Orlando City’s Offense Off to Good Start in 2024 Playoffs

As noted in the recap of Orlando City’s first playoff game against Charlotte, the Lions scored more than one goal in a postseason playoff game for the first time in their MLS history. However, the Lions struggled to score in their seven other MLS playoff games, getting shut out twice and scoring one goal in the other five matches.

Even with the low-scoring output, the team advanced one round in 2020 and again in 2023, but the Lions have yet reach the conference final. A quick look at their performances in the regular season, as opposed to the playoffs, shows just how stark the offensive struggles have been (I am aware that points are not a thing in the playoffs, but just pretend that they were for comparison purposes, so even though Orlando City won in 2020 against New York City FC, it was a draw after 90 minutes that eventually went to penalties. As such, I called it a draw for average points purposes):

You can see from the data that while the team’s defense is averaging roughly the same amount of goals given up per game across all playoff games, the offense is down 56% in terms of average goals scored per game. I am not someone who believes in teams carrying history with them onto the field, as we are beaten over our heads with when the Yankees take the field in baseball and the announcers intimate that because the team won a lot of titles in the first half of the 20th century, that somehow matters in 2024 (altogether unsurprising note — I despise the Yankees), but in this situation I think it is worth looking at the last few years, because it is the same head coach and the team plays a similar formation and in very similar ways.

The players from 2020 are different than today (leading scorer: the Money Badger, Chris Mueller, and of 2024’s roster only two current players (Pedro Gallese and Robin Jansson) started in more than half of their games), but the reality from that year, and every year, is that the teams played all season long include teams at the top, middle, and bottom of the league, but the opponents in the playoffs include some in the middle but are mostly at the top.

With a higher caliber of opponent on the field, the Lions have performed similarly defensively but have struggled offensively, and the chart below shows some of the reasons why (red shading means the value is lower (even barely) in the playoffs as compared to during the regular season):

Insert usual disclaimer about non-penalty expected goals (npxG) being a metric that is more about shot locations than if the player really should have been expected to score, but regardless, while the red to white split in the table on the right is not drastic (11-9 red to white), some of the gaps in efficiency are large. The playoff stats on the right are full of small sample sizes, and as Billy Beane of Moneyball fame said “my (expletive) doesn’t work in the playoffs,” meaning that in small sample sizes, anything can happen, and season-long trends can disappear. The 2024 playoff stats, albeit through only one game, look good though, so perhaps this season will be the one when everything goes right offensively instead of wrong.

Whether the reason is offensive struggles, playing against better defenses, or some kind of mental block for playoff games, the reality is that prior to the home game against Charlotte on Sunday, Orlando City had never scored more than one goal in a playoff game. But, now the Lions have done that, and I do not want to take full credit, but it was my daughter’s first-ever game in attendance when they did so…I am taking full credit. (Sorry, actual players who played in the game.)

This year’s team scored the most regular-season goals of any Orlando City squad in the MLS era, and in my opinion, the Lions have the best collection of overall offensive talent of any team in club history, so much so that they bring three players off the bench (Duncan McGuire, Luis Muriel, and Nico Lodeiro) who combined for 37 goal contributions this season in MLS regular-season play. Now that the team has achieved one playoff game with at least two goals, the next offensive goal target will be multiple playoff games with multiple goals — hopefully starting as soon as in the match at Charlotte on Friday.

The last two seasons have been full of achievements for Orlando City in the team’s MLS era, and with two more wins (though let’s not get ahead of ourselves), the team would add another achievement to that list — the Lions’ first-ever trip to the conference final. Advancing in the playoffs does not require scoring goals (provided you hold your opponent scoreless too and win your shootouts), but scoring goals is fun, and fun is good (doctor’s orders, right Dr. Seuss?). And I believe that this team has the offensive ability to continue to have fun and advance in the upcoming weeks.

Vamos Orlando!