Replacing Barbra Banda Requires New Band Leaders

They say it never rains in southern California, but I was in San Diego when the news dropped that Barbra Banda will be out for the rest of the season, and I definitely felt a cold November rain in August. The article I linked to in the previous sentence covers both Banda’s injury and what it means for Orlando, but I am going to add a little more here on the statistical impact of Banda’s loss, because she unequivocally was the leader of the offensive band up until her injury.

Thus far this season the Pride have “scored” 22 goals, but I used quotes there because four of those 22 goals were own goals. They count on the scoreboard, and the Pride did put the defense under pressure to cause the own goal, but own goals always contain an element of luck to them that cannot be expected to continue at a similar rate in the future. That leaves 18 goals scored by Pride players, which ties them with three other teams for second from the bottom in true goals scored. This is not where a team with championship aspirations wants to be, and it is worse when you look at these 18 goals and you see the following (all data from fbref.com)

I included an asterisk on the two in that table because Marta scored a penalty kick against Gotham FC after a foul was committed on Angelina in the box, but it was Banda who played the ball to Angelina before she was fouled. I know it was not an actual secondary assist, but I included it more for illustrative purposes. We can quibble about 11 versus 12 if you like, but considering that Pride players have only scored 18 goals, it means that Banda was heavily involved in either 61% or 67% of the Pride’s true goals scored this season. I am a math major, and both of those are consequential percentages.

Both of those percentages are big numbers, but a bigger and scarier number is 100%, which comes into play here, because Banda was on the field for all 18 of the goals scored by Pride players and all four of the own goals the Pride’s opponents put into their own net.

Banda is not the only player for whom this is true, it is also true for Haley McCutcheon, Anna Moorhouse, and Emily Sams, but as a goalkeeper and a back line player, Moorhouse and Sams rarely threaten offensively. McCutcheon has been McClutcheon offensively at times in the past, in particular during the 2024 playoffs, but as a defensive midfielder, goal scoring is not her primary focus on the field. And yet…she is the Pride’s third-leading goal scorer in 2025, which is another reminder of how offensively challenged this year’s team has been. McCutcheon being the third-leading goal scorer, with two goals, 17 games into the season is another reminder on top of that additional reminder. We are getting into Inception-level reminders of how poorly the Pride’s offense has performed. Where is our totem to get us back to reality?

Oh wait, this is reality, and the Pride are going to need a real solution to their goal-scoring woes if they want to make a run in the NWSL playoffs and Concacaf W Champions Cup. Signing Jacqui Ovalle will definitely help, as she is an incredible player, which is why she is nicknamed “La Maga” (the magician) and was signed for a world-record transfer fee. The Pride need to create more shots, and on paper the M&M combination of La Maga and Marta looks like a good solution to what has been an issue for the Pride this season.

The Pride are taking 19% fewer shots per 90 minutes this season, and while they are putting a similar percentage on target, they are converting those shots at only a 20% conversion rate, which ranks second to last in the NWSL, and is, coincidentally, a 20% reduction from their 25% conversion rate in 2024. These dual drops are a double whammy, as they are taking fewer shots and converting the ones they take at a lower rate. With Banda’s departure the stats are even more grim. Here are the same numbers, with Banda’s production removed:

Even with the Pride’s opponents keying a lot of their defensive gameplans around stopping Banda this season, the rest of the team has seen a drop in shots taken and shot conversion rate as well, to the tune of a 28% reduction in non-Banda shots and a 27% reduction in non-Banda goal conversion. The Pride have been buoyed by opposition own goals this season, benefitting from a league-leading four, but if they are going to succeed in the upcoming months they are going to need to start getting more shots off and converting them at a higher rate.

The arrival of Ovalle and her magic tricks will almost certainly change the Pride’s offensive gameplan, as she is an elite wing player who will likely play on the left side and threaten by cutting back into the middle, which will allow the left-footed Marta some freedom to get open into that vacated left side channel — similar to how Martín Ojeda does for Orlando City — and use her stronger foot to shoot or cross back into the middle. The big question is who will be there to finish those crosses, and Seb Hines and the rest of the coaching staff have surely been discussing that ad nauseum since they received the news of Banda’s season-ending injury.

I believe the Pride have the talent on their roster to overcome this injury and have a successful final few months, and in some ways having the extra Concacaf W Champions Cup games actually helps Orlando, because the club can try some different player combinations to see what works. Their group contains two teams that the Pride should comfortably beat — Alajuelense and Chorrillo — and while they cannot assume victory, they will be favored by several goals and may use those games to experiment a little bit with the attacking lineup. Their games against América and Pachuca will be more difficult, but they are not for another month (Sept. 30 and Oct. 15) and by then Ovalle, presumably, will have a few games under her belt, and they likely will have figured out a striker plan to replace Banda’s minutes. They do not need one like-for-like replacement, but in order to win some more hardware, they will need at least league-average-level play for 90 minutes every game from everyone playing at striker.

Losing a superstar is never a good thing, but I am confident that the coaching staff can figure out some ideas to replace Banda (perhaps we can call these players Bandaids?) and I still believe the Pride will…wait for it…band together and make beautiful music during deep runs in both the Concacaf W Champions Cup and NWSL playoffs.

Vamos Pride!