Orlando City

Orlando City’s Most Successful Offensive and Defensive Lineups

An analysis of the best offensive and defensive groupings for Orlando City this season across all competitions.

Published

5 months ago

October 24, 2024

S. Andrew DeSalvo

Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Soccer is a game that has cheer leaders but not cheerleaders, so there is usually no opportunity to hear people chanting out “two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?” at soccer matches. In this article, however, we are going to offer some appreciation, and look back at a two, a four, a six and….an 11 that we appreciate.

Let’s start with the two, and take a look at midfield tandem of César Araújo and Wilder Cartagena. Orlando City’s preferred partnership started 23 games alongside one another in all competitions in 2024, and in those games Orlando City went 13-4-6.

Competition	Wins	Losses	Draws	Points per Game	Goal Differential
Concacaf Champions Cup	1	0	1	2.00	+3
Leagues Cup	1	0	2	1.67	+3
MLS	11	4	3	2.00	+13
Total	13	4	6	1.96	+19

Taking a quick look at the final MLS standings, the 2.00 points per game in MLS play that Orlando City averaged when Araújo and Cartagena started together in the midfield would have ranked only behind Inter Miami’s 2.18 points per game across all 29 MLS teams and was 31% better than Orlando City’s actual final tally of 1.53 points per game (15-12-7). Doing the math, if the Lions were 11-4-3 with Araújo and Cartagena starting together (including six straight wins in their most recent six starts) and 15-12-7 overall, then they must have been 4-8-4 when it was a different starting midfield two, and 4-8-4 is a paltry 1.00 points per game, something closer to a team in the bottom third of the league. Orlando City’s lineup with their top midfield partnership was equivalent to a team on a top-two pace, a one-two punch that was frequently too powerful for an opponent to handle.

Moving on from two to four, let’s take a look at Orlando City’s back lines throughout the season to see which combination of four performed the foremost (ok, I’ll stop) throughout the season. There was a period of time early in the season when the Lions deployed a three-man back line with two wingbacks for a few games, but once they got everyone back from international matches and back to health they have rolled with the four-man back line ever since.

On the season Orlando City has played 41 games (34 in MLS, four in Concacaf Champions Cup, and three in Leagues Cup), so there have been 3,690 total minutes played by defensive groupings so far. Here are the six groupings that played at least 5% of the minutes, and how they have performed this season (own goals scored by Orlando City’s opponents have been excluded, players listed left to right on how they played positionally):

Back Line	Minutes	% of Minutes	Goals Against	Goals Against per 90 Mins	Goal Differential
Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, Thorhallsson	1,227	33.3%	23	1.69	+1
Smith, Jansson, Brekalo, Thorhallsson	496	13.4%	9	1.63	+3
Schlegel, Cartagena, Brekalo	386	10.5%	4	0.93	-3
Smith, Jansson, Schlegel, Thorhallsson	379	10.3%	7	1.66	+4
Santos, Jansson, Brekalo, Thorhallsson	367	9.9%	5	1.23	-2
Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, Smith	262	7.1%	3	1.03	+6

Interestingly, the three-man back line of Rodrigo Schlegel, Cartagena, and David Brekalo has the best goals against per 90 minutes rating, giving up less than one goal per game, but the team struggled to score while in this lineup — odd since a three-man back line allows for seven players to play higher up the field, as opposed to only six when in the standard four-man back line. I chalk a lot of this up to it being an unfamiliar formation and one that was played early in the season when the team was trying to figure out how to mix the attacking players together, rather than an issue caused by a three-man back line.

We are focusing on the fours here though, and while the teams preferred back line clearly appears to be Rafael Santos, Robin Jansson, Schlegel, and Dagur Dan Thórhallsson, the data points to two other groupings as ones that played at least 250 minutes together and had better goal differentials. The Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, and Kyle Smith back line did not debut until September, but it was effective against Charlotte (late game), Dallas (starting four), Philadelphia (starting four), and Cincinnati (starting four), and had the second-best goals against per 90 minutes rating of the most used lineups.

The Smith, Jansson, Schlegel, and Thórhallsson back line played together in nine different games — a mix of four starts and five games where they subbed into that grouping. While it was not a grouping that was difficult to break down and score against, as evidenced by the 1.66 goals against per 90 minutes, they were +4 in only 379 minutes together, so the Lions were banging in the goals at a rate of 2.61 goals scored per 90 minutes.

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense, but when we are trying to find the best defensive group of four, we want the best defense to be the best defense, so it looks like it would be either Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, and Smith or Santos, Jansson, Brekalo, and Thórhallsson. Alas, we never saw Santos, Jansson, Brekalo, and Smith together during the season, so there is no data around that grouping, and with Brekalo being seemingly the forgotten man in recent weeks, I do not think we are going to see that lineup in the playoffs either, unless there is an injury or a card situation.

For my four I’m going to go with the data, and while I expect that Thórhallsson will probably start over Smith in the next match, the data says the lineup should read Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, and Smith, with their low goals against and high goal differential.

We will yell out fore and drive our way over to six, and move from the defensive grouping to the offensive one. It is rather amazing how many different offensive combinations have played at least one minute this season. By my count, there were 107 unique offensive groupings that the Lions utilized throughout the 41 games.

While on the defensive side, Orlando City settled into a lineup that ended up playing almost exactly one-third of all minutes, on the offensive side, the most common lineup just barely reached half that number, and the six lineups that played the most together did not even play half of the total minutes available this season (players listed alphabetically, as I could not come up with an easy way to depict the offensive formation in a table).

Attacking Group	Minutes	% of Minutes	Goals Scored	Goals per 90 Minutes	Goal Differential
Angulo, Araujo, Cartagena, Enrique, Ojeda, Torres	615	16.7%	11	1.61	+7
Angulo, Araujo, Cartagena, McGuire, Ojeda, Torres	339	9.2%	8	2.12	+3
Angulo, Araujo, Lodeiro, McGuire, Muriel, Ojeda, Torres	177	4.8%	5	2.54	+3
Angulo, Araujo, Lodeiro, McGuire, Muriel, Torres	164	4.4%	2	1.10	-1
Angulo, Araujo, Lodeiro, McGuire, Muriel, Torres	148	4.0%	4	2.43	+1
Angulo, Araujo, Cartagena, Lodeiro, McGuire, Torres	127	3.4%	1	0.71	+1

No other attacking grouping even played one game’s worth of minutes together all season, but I do want to include the statistics from three additional groupings, because as you see here they were prolific, albeit in small samples:

Attacking Group	Minutes	% of Minutes	Goals Scored	Goals per 90 Minutes	Goal Differential
Angulo, Araujo, Cartagena, Enrique, Muriel, Torres	72	2.0%	3	3.75	+2
Araujo, Cartagena, Enrique, Lodeiro, Ojeda, Torres	64	1.7%	4	5.63	+4
Angulo, Cartagena, Enrique, Lodeiro, Muriel, Torres	38	1.0%	3	7.11	+2

I do not expect that any of these groupings would actually continue to score at this rate if they played more minutes together, but the two lineups with Araújo and Cartagena seem like lineups that the Lions could use if trailing, and even the bottom row where Nico Lodeiro would be in for Araújo could be possible as well, since Cartagena is generally more of an offensive threat than Araújo if the coaching staff decided to move to one holding midfielder or if they needed to choose one of the two to sub out.

Going back to the commonly used lineups, the question still remains on whether the group of five (Ivan Angulo, Araújo, Cartagena, Martin Ojeda and Facundo Torres) should play more minutes with Ramiro Enrique or Duncan McGuire. The data says they are more efficient with McGuire, to the tune of an additional half a goal per 90 minutes, but most of the McGuire minutes with this group have been played later in the match, when Orlando City was already ahead and the opposition was tired and chasing an equalizer. Enrique’s minutes have nearly all been as a starter since mid-summer, so he generally faces a fresh defense and an even scoreline, so the defenders are not taking as many risks.

Two lineups that are not in either of these tables, because they were each used for only 30 minutes this season, are Araújo, Cartagena, Enrique, Luis Muriel, Ojeda, and Torres and Araújo, Cartagena, Enrique, McGuire, Muriel, and Torres, and they each scored one goal in their time together for a goals-per-90-minutes average of 3.00. Both of those lineups do not contain Angulo, which sacrifices his speed and recovery ability to get back on defense, but they do include every primary creative attacking player except Lodeiro. The samples are too small to be quantitatively confident in their success, but the qualitative side of looking at those names and thinking about how they could line up is one that is exciting to consider with the wealth of attacking talent that they possess.

All of that said, I am going to to cheat a little bit and choose for my six to be Angulo, Araújo, Cartagena, Duncmiro Enriguire, Ojeda, and Torres, a grouping that is +10 for the season in goal differential and averages 1.79 goals scored per 90 minutes while only giving up 0.85 goals scored per 90 minutes. The group with Enrique is better defensively, giving up 0.59 goals per 90 minutes, as compared to 1.33 for the group with McGuire, while the group with McGuire is better offensively, scoring 2.12 goals per 90 minutes, as compared to 1.61 with Enrique.

Alright, so we have our two, our four and our six, and as promised we are going to skip the eight and go to the 11. If we look at the full 11-player lineup that we chose (using Pedro Gallese as the goalkeeper), we had a back line of Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, and Smith; holding midfielders Araújo and Cartagena; attacking midfielders Angulo, Ojeda, and Torres; and Enrique or McGuire at striker. That lineup played together only twice all season, both with Enrique as the striker, and they were +3 during the 110 minutes that they were on the field together, scoring three goals and giving up zero.

It is hard to lose when you give up zero goals, though Orlando City did manage to do so against Cruz Azul (kind of, it was a shootout loss after a draw), but when you average scoring 2.45 goals per 90 minutes and give up 0.00 goals per 90 minutes, that sounds like a winning lineup.

In fact, of all the lineups that played together for more than 75 minutes this season, that lineup does have the best goal differential per 90 minutes. Just as with some of the attacking groupings, there were some lineups that had better goal differentials per 90 minutes in a limited sample size of minutes, but in looking at the groups that played the most minutes, it is the 11-man group from the previous paragraph that performed the best per 90 minutes.

The 11-man lineup that was used the most was Gallese as goalkeeper; a back line of Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, and Thórhallsson; holding midfielders Araújo and Cartagena; attacking midfielders Angulo, Ojeda, and Torres; and Enrique as striker. That group was +7 for the season in nearly 300 minutes together, a goal differential of +2.17 per 90 minutes, which is also Borat-level very nice.

While it was a rough beginning to the season for Orlando City, as the year went on the Lions settled into lineups and rotations that maximized their abilities, as evidenced by their season-ending run of 11-3-3 in all competitions since the calendar turned to July. Óscar Pareja has identified his preferred lineup, and the data and the gut feelings he has around who to play are nearly exactly matched in terms of playing the right players in combination with one another.

Whether it is the two, the four, the six or the 11, Pareja knows who to play, I reckon.

Vamos Orlando!

Orlando City

Orlando City Relies on Starters More Than Any Other MLS Team

An analysis of Óscar Pareja’s early lineup choices and substitution patterns and how that compares to the 2024 season.

Published

10 hours ago

April 3, 2025

S. Andrew DeSalvo

Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Legendary swordsman Inigo Montoya, a man who is not lefthanded, once opened a conversation by asking the Dread Pirate Roberts if, by any chance, he had six fingers on his right hand. Nobody will need to prepare to die by the end of this column, but I will ask a similar question: I don’t mean to pry, but did you by any chance happen to realize that we are already more than one-sixth of the way through the MLS regular season? Six fingers, one-sixth of the season…close enough. Let’s go.

Time flies when you are having fun, and somehow Orlando City has already played 540 minutes of MLS soccer this season. I consider 500 minutes played to be a cutoff amount when looking at player and lineup performance, and with the conclusion of the most recent game in Los Angeles, the team has now surpassed that 500-minute threshold.

In looking at the opening 540 minutes, I was surprised to see how much continuity I found in the minutes played, considering how many injuries the Lions have had to work around during these first six games. In just the first six games, Orlando City has already had full games missed due to injury by César Araujo (1), David Brekalo (2), Robin Jansson (2), Duncan McGuire (3) and Nico Rodriguez (5). Brekalo and Pedro Gallese both missed a game for international duty as well. McGuire was not expected back during the first set of games, but all of those other players, with the possible exception of Rodriguez, were expected to contribute during the early part of the season.

These absences led to games where the substitutes list was full of players who will play big minutes for Orlando City B this year, but not players who Óscar Pareja was likely to turn to off the bench unless the game was out of hand or he was absolutely desperate. According to Opta’s tracking through the opening six games, Orlando City ranks last in MLS in the average minutes played by its substitutes, as the average amount of time per appearance for the players off the bench for the Lions is only 12 minutes. For context, 16 teams have an average amount of time per substitute appearance of 20 minutes or greater, and Inter Miami and Toronto are tied with a league-leading 27 minutes per substitute appearance.

The interesting thing about those two teams, Miami and Toronto, is that Miami leads the league in points per match with 2.6 and Toronto is second from the bottom with a scant 0.33 points per match. I think a lot of this data will even out over time, as right now there are several teams, including Miami, that are playing in multiple competitions and trying to keep players fresh for all of their matches.

When it comes to Orlando City, however, that is not the case, and thus far there has just been the standard one game per week on six consecutive Saturdays. The players are rested for each game. The issue has just been that Pareja has not had the depth and variety of players he thought he would have to bring off the bench to protect a lead or chase a deficit.

We often joke in articles or on The Mane Land PawedCast about how “Óscar gonna Óscar,” and once he finds a lineup he likes, he sticks with it. Even with all the injuries he has somehow managed to do this again this season, as you can see from the chart below. I started tracking lineup data last season, and even though the 2025 season is only six games old and there have been so many absences from key players this season, it was striking to see that the 11-man lineup that has played the most minutes together this season already outranks all but two lineups from the entire 2024 MLS season (including the five playoff games!):

Now, it is a little unfair to the one 2025 lineup on the above chart that it has such a negative goal differential per 90 minutes, because if it is only the 10 field players, with goalkeeper excluded, then that lineup has played 215 minutes together and has a +0.84 goal differential per 90 minutes. That group is +4 with Javier Otero in net in 74 minutes together, and removing the goalkeepers from the calculation turns that negative goal differential into a positive.

What that also tells us, however, is that when it comes to the 10 field players, Pareja has played the same unit in the field for 40% (215/540) of the team’s minutes already. Granted it is early in the season, but after six MLS games last season, the lineup that had played together the most had played a grand total of 74 minutes together (14% of all minutes). The top five most used lineups in last season’s opening six MLS games combined to play 302 minutes, or 56% of all minutes, and in 2025 it is 402 minutes, or 80%. My math, and everyone else’s math, says that is a much higher percentage and indicates that the team is focused on continuity early.

That continuity thus far this season has paid dividends, with the Lions earning 10 points from the first six games, twice as nice as last season’s five points after the first six games. Last year, the team was balancing midweek Concacaf Champions Cup games in addition to injuries and an international break during the opening weeks of the MLS season, so there were some good reasons for the lineup rotation and the slow start. This year’s squad will have to navigate two upcoming cup tournaments in the coming months, and so we likely will see a lot of new lineup configurations or more rotation once the U.S. Open Cup starts in May and then again when Leagues Cup starts in July.

Thus far though, Pareja has been able to stick with his starters deep into matches, and has only given playing time to 20 players, which is tied for third fewest across all of MLS. Fan bases often clamor for the coach to “play the kids,” but while Pareja has had young and inexperienced players on the senior roster for every game, he really has only given significant minutes to Alex Freeman from the group of players that could be referred to as “the kids.” Gustavo Caraballo has played nine minutes, which is incredible for a 16-year-old (15-year-old Cavan Sullivan of Philadelphia is the only player younger than Caraballo to have played this season, and he has also played only nine minutes), and new signing Nico Rodriguez (20 years old) has played 11 minutes, but the next three youngest players to play are all at least 22 and were with the senior club last season (Otero and Ramiro Enrique) or came to the club after four seasons of college soccer (23-year-old, but nearly 24-year-old, Joran Gerbet).

The team’s record thus far shows that Pareja has been right to limit the minutes to the small group of players he trusts, and with one game per week for the next six weeks it will be interesting to see if the early trend of starters playing long minutes and only a few players getting all the minutes off the bench continues. The next match is on the road against Philadelphia, which so rudely came into Orlando and defeated the Lions 4-2 in the season opener, and my expectation is that while we likely will not see any players make their season debut in this game, I do think we will see a different starting lineup than the season opener and probably a different one than the game last weekend against the Galaxy.

No matter who the Lions go with, I am sure they will want to avenge the season-opening loss and bring three points back home to Orlando.

As we wish.

Vamos Orlando!

Orlando City

Orlando City at Philadelphia Union: Three Keys to Victory

What do the Lions need to do to earn all three points on the road against Philly?

Published

11 hours ago

April 3, 2025

David Rohe

Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Orlando City is on the road yet again, this time heading to Pennsylvania to take on the Philadelphia Union at Subaru Park Saturday night. The Lions will look to get a second road win in a row after the smash-and-grab victory against the LA Galaxy. Things don’t get any easier with the Union sitting in second place in the Eastern Conference, but a win would catapult Orlando City above Philadelphia in the standings. Here’s what Orlando City needs to do to earn all three points against the Philadelphia Union.

Tie up Tai

Tai Baribo leads the way-too-early-to-call Golden Boot race with six goals in five matches. The Union striker has taken 13 shots, putting eight on target and the aforementioned six in the back of the net. He scored a brace in the season opener against Orlando to bag a third of those goals. It’s a pretty easy call to say stopping the league leader in goals is an important part of shutting down the Philadelphia attack.

It will be up to Cesar Araujo and whichever center back pairing we get to shut Baribo down. Of course, he’s not the only one the Lions need to worry about since the Union also have striker Mikael Uhre, and midfielders Daniel Gazdag and Jovan Lukic providing goals and assists. The point is that Philadelphia is second only to the Lions in offensive production with 13 goals compared to Orlando City’s 15 goals.

Formation Change

In the last match against the LA Galaxy, the Lions struggled to get things going with Luis Muriel up top, Ojeda at the No. 10 spot and Ivan Angulo on the left. Once Duncan McGuire came on, Muriel shifted back, Ojeda went wide, and Angulo subbed off. That really opened up the attack and allowed the Lions to get the two goals needed to secure the victory.

Perhaps Oscar Pareja could start things off like that against Philadelphia. Angulo hasn’t been great the last few matches, and perhaps some time on the bench will get his head straight. McGuire is still early in his return from injury, but Ramiro Enrique can start up top with Big Dunc coming in later as he has the last few matches. I think making this change could help Orlando City get an early goal on the road.

Vengeance is Thine

When the two teams met on opening day, the Union dropped four goals on Orlando City in Inter&Co Stadium. You would think it a completely dominating performance, but the Lions actually had more shots, more shots on target, and more possession than the Union. Philadelphia simply put each of its four shots on target past Pedro Gallese. That type of luck is unlikely to happen again.

Since that time, the Orlando City defense has stiffened — at least a little bit — and the team has been more difficult to break down. I’m not saying the defense is as stalwart as last season, but it has improved. Orlando City needs to use that four-goal drubbing at the hands of the Union to galvanize the defense to enact revenge with a multi-goal victory of its own.

That is what I will be looking for Saturday night. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Vamos Orlando!

Lion Links

Lion Links: 4/3/25

Martin Ojeda in the MLS MVP mix early, Orlando Pride players won’t play for Zambia this window, Tierna Davidson out for the NWSL season, and more.

Published

15 hours ago

April 3, 2025

Marcus Mitchell

Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

How’s it going, Mane Landers? I hope this week has been going well for you as we gear up for a busy Saturday filled to the brim with soccer to enjoy. Despite my blender’s protests, I’ve finally figured out how to make frozen coconut mojitos and plan on having those get me through the rest of the week. Before we dive into today’s links, let’s all wish a happy 28th birthday to Orlando City legend Rodrigo Schlegel!

Martin Ojeda’s MVP Credentials

Orlando City’s Martin Ojeda placed second in Sacha Kljestan’s MLS MVP power rankings this week. With four goals and three assists so far this season, Ojeda leads the league in goal contributions and is a major reason why the Lions have scored a league-high 15 goals. It’s great to see the 26-year-old take the reins of the offense after Facundo Torres’ departure. Inter Miami’s Luis Suarez tops Kljestan’s rankings, despite only having a goal in five games this season. Tai Baribo, Evander, and Lionel Messi round out the top five in what could be an interesting MVP race this year.

Pride Players Won’t Join Zambia For International Duty

Zambia will be without four NWSL players when it takes part in the Yongchuan International Tournament in China this month. Along with Bay FC forward Rachael Kundananji, Orlando Pride trio Barbra Banda, Grace Chanda, and Prisca Chilufya were withdrawn from international duty, with the Football Association of Zambia stating it was due to additional travel measures by the current U.S. administration. FAZ General Secretary Reuben Kamanga expects the quartet to be available for future matches and both Banda and Kundananji played in friendlies in Zambia in February. Restrictions like this may limit the appeal of the NWSL to foreign players in the future.

Fan Banned For Hateful Language Towards Banda

NJ/NY Gotham FC announced that the fan who directed hateful language towards Banda has been banned following an investigation that included interviewing witnesses and reviewing security footage. The incident took place at the Pride’s match against Gotham on March 23 at Sports Illustrated Stadium. The fan was found to be in violation of the NWSL Code of Conduct and their season ticket was revoked as well. Gotham also encouraged fans to report inappropriate behavior through the team’s encrypted text message service to inform the stadium’s incident management team.

USWNT Defender Tierna Davidson Out for the NWSL Season

American center back Tierna Davidson will miss the remainder of the 2025 NWSL season after tearing the ACL in her left knee in the club’s draw against the Houston Dash. It’s tough news for her, Gotham, and the United States Women’s National Team, as she captains the NWSL club and featured heavily in the Olympics last year. Davidson sustained an ACL injury in her right knee back in 2022, which contributed to her missing out on the 2023 World Cup. Gisele Thompson replaced Davidson for the USWNT’s upcoming friendlies with Brazil, and Pride defender Emily Sams will likely receive more playing time as the team prepares for the 2027 World Cup.

Free Kicks

Orlando City received $100,000 in General Allocation Money in exchange for former academy goalkeeper Zack Campagnolo’s Homegrown Player rights. The Lions will receive another $100,000 in GAM if conditions are met, and they retain a sell-on percentage if Campagnolo is transferred.
San Diego FC added Milan Iloski on loan from FC Nordsjaelland in Denmark through July of this year. Iloski is a San Diego native and won the USL Golden Boot for Orange County SC in 2022.
New England Revolution midfielder Carles Gil won MLS Goal of the Matchday for his free kick against the New York Red Bulls.
El Farolito SC, which is named after a burrito chain and bar local to San Francisco, has reached the third round of the U.S. Open Cup for the second straight year. The National Premier Soccer League side took down Monterey Bay FC to reach this point of the tournament.
Barcelona beat Atletico Madrid 1-0 to book its ticket to the Copa del Rey final, where it will face rival Real Madrid on April 26.

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