Top Moments of 2025: Martin Ojeda Sets New High for Orlando City Single-Season Goal Contributions

As we count down to the new year of 2026 — which will be Orlando City’s 12th in MLS, the Orlando Pride’s 11th in the NWSL, and OCB’s fourth in MLS NEXT Pro — and say goodbye to 2025, it’s time to look back at the club’s 10 best moments of the year as selected by The Mane Land staff via vote.

While the 2025 season didn’t go the way Orlando City would have wanted overall, one Lion had a historic campaign. Martin Ojeda scored 16 goals and provided 15 assists in MLS play, while adding an assist in the U.S. Open Cup and four goals and three assists in Leagues Cup. His 38 goal contributions across all competitions shattered the previous mark of 29 that was set by Facundo Torres during the 2024 season, and had he (along with the rest of the team) not cooled off after Leagues Cup, then he might very well have made the group of MVP finalists.

With August just around the corner, Orlando City began Leagues Cup play and had started well in its first group game against Pumas, with Rodrigo Schlegel opening the scoring after just five minutes. The good guys faded badly though, and Coco Carrasquilla’s late goal to force a penalty shootout felt inevitable. Losing the ensuing shootout put the Lions’ backs up against the wall in the competition. OCSC couldn’t afford to lose any more games if it wanted to have a chance of advancing to the knockout stages, and it also needed to end the group stage with the highest goal differential possible.

That wasn’t going to be an easy task though, because the Lions got a mere two days off before taking on Atlas in a make-or-break second group game. Oscar Pareja sent out a 4-4-2 lineup that featured Pedro Gallese in goal with David Brekalo, Robin Jansson, Rodrigo Schlegel, and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson on the back line. Cesar Araujo and Kyle Smith got the nod in central midfield with Ivan Angulo and Nico Rodriguez on the wing, and Ojeda and Ramiro Enrique were up top.

Speaking of Ojeda, he entered the game even with Torres for the most goal contributions in a single season across all competitions, with the pair of them level on 27. If Orlando was going to have a chance of advancing to the knockout stages, it was probably going to need the Argentine No. 10 to break that record in this game.

Atlas had a good chance to open the scoring before five minutes had even been played, but Jorge San Martin’s header from a free kick went harmlessly past the outside of the right post and the fans at Inter&Co Stadium exhaled. When the opening goal of the game did arrive just five minutes later, it came from perhaps the most unlikely source imaginable. Ivan Angulo latched onto a turnover on the edge of Atlas’ box, and shaped his body to tuck a beautiful curling effort inside the far post.

It was a first half in which Orlando City had the better of things, finishing with an edge in shots (7-4), and shots on target (2-0), but the home side also missed two great chances and the score was only 1-0 going into halftime when it probably should have been more. The Mexican side made the Lions pay for their first-half profligacy just a few minutes after the restart, when Matias Coccaro was the first to react to an awkward airborne ball in the box and powered a header past Gallese to make it 1-1.

Enter Ojeda. Seven minutes after Atlas leveled things, substitute Marco Pasalic linked up nicely with fellow sub Alex Freeman and released the right back down the flank into space. Freeman picked his head up and played a ball all the way across the box to Ojeda, who took a touch to bring the ball out of his feet before smashing it just under the crossbar and restoring Orlando’s lead.

Orlando continued to come forward and create opportunities as the second half wore on, but the finishing wasn’t quite good enough to double the advantage. As the game ticked into stoppage time, Coccaro continued what had been an eventful game for him by getting sent off in the aftermath of a scuffle caused by a heavy tackle on Brekalo in the Atlas box. With Atlas down to 10 men, the Lions sought to stay compact and organized and pick the Liga MX side off on the counter as the visitors poured forward hunting an equalizer.

In the 12th(!) minute of stoppage time, that’s exactly what happened. The Lions had the ball on the edge of the Atlas box, and Ojeda slipped a lovely ball in behind for Pasalic, who ran onto it and smashed a shot into the far corner to put the game to bed.

For those of you keeping score at home, that goal meant the game finished 3-1 in favor of the Lions, who then went on to flatten Necaxa 5-1 and punched a ticket to the knockout stages.

More immediately though, Ojeda’s goal took him to 28 goal contributions in all competitions, while the assist moved him to 29 and provided some breathing room between he and Torres. It also marked the 12th straight game in which he had at least one goal contribution, and that streak eventually reached 15 games before being broken in the 0-0 draw with Toluca in the Leagues Cup quarterfinals.

While the streak ended, Ojeda didn’t stop there, as he continued to score and provide helpers and eventually finished the season with 38 contributions in all competitions. That’s a number that will take some doing to beat, and he came within one assist of having a 20-goal and 20-assist campaign.

He might well have achieved that and then some, but the team faded badly after ending Leagues Cup with a whimper, and the scoring dried up with just 10 goals in the team’s final seven games of the year. Still, setting a new single-season record for goal contributions is nothing to sniff at, especially when it happened in a match that Orlando so badly needed a big performance from its talismanic forward. Whatever else happened in the season, it was an achievement well worth its place in our top 10 moments of the year.

Previous Top Moments of 2025

10. Orlando City clinches a playoff berth for a sixth consecutive season on Alex Freeman’s late game-tying goal.

9. Luis Muriel’s hat trick powers Lions to Leagues Cup knockout rounds.

8. Martin Ojeda scores Orlando City’s first hat trick since Cyle Larin did so all the way back in 2015.

7. Orlando City sweeps rival Inter Miami during the regular season, winning both games by three goals.