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| A ringer. Not pictured: Kaka or Nani. |
The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...
Thumbnail History
Orlando City SC’s history follows the redemption variety of the expansion team narrative: eating shit for several seasons before finding their feet and running with the rest of the league. Ever the ambitious organization, they sought to avoid that fate on Day 1, if with a fatal flaw – e.g., bringing in (aging) Brazilian great Kaka on joining MLS in 2015 and, after he moved on, trying an updated version of the same thing luring (aging) Portuguese great Nani to Orlando in 2019. MLS broadcasters dutifully hyped both players, but Kaka never carried them to the playoffs and Nani would burn one season he could barely afford to (because, again, old) before Orlando finally built a roster equal to the work of pushing the team higher. It wasn’t for lack of trying, either: Orlando’s all-time roster (these things vary widely btw, but this is one of the good ones) amounts to a casting call of the good, the great and the reliable from teams all over MLS, maybe even yours. Unfortunately, few of them lasted long and even fewer of them delivered the goods. Orlando’s turning point came in the Weird Year, aka, 2020, aka, the COVID season, when they not only made the “real” playoffs for the first time (quarterfinals, baby!), but also reached their first final in the MLS Is Back tournament (won by my Portland Timbers!). That run could have been written off as Orlando enjoying homefield advantage throughout that tournament, but that argument never went far - it's not like they had fans cheering them on where other teams didn’t (no one did) – and they’ve (broadly) proved themselves a better organization season on season from there. Even if the Joy Points Scale doesn’t pick it up*, the Lions have qualified for the playoffs, if only as a wild-card team, from 2020 forward. More significantly, Orlando has found 1) reliable, if limited, consistency and 2) made improved showings in each of the 2023 and 2024 post-seasons. They bowed out to the eventual champs in both years and pushed (a damn good) Columbus to the wall and/or extra-time in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2023 (2024 Red Bull was the other team; reached the Eastern Conference final that season). That’s something the, say, 2017 and 2018 teams could hardly imagine. The “Sign Famous Old Guy” model died a righteous and deserved death, which is good, but that takes us to…
2025, Briefly
Despite some very real positives – e.g., an MVP-esque season for Martin Ojeda (16 goals, 15 assists), who had plenty of support from newcomer Marco Pasalic (12 goals, five assist) and Luis Muriel (nine goals, nine assists), among others (literally!) - Orlando took a stumble on their steady to climb toward the MLS elite. Worse, it followed from a gentle collapse that started in late-mid August and carried to the end of the regular season. They won just once over that period (at home v Nashville, and barely), which surely hurt twice as much coming after the June, July and Leagues Cup run that had them on a heater with an endless supply of power. One big reason for that: a lot of that goal scoring was front-loaded: that same “gentle collapse” period saw them score just 13 goals over the final ten regular season games; that’s a 1.3 goals/game average after banging in over two goals/game and with a free-scoring Leagues Cup run thrown in. Their key attacking players didn’t miss a lot of minutes – e.g., both Ojeda and Pasalic started 30 games or more – though I do see a little falling off for central midfield operators Cesar Araujo and Eduard Atuesta. I’m not a close enough observer of this team to float anything original or definitive, so I’m gonna run with a theory of general falling off - happens to the best of us, often at the worst of times.. I did watch them enough to develop a personal theory that Rodrigo Schlegel was a high-risk/mid-reward CB, but the defense still managed an average job last season. They held on to claim one of the East’s wild card spots, but were probably doomed by the time Chicago scored their second goal. Or their third.
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| Off U.S. 30 in Oregon, I think. Or was. Image for "collapse." |
After several seasons of listing violently in the wrong direction on either defense (2015-2018) or offense (Orlando went with sucking on both sides of the ball in 2017 and 2018; bravo on the double-down), the Lions settled into the team that their fans have known and believed in over the past two seasons – i.e., a team doing more or less of the right things on both sides of the ball. I hope you’re sitting down for this, but any team that goes over the average on the number of goals scored and under the average on goals allowed tends to have a good season. In fewer words, the trends aren’t deep – this goes back to 2020, at most – but they have been good. 2025 wasn’t quite an exception: the attack counted among the elite of teams not named Miami (until it didn’t anyway), but the defense did soften; not dramatically by any means (it was, in fact, perfectly average), but enough to matter when push came to shove (i.e., during the Eastern wild card game).
Players I Still Like/Additions So Far
Orlando responded to last year’s “struggles” by cleaning house – though “purging the house with witch magic” might come closer. A short list of the new-departed includes Araujo, Schlegel, Muriel, Dagur Dan Thorhallsson, and – why not? – goalkeeper, Pedro Gallese (normally good, but I saw some howlers too). Apart from bringing in Braian Ojeda for a little more midfield bite and calling in Maxime Crepeau to replace Gallese (a set Timbers fans craps on Crepeau hard enough to bury him, but he’s all right in my book), I don’t know much about the other players Orlando brought in (click here, scroll down to “O”). I have no indication that lost Martin Ojeda, Pasalic, so far, and they still have good players throughout the roster – e.g., Ivan Angulo, Antonio Freeman, and bringing in Tyrese Spicer gets a thumbs up from me – and they have still more pieces after that, e.g., a barely utilized Duncan McGuire and even Ramiro Enrique. Orlando still looks like a team to watch in 2026: I have my expectations, so it’s mostly a question of what we wind up watching for.
Historical Success (/Hysterical Failure)
Total Joy Points: 3
How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
MLS Is Back Runner-Up: 2020
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2024
MLS Playoffs/Quarterfinals: 2020, 2023
U.S. Open Cup: 2021
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