Orlando City Must Capitalize on Vancouver’s Own Absences on Saturday

It’s no secret that Orlando City will be fielding a starting XI on Saturday that’s pieced together with duct tape, while the bench will be relying on vibes, prayers, and faces that likely won’t be familiar to you unless you’ve spent time this year watching Orlando City B. Andrew DeSalvo wrote about the Lions’ situation at length Thursday, but allow me to provide a brief summary.

The players OCSC will be missing for sure for Saturday’s match against the Vancouver Whitecaps are: Marco Pasalic, Alex Freeman, David Brekalo, Tyrese Spicer, Javier Otero, Gustavo Caraballo, and Colin Guske. All will be on international duty, and for those of you keeping track, that’s a starting winger, both starting fullbacks, the most impactful bench player during the last two months, the backup goalkeeper, and two youth players who have been depth options throughout the season. In terms of players who will most likely be missing, you can list Tahir Reid-Brown and Zakaria Taifi, who have both been out with thigh injuries. Starting central midfielder Cesar Araujo’s status is up in the air, as he was listed questionable for last match with a back injury but did not make the bench.

That is a lot of names missing in a match that is a must-win if Orlando wants to have any chance of leapfrogging into fourth place, something that isn’t outside the realm of possibility provided the Lions find a way to pick up all three points at home.

Something you might not know however, is that Vancouver won’t be at full strength either. Like OCSC, the Whitecaps will be missing some guys due to a combination of injuries and international call-ups. Let’s start with the injury list. Ranko Veselinovic had been a starting center back for most of the year before tearing his ACL in June, and Vancouver’s other starting center back, Tristan Blackmon, suffered a sprained MCL in mid-September and is expected to miss the rest of the regular season. Fullback Sam Adekugbe suffered a torn Achilles and has been out since the summer, while leading scorer Brian White is also on the shelf with a hamstring injury. Backup striker Emmanuel Sabbi was listed as questionable on last week’s injury report, and while he made the bench against San Jose, he did not appear in Vancouver’s 4-1 win.

The Whitecaps will also have three absences due to international duty, as Andres Cubas, Rayan Elloumi, and Kenji Cabrera will all be away from the team. The biggest absence is Cubas, who has been one of the starting defensive midfielders alongside Sebastian Berhalter, although it’s worth noting that Elloumi started at striker in the absence of White and Sabbi in the San Jose game and scored the game’s first goal.

The biggest misses are the duo of Veselinovic and Blackmon at center back, Cubas in the midfield, and White up top. J.C. Ngando or Jeevan Badwal will likely be stepping into Cubas’ role, while striker duties will likely be filled by Daniel Rios or the aforementioned Sabbi if he’s healthy enough to go, as he has seven goals and three assists on the year, compared to three goals and two assists for Rios. As far as the center back positions are concerned, the starts since Blackmon went down have mostly gone to Belal Halbouni, a traditional center back, and Mathias Laborda, who is normally a right back.

That being said, Head Coach Jesper Sorensen threw a curveball in the San Jose game and started Ralph Priso-Mbongue, a central midfielder, in place of Halbouni. That may have simply been because Halbouni is on four yellow cards and he wanted to ensure he’d have at least one natural center back on the field for the trip to Orlando, but it’s worth noting.

The knee-jerk reaction here is to say that without White the Vancouver attack will be blunted. However, since his injury occurred in a 3-2 win over St. Louis City in August, the Whitecaps have posted goal totals of seven, four, two, one, two, four, and four, which gives them 24 goals in seven games, so finding the back of the net clearly hasn’t been a problem.

Orlando’s hope probably lies at the other end of the field, because while Vancouver kept clean sheets in a thoroughly impressive 7-0 shellacking of the Philadelphia Union, as well as in 4-0 and 2-0 wins against Forge FC and Sporting Kansas City, respectively, the Whitecaps have given up six goals in their last four games with no clean sheets. The problem, of course, is that the ‘Caps scored 11 goals of their own in those four games, and they are unbeaten in their last 10 games in all competitions.

So, what can Orlando City do about all this? For one, special attention needs to be paid to Thomas Muller, Berhalter, Ali Ahmed and Jayden Nelson. The latter three will be the guys providing most of the service to whoever gets the start at striker, and they’ve been damn good at it for most of the year. Berhalter leads the team in league play with 11 assists, while Ahmed has eight, and Nelson has six. Muller requires little explanation on why he needs to be marshalled, as he’s racked up five goals and three assists in just 361 minutes spread across five games. Three of those goals came from the penalty spot, but he remains a danger to impact the scoresheet in one way or another.

We could see a repeat of Oscar Pareja’s preferred 2025 formation — a modified 4-4-2 — with Luis Muriel shifting to the right midfield role and Duncan McGuire starting up top with Martin Ojeda. It would put all of Orlando’s best attacking pieces on the field in a bid to come out guns blazing, grab a lead, and try to control the game from there. Alternatively, Pareja could deploy a 3-5-2 consisting of Rodrigo Schlegel, Robin Jansson, and Kyle Smith at the back, Adrian Marin and Ivan Angulo at wingback, Eduard Atuesta, Dagur Dan Thorhallsson, and Ojeda in the midfield, with McGuire and Muriel up top. It still gets all the attacking pieces on the field, but counters Jesper Sorensen’s favored 4-2-3-1 by getting extra numbers into the midfield to clog up the creative talents of Berhalter and Muller. Personally, that’s the approach I favor, although Pareja tends to stick with formations and personnel groups he likes.

In this scenario, when the Lions are in possession, Marin could tuck more centrally into midfield to allow Angulo and Ojeda to get forward, while McGuire and Muriel would occupy Vancouver’s makeshift pair of center backs. To me, that point is key. If there’s a vulnerability to target in this Vancouver team, it’s the back line, which will be missing the additional protection of Cubas ahead of it. As much pressure as possible needs to be applied to whoever is at center back, and to me, the 3-5-2 allows Ojeda, Muriel, and McGuire to do just that, while still allowing OCSC some extra stability and protection.

At the end of the day, while Orlando City is missing a number of names, there are some notable absences on the Vancouver side as well. The Whitecaps have the advantage of having had more time to adjust to those absences, but absences they remain. It won’t be an easy task, but if the Lions want to have a shot at making a late climb up the table, they have to find a way to take advantage of Vancouver’s missing players, while having some of their own guys step up when the lights are brightest. Vamos Orlando!