Orlando City vs. New York Red Bulls: Photo Gallery

It should have been a night of excitement for a sellout crowd at Inter&Co Stadium to finally have Orlando City back in action in a meaningful match after the off-season. But the Lions struggled in their opening 45 minutes of the 2026 season, digging a 2-0 hole that was too deep to climb out of in a much-improved second half. Although the team battled hard to find a way back into the match, it wasn’t enough as Orlando City fell 2-1 to the New York Red Bulls in its second straight opening day loss.

The Red Bulls dominated the first half, shredding the rebuilt Orlando defense repeatedly, and keeping the Lions pinned in their own defensive half. More than 20 minutes passed before the hosts even had a touch in the opposition’s penalty area. The few times that Orlando was able to get the ball out of their own half, they broke down quickly with heavy touches and missed passes. Making matters worse was Wilder Cartagena’s return from last year’s Achilles tendon injury ended after just 14 minutes.

The visitors broke through just eight minutes into the match, and only a few missed opportunities and good goalkeeping by Maxime Crépeau kept New York from adding a second goal until the 40th minute after the failed clearance of a set piece. Teenager Julian Hall did all the damage for New York, scoring both goals. The 2-0 halftime score was flattering to an Orlando City team that had been completely swarmed for 45 minutes.

Oscar Pareja withdrew center back Iago and winger Marco Pašalić for 2026 draft pick Nolan Miller and Iván Angulo, respectively. He also made a tactical change, moving Angulo to a more interior midfield position than usual, allowing Tyrese Spicer — who had success getting forward, albeit generally undoing those efforts with poor passes and decisions in the final third — to continue getting into the spaces on New York’s right defensive flank. The tactical change and the substitutions infused the Lions with energy, and Orlando City was able to turn the tables in terms of possession and territorial advantage, if not on the scoreboard.

New York still looked dangerous on the counter, with Crépeau keeping his team alive with several highlight stops in a club single-game record-tying 11-save performance. However, the Lions had no choice but to leave space for transition chances as they were chasing the match throughout the second 45 minutes.

Griffin Dorsey, who had only had a few days of training with the team, was unlucky not to score a vital goal on his debut. Dorsey put the ball in the net in the 51st minute, but the ball had bounced off the turf and brushed his elbow for an inadvertent handball that nullified a strike that could have halved the deficit with most of the second half still to play. The Lions’ new right back also was robbed by a fantastic save by New York goalkeeper Ethan Horvath in the 70th minute.

Horvath made other big stops — notably on two brilliant shots by Martin Ojeda — to deny the Lions a route back into the match, and he got help with a deflectoin from the defense on an Angulo header that seemed surely destined to pull Orlando back into the match. City finally broke through deep in stoppage time as Angulo picked out second-half sub Zakaria Taifi’s run with a diagonal ball, and the Homegrown unselfishly provided a tap-in for debutante Tiago to spoil the shutout. As the goal came in the sixth minute of stoppage time, it was too late to change the outcome but a just reward for a good second-half performance.

The Lions will have a week to look at film and correct mistakes, and we could see some changes in the lineup as rival Inter Miami visits Sunday. The Herons are coming in bloodies after suffering a 3-0 defeat at LAFC on opening day.

We hope you enjoy these images from Orlando City’s opener, even if it wasn’t the result you were hoping for.

Images: Dan MacDonald
Words: Michael Citro