Happy Friday, Mane Landers! It’s been a pretty hectic week for me, but I’m looking forward to a weekend filled with soccer and celebrating with some friends. It should be a nice next couple of days before the World Cup is here in full force next week. Before we dive into today’s links, let’s all wish a happy birthday to Orlando City B midfielder Dylan Judelson!

Canada Chooses Maxime Crepeau as Starting Goalkeeper

Orlando City goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau was named as the starter for Canada for the upcoming World Cup. The 32-year-old has been in a tight battle with Dayne St. Clair for the starting job for quite some time and he’s done well enough for Jesse Marsch to choose him for the role. This will be Crepeau’s first World Cup since he wasn’t able to take part in the 2022 competition due to a broken leg. Canada will play Ireland today in a friendly before hosting Bosnia and Herzegovina in the World Cup on June 12.

Analyzing Germany Ahead of USMNT Clash

The United States Men’s National Team will take on Germany on Saturday in Chicago in its final friendly before the World Cup starts next week. This will be the 13th match between the two nations, with the most recent one being a 3-1 loss by the U.S. in October of 2023. Manuel Neuer is Germany’s starting goalkeeper, but he’s dealing with an injury and backup Oliver Baumann could play on Saturday in his place. Hopefully the U.S. can make his life difficult, but Germany has tough defenders in Jonathan Tah and Nico Schlotterbeck. Florian Wirtz, Kai Havertz, and Leroy Sane are dangerous attacking threats, while Nick Woltemade brings both height and solid ball movement at the top of the formation. It should be a great test for the USMNT before the games get serious.

USWNT Prepares for Brazil

The United States Women’s National Team is in action on Saturday as well, with the team set to play Brazil in Sao Paulo in the first of two friendlies. Plenty of attention will be on the reunited attacking trio of Sophia Wilson, Trinity Rodman, and Mallory Swanson that combined for 10 goals and five assists in the 2024 Summer Olympics. As for Brazil, the Orlando Pride are well represented, with Marta, Angelina, and Rafaelle all called up for these friendlies. There’s plenty of competing talent on Brazil’s roster, so it will be interesting to see who starts on Saturday. I’m most interested to see how the U.S. defense manages against Brazilian attackers like Ludmila, Dudinha, and Kerolin without having Naomi Girma on the back line.

Liverpool Hires Andoni Iraola as Next Manager

Liverpool didn’t waste much time finding a new manager after firing Arne Slot last week, hiring Andoni Iraola as his replacement. Iraola joins Liverpool after three years with Bournemouth that included securing Europa League qualification for the first time in club history this past season. He now joins a Liverpool team that qualified for the Champions League, but lost 12 league games after winning the league title in 2025. It will be interesting to see how Iraola does at one of England’s biggest clubs, particularly in regards to how his high-octane approach is applied.

Free Kicks

• While the Pride haven’t provided an injury update on Barbra Banda according to reporter Jeff Kassouf, she did reportedly travel for Zambia’s friendlies against Kenya and Burkina Faso as the team prepares for next month’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

• MLS created profiles for each league player taking part in this World Cup, providing info on their statistics and experience. Make sure to check out the ones for Orlando City’s Maxime Crepeau, Marco Pasalic, and Braian Ojeda.
• The Columbus Crew will take on Burnley in an exhibition on July 12, which is between the quarterfinals and semifinals of the World Cup.
• Enjoy this cool story on how former USMNT striker Jozy Altidore will be part of Telemundo’s World Cup coverage as a commentator for the Spanish network.
• Bayer Leverkusen fired Kasper Hjulmand after a sixth-place finish in the Bundesliga this past season, replacing him with Carles Martínez Novell.
• Here’s an insightful look into how soccer provides an opportunity for young Brazilian players in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

That’s all I have for you this time around. I hope you all have a fantastical Friday and rest of your weekend!

The opening match of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup kicks off one week from today, when Mexico hosts South Africa at Estadio Azteca Mexico City Stadium (thanks FIFA, for your silly stadium-naming policy). Like most soccer fans, I am excited for wall-to-wall games starting next week, but I will definitely also be missing the men and women in purple as Orlando City and the Orlando Pride will not play again until early July (Pride) and late July (Orlando City).

MLS NEXT Pro channeled its inner Red Hot Chili Peppers and said they “can’t stop, they’re addicted to the shindig” and will continue to play a normal weekly schedule throughout the World Cup, so thankfully we will still have the Young Lions to root for during this break. But aside from that, it will be all international soccer for the upcoming weeks, and primarily in North America.

With that in mind, I took a deeper look at the beautiful game on our beautiful continent and evaluated which cities in North America are having the best soccer-related 2026 so far. There are no actual rankings for this, so I created my own, using the following components:

• I awarded a half point to the city of every team in Liga MX, Liga MX Femenil, Major League Soccer (MLS), NWSL, and the Northern Super League (Canada’s top domestic women’s league). This covers the highest levels of club competition on the continent. I did not include the Canadian Premier League (men’s, ranked 159th among men’s leagues by Opta) or the Gainbridge Super League (women’s, ranked 35th among women’s leagues), because even though those are considered leagues at the highest level of competition in their countries, they do not compare to the five leagues I included. Also, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver all have teams in MLS.
• I awarded a full point to every city that is hosting World Cup games. This is a little sticky because some stadiums and/or teams represent metropolitan areas as opposed to the actual zip/area code location for the team or stadium, but I did some rounding. I had to put my mathematics degree to good use.
• I averaged the points earned per match per team in that city, and awarded that total number of points to the city. Orlando, for example, received 1.18 points in this category, as Orlando City is averaging 0.93 (this was disappointing to type) and the Pride are averaging 1.42.
• I awarded a point to the city of each quarterfinalist in the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup and U.S. Open Cup, and a subsequent point for each win by those teams.
• I awarded a point to the city of each semifinalist in the 2026 Concacaf W Champions Cup (this tournament went straight to the semifinals after the group stage), and a subsequent point for each win by those teams, excluding the third-place game.

After I awarded all those points, I rested for a minute, and then I summed up all the points for each city to see which cities are having the best 2026 so far (there are 47 North American cities/metro areas with at least one team in the leagues I included).

As this is an Orlando-focused publication, let’s take a look at the City Beautiful and how we fared. There are two professional teams in Orlando that count, so a half point for Orlando City plus a half point for the Pride accounted for one total point. With how well OCB has been playing (fourth in the Eastern Conference and winners of three of its last four games), I wish I could have included MLS NEXT Pro teams in the points system, but including that league did not make sense.

OCB would have helped with the average points metric as well, as it is averaging 1.83 points per match, the best in Orlando. Restricting it down to Orlando City and the Pride, however, added the 1.18 points that I referenced in the bullets earlier.

The Lions are in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals, which earned them one point for being a quarterfinalist and another point for winning that quarterfinal match, so they picked up two points from the U.S. Open Cup.

Orlando was not selected to be a host city for any World Cup games, Orlando City did not qualify for this year’s Concacaf Champions Cup, and the Pride nearly qualified for the semifinals of the Concacaf W Champions Cup but fell just short (ugh, because they really should have advanced), so Orlando did not pick up any points from any of those three categories.

With the points that Orlando accumulated it has tallied a total of 4.18 points so far in 2026. Let’s take a look at where 4.18 puts Orlando in the city rankings:

The cities in the chart above are sorted alphabetically, for ease of finding any cities you are interested in picking out, but the chart below shows the same data but sorted from most to fewest points earned:

In looking at this chart, you will find Orlando just outside the top 10, sitting in the lucky number 13 spot. Unsurprisingly, most of the teams at the top are among the largest cities on the continent and were also selected to be World Cup host cities. Among cities not selected as host cities, and therefore cities that did not receive a one-point bump in my rubric, Orlando ranked fifth, trailing Toluca (Mexico), Nashville, Washington D.C., and Denver.

If the Pride had played a little better in the Concacaf W Champions Cup, and had Barbra Banda not gotten injured and missed the entire group stage last summer, Orlando likely would have qualified for at least the semifinals in that cup and finished in the top six, or perhaps even higher, of these rankings.

It should come as no surprise to soccer fans that Mexican cities dominate the top of this ranking system, as Mexico City boasts a continent-high six teams (men’s and women’s heavyweights Club América, Cruz Azul, and Pumas), Monterrey houses four (men’s and women’s for Tigres and Monterrey), and Toluca, which only has men’s and women’s teams called Toluca but is the reigning Concacaf men’s champion after defeating Tigres on May 30.

With Miami to the south and Atlanta to the north, it was always unlikely that Orlando was going to be selected as a host city, but based on performance alone, our city is among the top soccer cities on the continent this year. And this is even with Orlando City having a down year during league play in 2026 and the Pride only recently putting together some decent results.

Last year, through 15 games Orlando City was nearly one full point better, averaging 1.80 points per game compared to this year’s 0.93, and the 2025 Pride were two-thirds of a point better than this year’s team through their first 12 games, averaging 2.08 points per game last year compared to 1.42 in 2026.

That was then and this is now, and neither season ended the way Orlando City or the Pride wanted in 2025, so hopefully the slower starts portend something better for this year’s teams. There is still a U.S. Open Cup, Leagues Cup, and MLS playoff spot for Orlando City to play for when its season resumes, and the Pride can solidify, or preferably, improve their playoff spot as well.

As we get closer to the end of 2026 I will update this chart to see where Orlando finishes in the full-year rankings, but for now we once again have unimpeachable evidence that shows that Orlando is the soccer capital of the southeast. We have all known this for years and years, but it is important to remind the people of Atlanta and Miami about it from time to time.

This was that time.

Vamos Orlando!

With the World Cup break upon us, this is a good time to take a look at a few key components of the club so far this season. It might turn out that this break is exactly what Orlando City needs to right the ship to win the U.S. Open Cup and make a run to the playoffs. Let’s look at the good, the bad, and the ugly so far this season.

The Good

Without a doubt, the number one good so far is the play of Martin Ojeda. In the first 15 matches, he has 11 goals and an assist. He is only two goals behind league leader Hugo Cuypers. That is 12 goal contributions in only 15 matches. To put that in perspective, last season he finished with 31 goal contributions in 33 matches but only 16 of those were goals. If he can maintain the goal scoring but add more assists it will be a historic season for the Argentinian.

Ojeda’s play isn’t the only good thing so far, and there are other pleasant surprises. Justin Ellis earned more time with the first team and proceeded to show he belonged. He has contributed a goal and two assists and has mostly been an asset when on the pitch. Newcomer Griffin Dorsey has been a solid addition after Alex Freeman’s late departure. Given the circumstances, signing Dorsey was an excellent move by Ricardo Moreira. Dorsey has been good if not great on defense, but has fit in nicely on the offensive side in Martin Perelman’s system.

The Bad

The Lions have allowed a league’s worst 44 goals in 15 matches. That equals 2.93 goals per match. Is it any wonder the Lions have a 4-9-2 record? Orlando City also has a -21 goal differential, which if it wasn’t for Sporting Kansas City would also be the worst in the league. This is very likely a historically bad record.

If the Lions continue leaking goals at that rate, the club will allow 96 goals by the end of the season. The record is currently held by the San Jose Earthquakes with 78 goals allowed. I will say that the team has been slightly better over the last seven matches, allowing only 19 goals for a rate of 2.71 goals per match. If that rate holds then the club will end up with 95 goals allowed. Obviously, slightly better won’t cut it if the club wants to make the playoffs.

The Ugly

Coaching changes are never easy. It almost always takes time for a new coach to establish a style of play and a method of how they communicate with the players, the press, and the fan base. It’s harder when taking over for a popular coach. Even the success of Arne Slot following the departure of Jurgen Klopp soured quickly the following season.

I’m not saying Oscar Pareja is at Klopp’s level, nor has Perelman had the immediate success that Slot did when he took over at Liverpool. I’m just acknowledging it is difficult to walk into such a situation. You only need to look at the previous section to see the challenges Perelman has been dealing with since taking over.

However, he is definitely a part of the problem. Perelman, like Moreira, wants to play a more attacking style of soccer. That’s all well and good if your defense is solid, but as we have established, that is not currently the case. Pareja was good at communicating with the press about the positives and negatives of any given performance. Too many times Perelman has simply said that the team will “work harder.” That’s not good enough. I am personally convinced Moreira wants Perelman to take over permanently. Whether Perelman is able to get enough good results to earn it remains to be seen.

This is by no means a complete list so I encourage you to contribute your own thoughts in the comments below. Vamos Orlando!