Top Ten Moments of 2025: Pedro Gallese’s Shootout Heroics Lead Orlando City to Leagues Cup Semifinals

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.

Go with me on this, because I’m talking a little baseball before getting to the soccer. With their move in 2022 to allow Designated Hitters in both the American League and National League, Major League Baseball (MLB) essentially abolished the concept of pitchers who also hit. There have been a few exceptions since — notably four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, who is basically a unicorn as an elite hitter and pitcher, but aside from Ohtani, pitchers simply do not bat anymore. Baseball-reference.com‘s tracking shows 322 pitchers who logged at least one at bat in 2021, but during the four seasons since, it was a total of 13, and only Ohtani had more at bats than he could have counted on his fingers.

As a huge baseball fan, I understand why MLB leadership wanted to install the Designated Hitter in both leagues, but I also miss the pure form of baseball that I grew up reading about from the early days of baseball and watching in the National League until 2022. I also miss a phrase that I heard for years when I was playing baseball myself, a phrase that was often shouted out by a coach or a parent when the pitcher would come up to bat late in a game with a chance to get a hit to give their team the lead: “win your own ballgame.”

Pitchers still earn wins in MLB, but they almost never have the opportunity to drive in runs to help themselves achieve those wins. Goalkeepers in soccer operate in a similar manner, though there was not a time, recently or ever, when goalkeepers used to score lots of goals. Major League Soccer has been around since 1996, and there have only been two goals scored by goalkeepers in regulation play — one on a long ball that got caught up in the wind and took a huge bounce over the opposing goalkeeper, and the other on a stoppage-time corner kick when every player was in the box trying to score a last-minute equalizer.

Goalkeepers contribute to goals every season with their passes (there were five goals scored in MLS in 2025 that came directly off a pass from a goalkeeper), but goalkeepers scoring goals is extremely rare except in one circumstance: penalty kick shootouts.

And that brings us to Orlando City’s Leagues Cup quarterfinal game against Deportivo Toluca of Liga MX on Aug. 20. It was a matchup of a team from Florida against a team from about an hour west of Mexico City, which for obvious reasons was played at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, CA, approximately 2,000 miles away from each team’s home base.

Orlando City came into the quarterfinal after finishing fourth among the 18 MLS teams that participated in Leagues Cup, winning two of its three group-stage games and drawing the other, but losing in the penalty shootout. Toluca earned its way into the quarterfinal with the same record in the group stage, except the Mexican side earned an extra point by winning the penalty shootout after drawing.

The 90 minutes of regulation play did not produce many highlights, as both teams looked a little weary from the travel and having played just a few days earlier in their respective leagues. Toluca had a little more possession (51%-49%) but played a lot more of the game in the Orlando City half of the field, doubling up the Lions on touches in the opposition’s box (25-12) and taking 15 shots to Orlando City’s four. Both teams struggled to put shots on target, however, with Toluca unable to put any shots on goal and Orlando City only managing one, and thus normal time ended scoreless, sending the game straight to penalties.

It was Orlando City’s second shootout of the competition, and while El Pulpo had not been having an elite season in 2025, he was still difficult to score on via penalty kicks, as he had shown by saving the first attempt in the first shootout against Pumas. Everyone’s favorite soccer stat, xG (expected goals) codes penalty kicks in most models with an xG of 0.79, meaning that a penalty kick taker is expected to convert 79% of the time, or one out of every five shots. Gallese had hit the average against Pumas, saving one of the five, but his teammates had let him down by only converting three of their five, leading to a shootout loss.

Óscar Pareja had a different group of players available to him for shootout selection than he did after full time against Pumas. In that game he had included Eduard Atuesta and César Araújo in his opening five, but against Toluca, Atuesta had already subbed out and Pareja decided not to include Araújo, likely because the Uruguayan had missed his attempt in the Pumas game. Pareja also did not have Designated Players Marco Pašalić or Luis Muriel available, as they both had subbed out already as well. After consulting with the coaches and available players, he selected Martín Ojeda, Robin Jansson, Alex Freeman, Joran Gerbet, and Kyle Smith for his initial five shooters, leaving Iván Angulo, Araújo, Ramiro Enrique, Gallese, Rodrigo Schlegel, and Tyrese Spicer in reserve for if the shootout went beyond the initial five shooters.

Spoiler alert, it did.

Toluca went first in the shootout, and through two shooters it appeared like the Diablos Rojos had Gallese’s number, as on each they sent him the wrong way and converted. Ojeda and Jansson were up to the task though, and so deuces were wild as it was 2-2 after two rounds. Starting in the third round, El Pulpo locked in though, as he exploded to his right and just missed saving a well-placed kick that was in the upper corner. Freeman equalized, and then on the fourth shot, Gallese once again nearly made the save, going low and to his left this time, but again coming just inches away from making the save. Gerbet and his unusual penalty kick style went next and he converted, and so it was effectively do-or-die starting in the fifth round, as each team had been perfect through eight shots.

Toluca’s Franco Romero sent Gallese the wrong way on the fifth shot, but Smith did the same to Luis García, and it was on to sudden death. At this point the player selections for the kicks moved to being on a one-by-one basis, and Nicolás Castro was up for Toluca. Gallese had correctly gone the right way on two of the last three attempts, and he made it three out of four on Castro’s shot, leaping to his right and getting a big right hand out to deny the ball from going into the corner, making the first save from either goalkeeper during the shootout. Orlando City had an opportunity to win the game, but Enrique could not convert, and the shootout continued to a seventh round.

El Pulpo was radiating with self-confidence going into the seventh round, and he once again read the shot correctly, leaping to his right again to stymy Juan Domínguez, giving the Lions the chance to put the game away once more.

Coming off of back-to-back saves, it was clear that Gallese was in the zone, and he stepped up to take the next kick himself.

“When I saw that he was so convinced to take it, it was no doubt that he was going to do it,” Pareja said after the game about the decision for Gallese to take the next shot.

The Peruvian called game with his shot, using his usual mini-step routine from goal kicks and free kicks to get his feet set and then sending García the wrong way to win his own ballgame and put the Lions into the Leagues Cup semifinals.

In a season of hat tricks by Orlando players (see top 10 moments numbers nine, eight, and three from the list at the bottom of this article), Gallese’s three consecutive monster plays to produce save, save, goal and win the shootout himself were nearly enough for Orlando City’s No. 1 to earn the number one spot on our top 10 list for 2025.

El Pulpo sadly has moved on to the greener pastures of Deportivo Cali in Colombia, but when he inevitably returns to Orlando for his induction into the Legends’ Terrace, they will surely play the clip of him making that final save and following it by scoring the walkoff winner during the 2025 Leagues Cup quarterfinals, our number two moment for the 2025 season.

Come back through New Year’s Eve as we count down the remainder of the top 10 moments of 2025 for Orlando City, the Orlando Pride, and OCB.

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.

6. Martin Ojeda breaks Orlando City’s single-season record for goal contributions.

5. Orlando Pride midfielder Luana returns to the pitch after being out for a year due to cancer treatment.

4. Alex Freeman has a breakout season, winning MLS Young Player of the Year and becoming the first Orlando City player to be named to the MLS Best XI.

3. Barbra Banda makes history by scoring the first hat trick by an Orlando Pride player.