Getting Reacquainted with Orlando City SC, MLS's Solid B Students

My man, bringing all the good not great.

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 signed 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, but that's one of the good ones, btw) 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!). The near term 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. 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 (and on a regrettably bloated invitation list), from 2020 forward. More significantly, Orlando has found 1) a reliable, if limited, consistency and 2) have clawed a little higher in each of the past two post-seasons. I speak to the 2024 season below, and finally start naming names, but they also pushed eventual champs (and damn good team) Columbus Crew SC to extra-time in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2023. That’s something the, say, 2017 and 2018 teams could hardly imagine. The “Sign Famous Old Guy” model died a righteous and deserved death.

Total Joy Points: 2

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

Getting Reacquainted with Orlando City SC, an Erratic Rising Power(?)

Plan A, Part II.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

Orlando City SC’s history follows the traditional expansion team narrative of eating shit for several seasons before finding their feet and running with the rest of the league. Ever the ambitious organization, they strived mightily to avoid that fate – e.g., they signed (aging) Brazilian great Kaka on joining MLS in 2015 and, after he moved on, they tried again by signing (aging) Portuguese great Nani 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 old) before Orlando provided the supporting cast to get them there. On that last piece, it wasn’t for lack of trying: Orlando’s all-time roster (one of the good ones, btw) 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 playoffs for the first time, but also reached their first final, the MLS Is Back tournament (won by my Portland Timbers!). Tempting as it is to argue that Orlando enjoyed homefield advantage throughout the tournament, it's not like they had fans cheering them on, because no one did. What’s more, they argued against 20202 as a fluke where it counts, i.e., on the field: Orlando have qualified for the playoffs every season since. They didn’t always hit them in the best form – e.g., see 10th and 13th place finishes in 2021 and 2022, respectively – but they have 1) found (a form of) consistency, and 2) just wrapped up their best-ever regular season in 2023, finishing second overall and pushing eventual champs (and damn good team) Columbus Crew SC to extra-time in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Best Season(s)

Didn’t mention that they won the 2022 U.S. Open Cup in the above, but I’m still calling 2023 Orlando’s best.

Long-Term Tendencies

Nothing that counts as a pattern, really, at least not beyond having good seasons every time they’ve posted good numbers at both ends of the field – i.e., 2020 and 2023 (also, duh). That said, their defense either killed them or fucking killed them over the first four seasons (2015-2018). It has improved since, but stout defenses are hardly their calling card. The attack yo-yos just as much, all of which is a long way of stating that Orlando puts it all together only now and then, but still more recently than they used to.

Orlando City SC 0-0 FC Cincinnati: More Dutiful Than Beautiful

You can move a lot without going anywhere...

In last week’s Review/Preview, I called Orlando Ciy SC v FC Cincinnati a “Big Early Test.” The hosts failed the test harder than the visitors in yesterday’s 0-0 loss, but Cincinnati doesn’t have a lot to cheer either.

Damn that stray glance I caught while bouncing between games last night, because I knew the final score going in. I still watched every damn minute...well, a lot minutes (a solid 85%) of this game just now and don’t entirely regret the experience. If nothing else, Cincy tidied up the mess in midfield after the opener. Junior Moreno looked steady and I liked the way he (mostly) set up to allow Obinna Nwobodo to prowl further up-field – and to pretty decent effect. Nwobodo set up what may have been the best shot of the game - i.e., the one a happily more-visible Brandon Vazquez chipped against the crossbar – and that speaks to a larger truth, i.e., if either team was going to score yesterday, it would have been Cincinnati.

Turning to the flip-side of that thought, Orlando simply does not generate much offense – or at least haven’t over their first two games of 2023. They’ve fired 13 shots total so far (see this and see that) and with just two on frame (and was one of them the penalty that won it against Red Bull New York?). Having sat through my first full(ish) 90 with them, yeah, can confirm it's a lot of aimless shit, moving in and about the top of the attacking third and to no notable affect. Honestly, you have to assume their fans are bored shitless so far.

I heard talk from the broadcast booth about Orlando “heavily-rotating” its squad ahead of Tuesday’s CCL game against Mexico’s Tigres UANL, but Orlando still squeezed 45-65 minutes out of several clear starters - e.g., Mauricio Pereyra, Robin Jansson, Facundo Torres and Ercan Kara – though let the record note the rumblings from the broadcast booth about looking for options beyond Kara to give the attack some kind of juice.

So, that’s who and what Cincinnati was up against. And, sure and to their credit, they did all right with it. The team found a minimum of two great looks for Luciano Acosta, Brenner fired at least one shot in anger, and Vazquez finally made his 2023 debut, making smart passes – if I recall right, he dimed the big, fat diagonal that teed up Acosta’s better chance - spreading the field with hard, effective running and getting into decent-to-good places in the box. Unfortunately, Orlando’s Pedro Gallese saved all of those, most of them comfortably. To sum Cincinnati’s evening into one pithy phrase...it was fine.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Orlando City SC: Your Asterisks Can Fuck Off

A holy grail.

First, how was that so satisfying? In form, the Magical World of Major League Soccer, aka, #MWoMLS, aka, #MLSIsBack, felt closest to the distilled version of the U.S. Open Cup that I’ve been psychically willing into existence since 2010 (if only low-key). On the other hand, like any playoff arrangement that (so long as you make it) washes away the sins of what came before (if only to an extent), this tournament felt like any other set of playoffs, only with a three-game “regular season” before it, which left precious little time for the finding of feet and the sorting out of issues for most teams involved.

Put in that last, specific contest, it’s less of a surprise that an experienced - or, in a more clarifying phrasing, a grounded - Portland Timbers team kept their collective heads in a refreshingly back-and-forth final 2-1 over a highly-deserving Orlando City SC that I expect we’ll all hear from in the near-future…long-term looks trickier, but their path looks surer than it did before this tournament.

There’s no question in my mind that having the more familiar set of assumptions won the game for Portland. And that’s where the urge to credit Orlando really kicks in: Diego Chara and Eryk Williamson never dominated the midfield like they had over some past games in this tournament. Both the Timbers’ game-plan and the way Orlando plays made putting pressure on the ball a game of laying traps, especially where the space gets tighter, and exploiting them. Some teams - LAFC springs to mind here - seek to overwhelm the opposition by throwing more players and passes at them than they can manage. Orlando, meanwhile, ran in a couple gears tonight: it was mostly methodical prying for openings - see the fucking crazy disparity in passes/possession - but they showed a pretty decent capacity to bull-rush players into Portland’s penalty area down the stretch (e.g., the only example from the highlights, but there were more); the general level of control was impressive, basically, and Orlando looked as likely as Philadelphia did to tie the game late. The way I see it, Portland fans have seen their team cough up enough leads to truly appreciate the occasions when they don’t do it. That detail alone made the Magical World of Major League Soccer a little more magical for Timbers fans than for anyone else in MLS…and people are already slagging this trophy, aren’t they? Yes…I can feel the energy seeping into my consciousness as I type. Bastards…

I have a couple more notes on Orlando before moving on. First, if you’ve looked into their history at all, you’ll know that defense has killed them for as long as they’ve been a(n MLS) franchise. As such, seeing them look as solid as they do during the run of play - not just tonight, but throughout the tournament (insofar as I watched them) - could be the brightest sign for their future. They look like they have something in Robin Jansson and Antonio Carlos, and credit to them for that…but, as a midfield obsessive, between received reputation and having seen Mauricio Pereyra over a full 90, I think Orlando has landed one hell of a player. He looks to have Diego Chara’s stamina and ball-hunting instincts, plus what looks like a slightly-elevated attacking skill-set. The headlines might go to Nani - and deservedly based on what he’s done in this tournament - but Pereyra feels more like the franchise player, especially given that he’s only 30.