The Orlando Pride opened the 2025 NWSL season in style Friday night, celebrating their record-smashing 2024 campaign with a double banner raising for their NWSL Shield and NWSL Championship. They then provided a performance of intent to hold onto those honors with a thorough 6-0 beatdown of the newly rebranded Chicago Stars in the game that followed. The community seems to have noticed, as the attendance of 19,237 was the second largest for the Pride and a new record for the team at Inter&Co Stadium.

Haley McCutcheon and Barbra Banda set the tone early, each causing Chicago goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher to make good saves in the opening three minutes. McCutcheon found the net in the seventh minute and the Pride did not look back. By the time the final whistle blew, four different Pride players contributed goals — McCutcheon, Ally Watt, Julie Doyle, and Banda (twice), with an own goal by Hannah Anderson rounding out the scoring. It could have been even more, as Banda played in Zambian Women’s National Team teammate Prisca Chilufya, who buried her shot in second-half stoppage time. However, Banda was offside on the play, and the flag went up quickly after the strike. Still, it was an excellent sign that a new member of the team is finding her form already.

The Pride smothered the game, affording Chicago only 36% posession. Without the ball, Chicago was only able to manage two sequences that even led to shots during the run of play (plus some desperation low-chance looks in second-half stoppage time).

We hope you enjoy these images of a celebratory night at Inter&Co Stadium.

The Orlando Pride played their first meaningful game of 2025 in the NWSL Challenge Cup Friday against the Washington Spirit. While the Pride looked sharp, they couldn’t quite earn their third trophy in a row at the expense of the Spirit, with regulation ending in a 1-1 draw, and Washington taking the competition in penalties, 4-2.

Both teams brought back most of their rosters from last year, so instead of new faces, anticipation more revolved around the return of several key players from injury. Center back Rafaelle made an impactful return from an injury-marred 2024, scoring Orlando’s only goal in her 45 minutes. New Pride signing Prisca Chilufya made her debut in the second half, almost pulling Orlando back into the lead in the 85th minute. Grace Chanda and Trinity Rodman did not see the field but were on the bench for their respective teams, indicating promise for the 2025 campaign.

Rafalle’s goal stood up until a set piece late in the game gave the Spirit the opportunity to equalize, and they did. Leicy Santos delivered a great free kick, but Anna Moorhouse got two hands to it and will likely think she should have kept it out. The game went straight to penalties, where the Pride got off to a good start with strikes by Julie Doyle and Angelina, but neither Summer Yates nor Ally Lemos were clinical and the Spirit prevailed.

The Pride will open their 2025 campaign at 8 p.m. Friday at Inter&Co Stadium. The pre-game will include a celebration of the record-smashing 2024 season, including raising banners for the the NSWL Shield and the NWSL Championship.

We hope you enjoy this gallery of photos from the NWSL Challenge Cup.

After dominating the first part of the game, including scoring the first goal early, Orlando City allowed the Philadelphia Union to climb back into the season-opening match Saturday with a costly mistake in the 24th minute. The Lions then made several mistakes at the back early in the second half, digging a huge 4-1 hole that was too much to overcome, despite a brace on his debut from Marco Pasalic, allowing the Union to leave Orlando with a 4-2 win.

The Lions created enough chances to climb back into the match, but Andre Blake was outstanding in the Philadelphia goal, denying nearly everything thrown at him. Pasalic was a bright spot for Orlando City, and Martín Ojeda also had a strong match, assisting on the first Pasalic goal and putting two shots of his own on target. Alex Freeman also played well, coming off the bench for meaningful minutes and putting a headed shot from an Ojeda delivery off the crossbar.

Joran Gerbet and Nicolas Rodriguez both made their MLS and Orlando City competitive debuts, but nothing was quite able to dig the Lions out of the hole they’d dug with catastrophic defensive-third turnovers. Orlando City suffered its first opening day loss and will enter Matchday 2 without a point for the first time.

We hope you enjoy these images from the season opener more than the match. The Lions will look to get on track Saturday when Toronto FC visits Inter&Co Stadium.