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Orlando City vs. Columbus Crew: Final Score 4-3 as Lions See Three-Game Winning Streak Snapped

Orlando City dug a deep hole and tried to climb out of it twice without quite succeeding in a high-scoring road loss.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Two teams that rarely concede gave up a combined seven goals as the Columbus Crew swept the season series against Orlando City with a 4-3 win at Lower.com Field. The Lions (12-11-7, 43 points) were their own worst enemies in this match. They handed the defending MLS champion Crew (16-5-8, 56 points) great scoring chances before improbably making a game of it and then ultimately capitulating a fourth and decisive goal through sheer miscommunication in their own end.

The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for Orlando and prevented a chance to clinch a fourth consecutive playoff spot.

Diego Rossi, Christian Ramirez, Cucho Hernandez, and Aziel Jackson scored for the hosts. Down 3-0, Ramiro Enrique’s second-half goal spoiled the Crew’s bid for a third straight shutout, and Luis Muriel added a penalty to make things interesting. But rather than scoring an equalizer, Orlando made a mistake with a giveaway that handed the Crew a fourth goal to ice the game. Muriel added a second goal in the final minute of stoppage time, but there were not heroics at the death this time.

“Very intense match,” Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja said after the game. “I have to give credit to our players that showed all the time our heart and our willingness to bounce back from adversity that the game put us on, since we couldn’t finalize our chances, especially in the first half. Second half we could have tied the game as well.”

Pareja’s starting lineup saw a couple of changes. Goalkeeper Pedro Gallese lined up behind a back line of Rafael Santos, Robin Jansson, Rodrigo Schlegel, and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson. Rookie Jeorgio Kocevski started in place of the suspended Cesar Araujo next to Wilder Cartagena in central midfield behind the usual attacking line of Ivan Angulo, Martin Ojeda, and Facundo Torres. Duncan McGuire started instead of Enrique.

The opening 15 minutes were played at a frantic pace, with both teams getting into scoring poition and finding the woodwork. The Crew worked an early ball into the box in the second minute to Jackson but Schlegel blocked his shot. Moments later, a ball pinged around the box and ended up with a soft shot by Jackson that Gallese was able to keep out but the flag came up for offside anyway.

Orlando tried playing over the top a lot early, and in the sixth minute, a great ball over the top found Torres, but his first touch let him down. Two minutes later, the Lions came within inches of opening the scoring. A ball into the area from the left fell to Thorhallsson, who fired off the left post. The rebound came to Torres, who fired a shot that squirted under Patrick Schulte, who spilled it but held it on the line and kept the ball from crossing. McGuire then tried to chip Schulte in the ninth minute off an Orlando takeaway in the attacking half but his shot stayed high and sailed just over the bar.

Mohamed Farsi got down the right behind the defense in the 11th minute as Thorhallsson kept him onside. The Icelandic fullback did well to recover and knock the centering pass behind for a corner. However, the Lions completely ignored Max Arfsten on the set piece. He got a free header as a result but it hit the left upright and rebounded out for a goal kick.

It was Orlando’s turn to get a chance in the 13th minute. McGuire fired a shot inside the box that deflected off a defender for a corner kick. The set piece found Schlegel, who nodded it toward goal but it again hit the left post and stayed out.

“When we proposed to be dense and to be organized, as we did in the first half, we had clear assumptions in behind of them that we couldn’t finalize and change the story of the game,” Pareja said.

Ojeda won a free kick in the 24th minute and the Lions nearly made it pay off. Torres got onto the end of the Argentine’s service but it took a high bounce. He was able to knock a half-volley chance on goal but it hit Schulte in the chest. The ball caromed to McGuire, whose shot hit the outstretched arm of Malte Amundsen and deflected over the bar. The play was reviewed and it was a handball on Amundsen, but Torres was half a yard offside on the delivery of the free kick.

The hosts scored a gift goal in the 30th minute to open the scoring. Tracking back into his own end, Ojeda took a pass from the defense and tried a no-look pass to his right for Santos. Instead, he passed the ball straight to Farsi and the ball was quickly sent forward to Rossi, who touched it to his right and fired a shot that deflected off Jansson’s leg and took the worst possible angle for Orlando.

Gallese had already committed to the original trajectory of the shot and the Peruvian had no chance of keeping it from sneaking just inside the left post to make it 1-0. The goal ended Orlando’s shutout streak at 300 minutes and was Rossi’s third against the Lions this season.

After taking the lead, the Crew held most of the possession and took the air out of the ball. Orlando didn’t get a single shot attempt off after falling behind for the final 15 minutes of the half, plus five minutes of stoppage time.

The Lions’ best opportunity to pull one back came off a quick takeaway and a brilliant pass by Ojeda to send Angulo down the left with numbers in the attack. The chance evaporated when the Colombian took a heavy touch and lost it to the defense in the 40th minute.

Columbus went fishing for a penalty in the 44th minute off a good stop in the box by Schlegel. Alexandru Matan went down easily and, rather than winning a penalty, received a yellow card for simulation. Schlegel had a terrific first half, putting out several fires when the Crew got forward.

Arfsten had the last look at goal in the half, cutting in from the left and trying to curl a shot inside the right post. He left the shot well wide and the hosts took their 1-0 lead into the break.

Columbus held the halftime advantage in possession (66.3%-33.6%), shots (5-4), corners (2-1), and passing accuracy (90.6%-84.8%). Each team put one shot on target. After Torres was ruled offside, his second shot off Schulte didn’t count.

The Lions made no halftime subs but the Crew brought on MLS MVP candidate Hernandez. Orlando’s first foray up the field ended with a Thorhallsson cross from the end line right at Schulte.

The Crew put the game to bed early in the second half on the counter. Schlegel cheated high to try to win the ball back but didn’t. Columbus broke with numbers and Thorhallsson tried to cut a pass to Jackson out but he didn’t make good contact and it fell favorably for the Crew attacker, who sent it wide into the space Dagur vacated on the defensive right to Arfsten. His cross was in to a wide-open Ramirez, as Santos was too slow to pick out a man to mark and Gallese could do nothing with the point-blank header in the 51st minute.

The Crew then had a shooting gallery for a few minutes, with Jackson missing wide in the 55th minute and Hernandez fizzing one over the bar in the 59th, just after Pareja sent on substitutes Nico Lodeiro, Luis Muriel, and Ramiro Enrique. Ojeda, McGuire, and Kocevski were sacrificed.

Muriel fired a left-footed shot toward goal in the 63rd minute, snapping a lengthy drought. The shot deflected out for a corner off a defender. However, the Lions elected to play the corner short and got nothing out of the set piece.

Hernandez seemingly put the game out of reach in the 71st minute, blazing past Schlegel and blasting a one-time shot from Arfsten’s cross past Gallese to make it 3-0.

Orlando pulled the goal back quickly. Muriel made a fantastic pass to send Angulo in behind down the right, but the speedy winger fired his shot off the right post. The rebound came straight to Enrique, who blasted it into the empty net to make it 3-1.

Three minutes later, a good cross in from Torres on the left nearly found Angulo, but he was shoved from behind by Yaw Yeboah as the ball arrived. The referee awarded a penalty immediately. Muriel waited Schulte out and sent a soft shot into the net after the goalkeeper dove to his right. The Lions were suddenly within 3-2 in the 78th minute.

Just two minutes later, the Lions came within inches of tying the game. Enrique stole the ball off the Crew defense and took it into the right side of the penalty area, looking for trailing runners. He sent the ball to Lodeiro just to the right of goal and the midfielder shot. The attempt deflected off a knee in front and skipped just wide of the far post. Orlando played the corner short but couldn’t create anything off the set piece.

With time winding down, the Lions ended up costing themselves again. Felipe, who had come on moments earlier for Cartagena, tried to lay off a pass for Thorhallsson while under pressure from behind. There was an obvious miscommunication between the two, as Thorhallsson probably didn’t expect the soft return ball. Hernandez picked up the ball and fed Jackson, who fired home the Crew’s fourth goal in the 85th minute.

“Their fourth goal hurt us, especially with that short field and turning it over right there,” Muriel said. “But with the momentum that we had, with the inertia that we had, we really felt like we were in a position to equalize before that.”

Orlando City got into the box again moments later. Enrique got in against two defenders and cut back, looking for a shooting lane. He probably took too many touches and allowed a third defender to arrive before he turned and shot, but the effort was blocked in front. Felipe followed on the rebound but his shot was blocked as well and he was called for a foul on the follow-through.

Columbus nearly scored a fifth in the 89th when Herrera got in behind into the box, but Gallese made a big save.

Down two goals, it didn’t seem to matter that there were seven minutes of stoppage time added, but it did affect the final score. Although the Lions struggled to keep the ball and create in injury time, Muriel added a late goal with a shot from outside the area. The Colombian fired a curler that bounced in front of Schulte, who misjudged it. The goalkeeper got a touch but couldn’t keep it out and Orlando was back within a goal at 4-3 with about a minute remaining.

“Obviously happy for my goals, but we were really looking to tie it up or win the game tonight,” Muriel said.

Time ultimately ran out on Orlando City and the final whistle blew on a wild match in Columbus.

The Crew finished the match with the edge in possession (63.7%-36.3%), corners (5-3), and passing accuracy (88.8%-83.7%). Orlando City attempted more shots (13-12), and both teams put five shots on target.

Ultimately, the hole the Lions dug themselves was too deep to climb out of against the defending champs, but nearly climbed out of it anyway.

“It was a very complicated game against a really tough rival,” Muriel said. “I think they put us on the back foot and put us on the counter really quickly with with a lot of their pressure. But moving past that, looking at the end of the second half, we really showed that we’re a team that really likes to fight and wants to fight to be at the top of this league. I think we learned, especially in those last 15 or 20 minutes, the type of team that we can be and the strength that we can show together, especially against one of the best teams in the league. We were at the point where we were about to equalize from three goals down and put ourselves in a position to win the game.”

“In the second half, we chose to push much more and regardless of the spaces that we left in behind,” Pareja said. “We conceded two goals, but also we scored three. It’s that thing of the game that we have to balance. Today they scored one more than us and they take the result. But we had a good game. I thought that we were very competitive and we could have been leading (at) the half easily with the chances that we had.”


The Lions will be back on the road a week from tonight at FC Dallas, looking to bounce back.

Opinion

The Case for Starting Luis Muriel Against Atlanta

Muriel’s game is tailor made to help Orlando get the result in what will likely be a tight contest.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

For the second season in a row, Orlando City finds itself hosting a match in the Eastern Conference semifinals. It was a scenario that was far less likely this year, with the Lions watching as all three seeds above them crashed out in the first round, leaving OCSC as the highest-seeded team still standing in the East. Last year’s semifinal match didn’t go so well, with 10-man Orlando falling to the eventual champion Columbus Crew in extra time. So, how do the Lions avoid that fate this year and advance to the Eastern Conference final for the first time?

For starters, they can succeed on each of Dave Rohe’s three keys to victory! I’d like to make an addition though, and campaign for Oscar Pareja to start Luis Muriel instead of Ivan Angulo. To be clear, it’s not that I have an axe to grind against Angulo, as he’s largely ranged from solid to good when starting out on the left wing. For my money though, this match is tailor made for Muriel and giving him the start could help Orlando get through to the next round without needing to resort to extra time or penalties.

It’s not unreasonable to expect Sunday’s game to play out in a similar manner to Orlando’s 2-1 Decision Day loss to Atlanta, in which the visitors had 34% of the ball to OCSC’s 66%. True, part of that disparity was down to Atlanta’s 2-0 lead after 16 minutes, which allowed the visitors to sit back, bunker, and protect what they had. Even if the game had remained scoreless for longer though, Atlanta probably would likely have ceded possession anyway and looked to play defensively and hit on the counter. They rolled out a compact 4-2-3-1 in that game, but deployed a 3-5-2 in their last two games against Miami, and they might do so again after its effectiveness.

With Orlando likely to have the lion’s share (hehe) of the ball, and Atlanta sitting deep, there figures to be less room for Angulo to deploy his electric pace. OCSC will probably need to make things happen in the “half-court,” with an emphasis on moving the ball quickly, making clever runs, and finding those runs with creative and accurate passes.

Enter Luis Muriel. The Colombian Designated Player had a slow start to life with Orlando City but has come on strong in recent months, excelling in a super sub role and frequently making an impact in games off the bench. In 56 minutes against Charlotte in Game 3, he completed two dribbles, played one key pass and one through ball, and took three shots, with one on target, one off target, and one blocked. He doesn’t offer Angulo’s speed, but he has maybe the best vision and range of passing of anyone on the team, he’s an outstanding dribbler, and he’s a calm and capable finisher.

He hasn’t been asked to do a ton of traditional striker work during his resurgence, but Muriel has excelled at setting up teammates and creating chances, as evidenced by the litany of key passes littering his stat sheet. Those attributes could be hugely important in breaking Atlanta down, and with two key passes and two completed dribbles against them in just 22 minutes on Decision Day, he’s already proven he can be effective against the Five Stripes.

Another thing that could help the Lions in starting Muriel, is that it would almost certainly take Atlanta by surprise. Oscar Pareja isn’t exactly known for tweaking his lineup on a game-to-game basis, vastly preferring to find an XI that works and stick with it religiously. As long as everyone’s healthy, that lineup has featured Angulo starting with Muriel coming off the bench, and flipping the script would certainly be an unexpected variation that Atlanta might not be expecting. At this level, teams are good enough to adjust on short notice, but you also take every possible edge that you can find, and a lineup shift could be exactly that.


In short, as much as I like Angulo, I think Muriel should get the call in his place on Sunday. The veteran’s combination of vision, passing ability, and dribbling makes him uniquely suited to help unlock defenses, which will be crucial in a game where Orlando City is likely to dominate possession. I don’t think it’s likely to happen given Papi’s consistency with his lineups, but the unexpected move could give the Lions the edge they’re looking for. Vamos Orlando!

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Lion Links

Lion Links: 11/22/24

Emily Sams wins Defender of the Year, Orlando City’s turnaround, Barbra Banda nominated for African Woman Player of the Year, and more.

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Image courtesy of Orlando Pride / Jeremy Reper

Happy Friday! Beyond working and catching some soccer here and there, I don’t have many plans for the weekend. I’m also hoping to find some time to trial some cranberry and brie bites I’m trying to perfect before Thanksgiving next week. For now though, let’s jump right into today’s links from around the soccer world!

Emily Sams Awarded NWSL Defender of the Year

The Orlando Pride’s Emily Sams was named 2024 NWSL Defender of the Year after a fantastic season. The Pride only conceded 20 goals in a record-breaking season, and Sams played in all 13 of the team’s shutouts. Sams was one of the most impactful players for the Pride this year and had 163 recoveries, 76 clearances, and 16 blocks. She’s the first Pride player to win the award and it’s great to see her receive some deserved recognition in her second year in Orlando.

Analyzing Orlando City’s Revitalization

It’s been a rollercoaster of a season for the Lions to say the least. There were serious concerns over whether or not the Lions would even make the playoffs back in June and now they find themselves as the highest remaining seed in the Eastern Conference this postseason. Facundo Torres’ excellent run of play is a major reason behind the club’s turnaround, but the buy-in from all of Orlando’s attackers has helped create a dynamic and unselfish offense. Although expectations are rising once more for the Lions, Executive Vice President of Soccer Operations and General Manager Luiz Muzzi spoke on how the team is focused on Sunday’s playoff match.

“There’s only one team that matters: Atlanta United,” Muzzi said. “The easiest way to lose a game is to look ahead. I’ll say we didn’t expect to be playing at home, but it’s welcomed. We’re focused on Atlanta, they’re playing great. They have a lot of confidence and momentum. It doesn’t matter they’re the No. 9 seed because they’re not playing like the No. 9 seed.”

Barbra Banda Up For African Woman Player of the Year

Orlando Pride forward Barbra Banda was one of 10 players nominated for this year’s African Woman Player of the Year award. The 24-year-old has done well for both club and country this year. She scored 13 goals in her first regular season with the Pride and has three goals so far in the playoffs. Banda also had a hat trick for Zambia in the Summer Olympics. She’s joined by fellow NWSL players Temwa Chawinga and Racheal Kundananji on the list of nominees. Bay FC striker Asisat Oshoala, who has won the award in five of the past six years, was not nominated for the first time in a decade. The nomination list will be trimmed to a three-player shortlist before the winner is announced on Dec. 16 in Morocco.

Croix Bethune Named NWSL Midfielder of the Year

Washington Spirit rookie Croix Bethune won NWSL Midfielder of the Year after recording 10 assists and five goals in 17 matches this season. A knee injury cut her season short in September, but she still tied Tobin Heath’s record for the most assists in a season. Bethune gave plenty of NWSL teams headaches this year and also won Rookie of the Year earlier this week. She’s the first player to ever receive NWSL Midfielder of the Year and she beat out the Pride’s Marta, the North Carolina Courage’s Ashley Sanchez, and Kansas City Current duo Lo’eau LaBonta and Vanessa DiBernardo.

Eastern Conference Clubs Making Moves

FC Cincinnati officially signed striker Kevin Denkey from Cercle Brugge on a deal that will last through 2028. The 23-year-old joins as a Designated Player on a reported $16.2 million transfer, which would be a league record. He won the Golden Boot in Belgium last year after scoring 27 goals and should give Cincinnati some considerable firepower next year.

Elsewhere in the league, CF Montreal declined the option on Josef Martinez’s contract, meaning the Venezuelan forward will be a free agent once again. The 31-year-old led Montreal with 11 goals this season and we’ll see where he winds up next. Charlotte FC did not trigger the purchase option on Pep Biel’s loan, opening up a Designated Player spot. Former Lion Junior Urso’s contract option was also declined by Charlotte. The Philadelphia Union signed defender Olivier Mbaizo to a contract extension that will keep him with the club through 2026, with options for 2027 and 2028 as well.

Free Kicks

  • In preparation for the 2026 World Cup, FIFA named 26 new options across the country as “base camps” for participating teams to train and rest. Orlando was included, with OCSC’s training grounds at Osceola Heritage Park pitched alongside the Lake Nona Wave Hotel.
  • ESPN‘s Jeff Kassouf dove into how the NWSL stacks up to the biggest sports leagues in the U.S. Saturday’s NWSL Championship between the Pride and Spirit should showcase just how entertaining the league is to plenty of viewers.
  • Pep Guardiola will stick around as Manchester City’s manager for a couple more years after signing a two-year contract extension with the club. His contract was set to expire at the end of this season.
  • Here’s a cool breakdown of the seven amateur teams that have qualified for the 2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup so far. None are from Florida, but there are some great logos to check out if you’re looking for a team to root for in the early rounds next year. Debutants Southern Indiana FC and the Virginia Dream are my personal favorites of the bunch.
  • The draw for the 2025 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations will take place today. Zambia is in the second pot, meaning it will be put in a group of four that will include one of Nigeria, South Africa, or Morocco. The tournament itself will be in July of next year.
  • Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and Manchester City all clinched a spot in the Women’s Champions League quarterfinals with two games still left to play.

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

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Orlando City

How Orlando City’s Offense Stacks Up Against What Atlanta Does Defensively

How Orlando City has performed against teams playing with three or four defenders, and how that may influence the playoff game against Atlanta United.

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

The most famous quote about real estate is that “there are three things that matter in property: location, location, location.” Soccer coaches also like to think in threes, especially when it comes to points, but for a soccer coach, the three things that matter might be the rhyming triplet “formation, formation, formation,” as that is where they will have the biggest influence on every game that their team plays.

Throughout his tenure as head coach, Óscar Pareja has preferred to use a 4-2-3-1 as his formation (fbref.com’s lineup data shows that the Lions primarily played a 4-2-3-1 in 65% of their MLS matches this season, and 79% of their MLS matches during the last three seasons). The Lions have lined up in a 4-2-3-1 during each of their last 14 games, and my confidence level is strong to quite strong (can you believe Meet the Parents came out 24 years ago?) that they will do so once again on Sunday when they host Atlanta United.

Atlanta United also prefers to deploy a 4-2-3-1, but was less consistent than Orlando City this season during MLS play, as evidenced by the chart below that shows how Atlanta lined up this season:

The purpose of this image is a table to show how Atlanta United lined up in 2024 (mostly in a 4-2-3-1 but also in one of six other formations).

I am relying on the coders at Opta for their evaluation of the formation, as I do not watch a lot of Atlanta United matches (sounds terrible), but though Atlanta primarily played with four defenders in more than two-thirds of its matches, during the last two matches it played a 3-5-2, the only two matches all season in which interim coach Rob Valentino rolled out that formation. I suspect that the formation change was related partially to playing Inter Miami and trying to defend the Herons’ dynamic offense and partially due to an injury suffered by defender Brooks Lennon in the first game of that series. So, while Atlanta primarily played four in the back for most of the season, there is a good chance it will roll with what worked against Florida’s second-best MLS team when it plays Florida’s best MLS team this weekend.

Now, if you want to read more about Atlanta, then you can read our match preview, which will drop Sunday morning, but I want to look at how Orlando did against teams that play similar styles. Looking only at MLS games, the table below shows how Orlando City performed against different back line structures this season (the left side is how the Lions’ opponents lined up, the right side is how Orlando City performed against opponents in those formations):

Table embedded as an image showing Orlando City doing best in goal differential in 12 games against three-man back lines, second best against four-man back lines, and having played once against a five-man back line (a 1-1 draw).

Orlando City earned slightly more points per game — the stat that matters most — against teams that played four in the back, but the Lions had a better average goal differential when teams played three in the back. Atlanta will likely deploy one of those two formations. In both games against Orlando City this season, Sunday’s visitors went with a 4-2-3-1, but as mentioned earlier, they used three in the back in each of their last two matches, so it really could be either.

Soccer is not like baseball, where players primarily stay in the same spot throughout the game, so some of these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt, as players are not always rigidly in the same position throughout a match. A team may also primarily play with four in the back but switch to three when chasing a game, or five when trying to protect against a late goal.

That said, using the data around Orlando City’s opponents’ general formations, here are the attacking groups who played the most frequently against four defenders during the 24 MLS games where Opta coded the opponents as using a defensive group of four:

Table embedded as an image showing the most frequently used lineups against teams who deploy four defenders. The most frequently used attacking group has a plus eight goal differential for the season.

It is a little ominous that the main starting group, shown in row one, has played 666 MLS minutes against back lines of four this season, but do I like that green goal differential of +8 in those minutes, which is a strong +1.08 per 90 minutes. I like that goal differential more than I like all the things that Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin like on their song that is creatively named “I Like It.” Coincidentally, when people ask me what I think about that song, I say, “I like it.” I am very creative.

If we look at the lineups that Orlando City has used against back lines of three defenders then there are some pretty major differences in personnel groupings, but it must be noted that more than half of the games against teams playing three in the back came early in the season, when Ramiro Enrique was unavailable to play. Enrique, my presumed starter at striker, has played fewer than three games’ worth of minutes (265 total) against back lines of three this season, and only 28 minutes with the main starting group, which ranks 13th among all the attacking lineups for minutes played against three defenders. That group scored one goal in their 28 minutes together though, for a robust 3.21 goals-scored-per-90-minutes average.

While the team as a whole has been successful against three-man back lines, I do not expect any of the lineups shown in the table below to play more than a few minutes together this weekend, though the first row and the last row are strong groups and had a lot of success.

Table embedded as an image showing the most frequently used lineups against teams who deploy three defenders. The most frequently used attacking group has a plus three goal differential for the season.

I am sure that all week long the Orlando City coaching staff has been going back and forth on whether it is more likely that Atlanta reverts to its most commonly used four in the back, or if the Five Stripes try for three wins in a row with three in the back. I would prefer that Atlanta plays with zero defenders and goalkeeper Brad Guzan wears a blindfold, but I think that is unlikely to be the case.

Even though Atlanta defeated Orlando City both times while in a 4-2-3-1, based on available personnel and recent results, I believe that the team will come out in a 3-5-2 in Inter&Co Stadium in the conference semifinal. Good things come in threes, and Orlando City’s best offensive production this season has been against three defenders, so I am going to be hoping that this continues, and in the third game against Atlanta the Lions grab the three points. Three’s company!

Well, it is a playoff game, so there are no actual points at stake, but you know what I meant.

Vamos Orlando!

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