away with a point. The defense is playing well, and despite many injuries, the Lions are still very much in the playoff hunt as the season approaches the one-third mark. There are legitimate reasons for the recent offensive swoon, and Araújo and Atuesta will likely be back shortly, and McGuire also may soon be able to start a game and offer a different offensive look. Ramiro Enrique heated up once spring turned to summer in 2024, and when all four of those players are back to full health, the team will once again have a deep roster full of players aggressively competing for minutes.
Óscar Pareja historically has used the first half of a season to find his preferred lineup for the stretch run of the season, and I believe this is another season when he will be playing the long game and seeing what he has at his disposal. The red cards and injuries provided short-term pain in terms of points dropped, but they will likely also provide long-term gain with the view into how the players play in different positions and combinations.
It is a long season, with two cup competitions still to start, in addition to 25 more regular-season games, and summer does not even start until June. I expect that a lot of the issues from the recent run of games will work themselves out with time. We just need to keep our cool and wait for the inevitable Orlando City late season hot streak.
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