Orlando City’s Attack Needs To Produce in the Playoffs

While Orlando City has made the playoffs in each of the last five seasons, including this one, things have been a mixed bag for the Lions once they’ve gotten there. OCSC has only advanced past the first round on two occasions, with the first coming in 2020 by eliminating New York City FC on penalties, and the second occurring in 2023, thanks to a pair of 1-0 wins over Nashville SC.

In 2021 and 2022, Orlando was eliminated at the first hurdle, which came against Nashville in the former season and CF Montreal in the latter. Across all four of the Lions’ postseason campaigns, there’s one constant theme that needs to change — goal scoring, or rather a lack of it.

It might be easy to forget in light of Orlando finally banishing its streak of missing the postseason, and then starting a new streak of making the playoffs five years straight, but the Lions have never scored more than one goal in a playoff game, and they’ve been shut out on two occasions. OCSC has played seven postseason games in the last four years and has only scored five goals, for an average of 0.71 goals per game. Yes, it’s a relatively small sample size, but that is…not great.

To refresh memories, Orlando’s maiden playoff game took place in 2020, and finished in a 1-1 draw with NYCFC, but the good guys got through on penalties courtesy of the Hand of Godrigo. That postseason journey ended the following game, courtesy of a 3-1 defeat to the New England Revolution. In 2021, a brutal 3-1 loss on the road to a Nashville team that gave Orlando all sorts of hell that year ended the dance early, while in 2022 the Lions dropped a 2-0 decision on the road to CF Montreal.

Last year, Orlando got a measure of revenge by beating Nashville home and away 1-0 to get through to the second round, but couldn’t make home field advantage count against the Columbus Crew, and fell 2-0 to the eventual champions in extra time after Rodrigo Schlegel was sent off late in regulation.

The New York City draw saw Orlando record 16 shots but only put three of them on target, and the goal came courtesy of a Nani penalty kick. In the following match, Orlando outshot New England 11-9 but only put three shots on target to the Revs’ six. In the 2021 loss to Nashville, the Lions matched the hosts’ shot total with nine apiece, but again only recorded two shots on target to the opposition’s six. The 2022 loss to Montreal was a particularly painful affair, as Orlando’s lack of regular-season goals carried over into the postseason, and Montreal put two of its 11 shots on goal and scored from both, while the Lions only attempted five and didn’t put any on frame.

In the first playoff game last year against Nashville, Orlando City took a whopping 25 shots but only put five on target, and it took a wondergoal from Wilder Cartagena to get OCSC on the board. In the away leg, Ivan Angulo capitalized on an early mistake in the Nashville box and opened the scoring, but the Lions once again outshot their hosts 16-10 and put five shots on target to their four but could only muster the lone goal. Their season then ended against Columbus in a game in which a red card hampered Orlando greatly, but didn’t prevent the Lions from creating 13 chances, with several good ones coming on the break. Only three of those resulted in shots on target though, and none found a way past Patrick Schulte.

That makes a total of 95 shots taken in seven games with 21 on target and five goals. Orlando has put 22% of its shots on target and scored on 23% of those shots on target. Essentially, creating chances, or at least taking shots, hasn’t been the issue (usually). The problem has been getting shots on target and making the goalkeeper work. Failing to do so makes it hard to actually put the ball in the back of the net. Scoring hasn’t been a difficulty for Orlando in 2024, as the Lions have bagged 59 goals in 34 games, which is a club record. At first glance, OCSC is well-positioned to end its postseason scoring difficulties.

Unfortunately, Orlando drew a pretty tricky first-round opponent in Charlotte FC. Dean Smith’s team has the second stingiest defense in the league with only 37 goals given up in 34 games, which is good for a 1.08 goals-per-game average. Charlotte doesn’t score a ton of goals either, scoring only 46 during the regular season, but Sunday’s visitors put a strong season together by being tough to score against. Orlando put two goals past them in each of the meetings between the two teams this year, and doing so again would be a great start to getting out of the first round.

To do that, the Lions are probably going to need to be good in the proverbial “halfcourt” against a team that will likely look to sit deep and be difficult to play through. Passing will need to be sharp and quick, movement will need to be creative, and players will need to make the right decisions and execute them well. We’ve seen this year that the Lions are capable of doing all those things, and if they can put it all together when it matters, then they’ve got a great chance of advancing past the first round.

History is against the Lions, but there’s no time like the present when it comes to writing a new chapter.