The Pride’s Offense Often Relies on Bank of Banda for a Bailout

It feels like Orlando City’s season has been going on for months and the Orlando Pride’s season just started. But all of a sudden, the Pride are already four games into the new season, with their fifth match — the same number of games as Orlando City has played — coming on Friday night. The Pride are off to a better start than the Lions, both in the standings and in how they have looked on the field, and the basis behind their better start is brought to you by the letter B, and Barbra Banda.

While the Pride are off to a better start than Orlando City, they are not off to a bodacious beginning (all right, all right, enough with the “b”words), as they have only earned five points from their four games played and are currently seventh in the league standings. With league leaders Angel City coming to Inter&Co Stadium on Friday night it is possible that by the end of the weekend Orlando will drop out of the playoff spots, but even if they do, they will probably not be too worried, as the Pride had a difficult schedule in their opening five games and Marta has only been on the field for a total of 18 minutes through the first four.

The Brazilian superstar’s absence has deprived the Pride of the opportunity to roll out an offense with Banda, Marta, and Jacquie Ovalle all on the field together for the first time, but with Marta working her way back to fitness, that is going to happen soon. It may not happen against Angel City, but with a long break between that game and the next game against Racing Louisville on April 24, it seems likely that soon we will finally see the attacking group that Pride fans have been excited about ever since the acquisition of Ovalle last August.

La Maga (the magician) joined the Pride right after Banda’s season-ending injury last summer, and she looks much more comfortable this season than she did during the closing months of the 2025 season. She scored her first goal of the season last week against Chicago and she has two assists as well, which ties her for the team lead in goal contributions with Banda, who picked up right where she left off and is leading the team — and the league — in goals scored with three.

The Pride have only scored five goals on the season for an average of 1.25 goals per game, and Banda’s three gives her 60% of their goals scored. Four games is a small sample size, only 13% of the season, so Banda’s high share of the goals scored is not a huge concern this early in the year. What is a bit of a concern, however, is Orlando’s reliance on the Zambian for so much of its offensive threat.

The scatterplot below is from the past three NWSL seasons and shows the 246 players who took at least 12 shots during each season (I chose 12 shots because of a limitation in Microsoft Excel that does not allow more than 255 dots on a scatterplot; if you were wondering, 826 players have taken at least one shot during any of the last three seasons). Most of the dots are from 2024 and 2025, but there are four players in 2026, Banda included, who have already taken at least 12 shots this season. I put a purple circle around Banda’s 2024, 2025 and 2026 seasons.

There is no official measure for “reliance,” but the location of Banda’s three pairings for the percentage of goals scored (excluding opposition own goals) and the percentage of shots taken show just how much the Pride rely on her to generate offense, how much more that is than many teams, and how they rely on their top attackers. It is strongly unlikely that Banda’s percentages in 2026 will stay as high as they have been through four games, especially when Marta is back to full health, but by looking at 2024 and 2025, it is unlikely that she is going to see a drastic reduction either.

Banda will miss a few games later this summer when she goes to Morocco to represent Zambia during the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), but she also missed nearly half of the 2025 season and still ended up as Orlando’s leading scorer and shot taker by wide margins (twice as many goals scored and shots taken as her next closest teammates).

Seb Hines and the Pride’s coaching staff would probably prefer a more balanced set of numbers long before her departure, as it is harder to defend multiple threats than one, but in the end, they will not care who scores as long as the Pride score enough goals to win games. The early dependency on Banda is not yet majorly alarming, especially considering that she is one of the best strikers in the world. I am somewhat concerned about her share of both shots taken and goals scored though and am hoping to see some other players step up their offensive contributions as the season progresses.

Friday night will be a big test for Orlando against Angel City and its NWSL-leading (only two goals allowed through three games) defense. Stopping Banda will be the clear priority, but that is a lot easier said than done. Solai Washington has looked good during the last few games and Ovalle is playing well also, and Marta will likely play for as many minutes as the training staff clears her for. Hopefully, between those three, Angelina, Ally Lemos, Haley McCutcheon, and any defenders who creep up into the attacking third of the field, they can either draw enough attention that Banda can get free, or use the open space that exists because of the gravity around the Zambian international to their advantage and put some shots into the back of the net.

Either way, the offense will need to deliver against Angel City, whether they are using Plan A or Plan B(anda).

Vamos Pride!