Orlando City vs. St. Louis City: Five Takeaways

Orlando City visited the Gateway City and took three points from St. Louis City. It was an offensive explosion that I partly predicted on The Mane Land PawedCast, though not quite the 4-2 victory we witnessed. This win was a great way for the Lions to start the second half of the season. Here are my five takeaways from Wednesday night’s match.

Two Out of Five Ain’t Bad

Nobody actually calls Ramiro Enrique “Deuce,” but after the Argentine scored two goals in the first half, maybe they should. Enrique got the start instead of Luis Muriel, which turned out to be a good thing. Marco Pasalic started the attack on the first goal with a long pass to Ivan Angulo. Angulo then listened to Martin Ojeda, giving him a pass to lead him into the box. Ojeda provided a perfect assist to Enrique in front of the net for the easy goal.

The second goal was a matter of right time, right place. He was onside and in the box when Eduard Atuesta stole the ball and pushed it forward, giving Enrique a great chance that he finished well. Honestly, Enrique should have had five goals in the first half, but that’s for another takeaway.

Magic Marco

Marco Pasalic decided that Enrique wasn’t going to be the only Lion with a brace against St. Louis. The Designated Player scored two impressive goals to help give Orlando City the win. Both were typical Pasalic goals — outside the box, moving right to left, and using his brilliant left foot to put the ball past Roman Bürki. It’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from Pasalic, and just what Orlando City needed in the match.

Two Dumb Goals Against

Orlando City gave up two first-half goals thanks to sloppy defense. I’ll give some credit to St. Louis on the first goal. Tomas Totland provided a good pass over Kyle Smith to Simon Becher, but Robin Jansson, Smith, and Pedro Gallese all had a chance to stop the goal and did not. The second goal was even worse. Atuesta tried to clear the ball out of the box in the weirdest way possible. Instead, it landed exactly where you don’t want the ball, at the feet of Joao Klauss, who buried it into the back of the net.

Angul-who?

Ivan Angulo has not scored a goal this season. He really wanted to score a goal in this match. So badly, in fact, that he passed up a chance at an easy assist when he had Enrique wide open to his right on a two-on-one with the keeper. That was just the most egregious example. He gave away the ball 60 seconds into the match and did so way too many times until he was subbed out in the 67th minute. I’m not saying he did everything wrong, but Orlando City might have scored at least two more goals if he made better decisions.

Not Seeing Yellow

A few Orlando City players were one yellow card away from serving a suspension — Jansson, Atuesta, and Gallese. If I were a betting man, I’d have put money that someone would receive a yellow card in this match, especially down the stretch as St. Louis pushed for an equalizer (before Pasalic’s second goal). Fortunately, I’m not a betting man, because in what is a rarity, no Orlando City player was carded. You can color me shocked, but not yellow.

That is what I saw in the result. Let us know your thoughts about the St. Louis City match in the comments below. Vamos Orlando!