Orlando City Must Capitalize on a Well-Timed International Break

There have been times as an Orlando City fan when I have lamented the arrival of an international break. Maybe I simply bemoaned the fact that I had to go two weeks without watching my favorite team play, or maybe the Lions were in great form before the break, and I worried that the time off would lead to a dip in quality once the international games were over. When this most recent international break arrived though, I welcomed it with open arms.

Why, you ask? Well for one, OCSC was a tough watch in the runup to the two-week break between games. Three straight losses plagued by a combination of interesting officiating, poor finishing, and exhausted-looking players meant that it was not a fun time to be a fan of the Lions. Add in the fact that Oscar Pareja’s gamble in rotating heavily for the Nashville match meant that the Lions lost that game heavily and then were still eliminated from Leagues Cup the following week, and it made for downright torturous viewing.

My experience at home aside, the losses to Nashville SC and the LA Galaxy were particularly concerning, and for two different reasons. For the Nashville game, it was a case of dropping points against a team that was (and still is) in direct competition with Orlando City for the top spots in the Eastern Conference. For the loss in the Leagues Cup third-place match, it was all about how tired OCSC’s performance looked. Some caveats are important in that instance of course. The Lions were playing their fifth match in 16 days, coming off multiple cross-country flights, and on short rest, but the simple fact is that the team looked (understandably) ragged.

That was a foreboding sign indeed when considering the state of Orlando’s season. With the quest for silverware through the U.S. Open Cup and Leagues Cup failing, and the bid to qualify for Concacaf Champions Cup also coming up short, it means that this year will ultimately be judged on OCSC’s success (or lack thereof) in the playoffs. Don’t forget, this is a team that came within a narrow 1-0 loss of playing in the MLS Cup final last year, and despite losing its best player looks more potent on offense, if around the same level defensively.

That being said, it’s also a team that is going to have a number of key players either out of contract or in option years once the season is over, with guys like Alex Freeman, Cesar Araujo, and even Martin Ojeda likely to have plenty of suitors in the off-season. Make no mistake, the championship window for this version of Orlando City is closing.

With all of that being the case, the two-week layoff from matches probably couldn’t have come at a better time for this team. Orlando currently sits fifth in the East on 47 points. While a mere three points separate the Lions from Charlotte FC in third, the good guys are also only five points ahead of Chicago FC in ninth and the final play-in place that comes with it. True, OCSC has a game in hand on all four teams above it, but sixth-place Inter Miami has three games in hand on Orlando, eighth-place NYCFC has one, and the seventh-place Columbus Crew and the aforementioned Fire have both played the same number of games as the Lions. All that is to say that the playoff margins in the East are razor thin, and the good guys don’t have the easiest of finishes to the season.

Up first is Saturday’s match against D.C. United. While it’s true that D.C. is bottom of the East and already eliminated from playoff contention, road matches are never easy, Christian Benteke is not to be taken lightly, and this contest has trap game written all over it. Orlando then gets Nashville at home on Sept. 20 and Cincinnati away on Sept 28. Both are huge games against teams that are not only directly above OCSC in the standings but also come against teams the Lions have already lost to this year. When it comes to the Oct. 4 match at home against Columbus, OCSC has already beaten the Crew this year but needs to repeat the difficult trick of doing it a second time if it wants to avoid being caught from behind. Then there’s the final home game of the year on Oct. 11 against a Vancouver Whitecaps side that’s third in the West, followed by a Decision Day trip to Toronto FC, which despite being 13th in the West has shown signs of life in recent weeks with four straight draws.

So yeah, the opportunity to rest, recover, refocus, and move on from the mental, physical, and emotional difficulties of the last three games could scarcely have been more timely. Some of the teams around Orlando in the standings will almost certainly drop points here and there during the run-in, but OCSC needs to be razor sharp if it wants to take advantage of those miscues. The quality of opponents to close out the year means the men in purple are going to have to make it through a gauntlet if they want to secure a good spot near the top of the East. That’s what great teams do though — they get results when it matters most. The question we have to ask ourselves as we emerge from this extremely opportune time off is: are the Lions are in fact a great team, or merely a good one? One way or another, we’re about to find out. Vamos Orlando!