Game day is almost upon us, and this particular game day is one of the most important in Orlando City’s MLS history, as the Lions will face the New York Red Bulls Saturday in the 2024 Eastern Conference final.

With a matchup against the Red Bulls looming, I took the time to speak to Mark Fishkin of The Seeing Red Podcast. As always, Mark was very helpful in bringing us up to speed on what’s been happening with the Red Bulls. Our managing editor, Michael Citro, was also a guest on the show this week and you can find that at your favorite podcast dispensary.

I was really impressed by the Red Bulls bagging not just one, but two goals in the shoebox-like conditions of Citi Field — something that Orlando City almost always struggles with when visiting the baseball diamonds. What did NYRB do well that helped the team find the back of the net?

Mark Fishkin: RBNY did two things extremely well against City: win second balls, which led to each of RBNY’s goals on the night, and high press, especially in the early going. New York’s first goal was a laser beam by summer Designated Player signing Felipe Carballo, and the second one was a sniper’s goal by Dante Vanzier off a corner kick.

When we last talked back at the end of May, you praised Lewis Morgan and Carlos Coronel. It seems like they’ve continued to be excellent, but has anyone else stood out?

MF: While Morgan once again led the team in scoring, this is Emil Forsberg’s team, and his absence due to injury in the second half of the season sank the Red Bulls down the Eastern table. After an 8-3-5 start, New York went 3-6-9 to drop to seventh in the East. Forsberg’s return has lifted the Red Bulls past favored Columbus and New York City FC to reach the club’s first conference final since 2018.

What do you see as the most important battle for New York to win on Saturday? Is there a particular matchup that you’re keeping a close eye on?

MF: John Tolkin’s ability to contain Facundo Torres is the key to the Red Bulls’ success on Saturday. With Torres in check, Forsberg’s ability to distribute around both Cesar Araujo and Wilder Cartagena will be the difference.

Will anyone be unavailable due to injuries, suspensions, etc.? What is your projected starting XI and score prediction?

MF: Starting center back Sean Nealis is questionable for Saturday after getting knocked out cold in a collision with NYCFC’s Justin Haak last weekend. Nealis practiced off to the side (Wednesday) and may not be ready for the conference final. First-year depth player Noah Eile (Swedish youth international) will sub in. Coach Sandro Schwarz may elect to play with four in the back, which might look like: Carlos Coronel; Dylan Nealis, Noah Eile, Andres Reyes, John Tolkin; Felipe Carballo, Daniel Edelman, Cameron Harper, Emil Forsberg; Dante Vanzier, Lewis Morgan.

Given the teams’ defensive strengths, I see a 1-0 match. No one has picked New York to get past Columbus or NYC. The Red Bulls get the goal and move on to the team’s second-ever MLS Cup.

Thank you to Mark for his insight into the Red Bulls. Vamos Orlando!

Welcome to Friday, Mane Landers. Hopefully your Thanksgiving was a joyous one filled with great food and greater company. If not, at least you can revel in the fact that the weekend is right around the corner (many of you may already be in yours because of the holiday) and is packed with plenty of soccer to enjoy. Let’s dive into today’s links from around the soccer world.

Orlando City Enters the Unknown

Despite a slow start to the season, Orlando City finds itself further in the playoffs than ever before and will host the New York Red Bulls Saturday night in the Eastern Conference final. The Lions may be in uncharted territory, but they have plenty of experience in knockout tournaments to draw upon. Taylor Twellman broke down how the Lions reached this point and became one of the top teams in the league. Goalkeeper Pedro Gallese helped solidify Orlando’s defense, and attackers Facundo Torres, Ramiro Enrique, and Martin Ojeda all found their groove at the right time.

Along with recognizing the many weapons in Orlando’s dynamic offense, Bradley Wright-Phillips gave deserved praise to midfield duo Cesar Araujo and Wilder Cartagena, who have made life difficult for opponents. As for the key Red Bulls players to watch for tomorrow, Emil Forsberg has the team firing on all cylinders and Lewis Morgan may be due for a big game. He has a history of success against Orlando.

USWNT Prepares for Friendly Against England

The United States Women’s National Team will take on England at Wembley Stadium Saturday in the first of two friendlies to close out the year. It will be the 20th match between the two nations, with England winning the most recent meeting on Oct. 7, 2022. England boasts plenty of talent all over its roster, including forward Beth Mead and defender Lucy Bronze. Orlando Pride goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse is a part of England’s roster. It should be a great match between the two highest ranked teams in the world and also an interesting chess match between coaches Emma Hayes and Sarina Wiegman.

USMNT Moves Up in FIFA Rankings

The latest men’s FIFA rankings were unveiled and the U.S. jumped up two spots to 16th following its pair of wins over Jamaica in the Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals. The Yanks are the highest-ranked Concacaf team, with Mexico falling three spots to 19th and Canada climbing four spots to 31st. There was also some movement in the top 10 of the rankings, with Germany moving up to 10th while Colombia fell to 12th. Argentina remains at the top of the rankings despite a loss to Paraguay and a narrow win over Peru.

Keeping Up With the Europa League

The UEFA Europa League rolled on and Manchester United came up with a crucial win in manager Ruben Amorim’s first home game at Old Trafford. Alejandro Garnacho scored early and Rasmus Højlund had a brace to help the team rally and beat Bodø/Glimt 3-2. Elsewhere in England, Mats Hummels scored an equalizer in stoppage time for AS Roma to draw 2-2 against Tottenham. Lazio’s perfect run in the tournament came to an end after a scoreless draw against Ludogorets. Rangers, Fenerbahce, and Eintracht Frankfurt came up with solid wins in this latest round of matches as well.

Free Kicks

• You’ll need to get past The Athletic‘s paywall for the full details, but American forward Ricardo Pepi spoke on how his late winner in PSV Eindhoven’s 3-2 victory against Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League was one of the most important goals of his career.
• Coventry City, which is 17th in England’s second division, hired Frank Lampard as its next head coach to right the ship.
• Here’s a nice collection of the latest reports surrounding players like Viktor Gyokeres, Miguel Almiron, and Tomas Araujo.
• Spanish goalkeeper David de Gea has been doing well with Fiorentina to help the club unexpectedly contend for the Serie A title this year.
• Real Madrid’s bus was involved in a minor collision after its loss to Liverpool earlier this week. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt and the players were reportedly not on the bus at the time of the incident.

That’s all I have for you all this time around. If you plan on going out and shopping today, I wish you the best of luck. I’ll be staying in and knocking out some gift buying online. Have a great Friday!

A few weeks ago I wrote about the final four NWSL teams and what the Pride would need to do to be the last team standing, and two weeks later the Pride won the NWSL Championship. I am not saying that there is a direct explicit cause-and-effect connection between the two, and that the sole reason the Pride won was because of me and what I wrote, but I am not not saying it either.

I am absolutely not saying that. Out loud.

Seriously though, congratulations to the Pride. What an amazing season they had and they thoroughly deserve to call themselves champions. As my colleague Sam Denker wrote, they have built something special and sustainable.

Staying in the same stadium and color, but moving to MLS, Orlando City has reached the same place the Pride were two weekends ago — the final four of its league playoffs. In contrast to the NWSL, where the top four teams during the regular season made the final four, on the MLS side, it is the teams ranked fourth (LA Galaxy), seventh (Seattle), ninth (Orlando City) and 14th (the New York Red Bulls). There is a Wicked joke in here somewhere about Inter Miami getting splashed with cold water in the first round of the playoffs and melting away, but I will leave it at that and move on to focusing on the best MLS team in Florida, a team that actually advanced not once, but twice in the playoffs.

Orlando City has technically won three of its four games in these playoffs, as MLS counts penalty kick shootout wins as full game wins in the best-of-three, first-round matchups, but it has not been pretty. The offense that was averaging nearly 2.5 goals scored per game from July through the end of the regular season is averaging a paltry 1.0 goals per game in the playoffs, and while that has been enough for the Lions to squeeze through and advance to the conference finals, it would be a whole lot nicer if Orlando City’s offense was performing more like, say, the LA Galaxy, who are averaging a cool 5.0 goals per game in the playoffs (yes, you read that correctly).

Perhaps the Lions will score the required 21 goals against the Red Bulls to lift their playoff average from 1.0 to 5.0, but probably not, and at this point I would be happy with a two-goal game and would be extremely thankful (timely reference alert) for a three-goal game, especially considering how well the defense has been playing.

We will get to the defense, a positive story, in a moment, but before that I want to show a comparison between Orlando City’s performance during the full regular season, the regular season games from July on, and the four playoff games (own goals are excluded from these stats; all data is from fbref.com):

The Lions came into the playoffs extremely hot, but in their four playoff games they have looked like the Orlando City of the early season, which struggled to find the net with consistency. It is a small sample, and the competition is fiercer in the playoffs than the regular season, but what stands out to me is that the quality of the shot locations has decreased by nearly 20% (look at the decrease in npxG/Shot in the playoffs as compared to the games from July onward) and, probably unsurprisingly, the conversion rates have decreased as well. However, the Lions are not the only team experiencing a postseason decline, as evidenced by the chart showing the change in each statistic from the regular season to the playoffs:

If you look broadly at the last four teams, there is more green than red (first row), but as you can see from the subsequent two rows, it is really that the Galaxy have been full of shooting stars (see what I did there?) and the other three teams have performed worse in the playoffs than in the regular season. The good news is that Orlando City is not alone in having playoff struggles. The bad news is that every game in the playoffs is a must-win game, so the Lions need to figure this out right now.

Or do they?

Soccer is the rare game where a team can hold its opponent scoreless and still get knocked out of the playoffs, but giving up zero goals guarantees at least a chance in a shootout, and when you have Pedro Gallese and Rodrigo Schlegel, your chances are good that you can win that shootout. Orlando City has posted shutouts in three of the four playoff games, and while the team’s offense has slipped in productivity, the defense has made up for it by giving up just one goal in 360 minutes of playoff action (plus stoppage time). If we look at the same type of stats for Orlando City’s opponents that we did for the Lions’ own attackers, we can see that while the offense slipped from scoring 1.65 goals per game during the regular season to a flat 1.00, a 39% decline, the defense has more than made up for it:

The comparative for Orlando City’s opponents is an 83% decrease in goals scored per game, an astounding decline and one that is a testament to the the whole team on how the Lions are limiting the opposing offenses. Atlanta United did not even get one shot on target all game, and while Charlotte did actually put the ball in the net, it only did so once in 270 minutes. Orlando City is limiting opponents to fewer shots per game, and the shots allowed are from locations that have historically produced fewer goals — an excellent combination.

As the Lions enter their first-ever MLS Eastern Conference final, the offense is chugging along while the defense is going full throttle, but I think a breakout is coming for the offense. This group has started nearly every game together for months, and I think the players will use their familiarity to break out of their mini slump and return to their high flying ways in the most important MLS game in the club’s history. Thus far this season, Orlando City has lost and drawn its two games with the Red Bulls, with both of those matches coming before the July turnaround, and I believe the Lions will complete the full results set and win the third one at Inter&Co Stadium this weekend.

My daughter is 3-0-0 in the three games she has ever attended , and she will be there in the stands, cheering on the Lions Saturday night. I am not saying that her attendance is the only reason that Orlando City will win, but I am not not saying it either.

Vamos Orlando!