Level Set 16, Orlando City SC: Life After Breaking a Bad Model

A ringer. Not pictured: Kaka or Nani.

What follows is a brief history of Orlando City SC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

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…

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 3-0 FC Cincinnati: Training Wheels Forever

Sometimes it takes a while...

I watched as much of FC Cincinnati’s latest loss as felt worthwhile - a little more than I should have, honestly, and, yes, “latest loss” is the phrasing I’m going with. Orlando City SC only beat them 3-0 in the end, a final score that felt like mercy after Cincy went down by two goals inside the first 20 minutes.

I’m not going to spend much time to picking through the entrails of this one, and on the grounds that, 1) the beast is well-dead and there’s not much mystery as to the cause of death, and 2) I don’t think it has much to tell Cincinnati fans about the future that they don’t already know. I do, however, have one thought to impart to a justifiable restless fan-base: what about this match up would make you expect anything but the result that happened? To put that another way, why would you expect a team that has most of its shit together - that’s Orlando - give away anything at home to a team that has yet to figure out even some of its shit?

Look, Orlando is a well-coached team with good players - e.g., Nani (who had time to thoroughly embarrass Yuya Kubo when scoring Orlando’s second goal), Mauricio Pereyra, Chris Mueller, Junior Urso, Pedro Gallese, Ruan, and, mind, that list is incomplete - that is both strong at home (heard some stat about one loss at home in their last 11 from the broadcast booth) and damned hard to score against (one goal allowed in three games this season and, again, I heard something about less than 1.0 goals per game allowed during the Oscar Pareja era). There’s nothing wrong with feeling (constant, borderline existential) disappointment with a result, or even rage, but there is something very unhealthy about, to torture an example, expecting to get a unicorn pony for Christmas when absolutely nothing in your prior experience points to ever getting one. Basically, keep a little perspective as you watch Cincinnati struggle out of the quicksand.

Given all the above, yeah, the game probably was over by the 35th second, when a clumsy back-pass by Nick Hagglund teed up the game-winner for Orlando’s Tesho Akindele. Cincinnati tried to settle down after and recover, naturally, but anyone who saw this game saw what I saw - a lot of tentative passes forward chased backwards by a middling Orlando press, a lot of kicking the ball around Cincinnati’s back-line, a lot of errant passes upfield, a number of desperate dribbles, and far too many instances of Orlando catching a Cincinnati player in possession (Kubo, often as not) and rushing a counter toward Pzremyslaw Tyton’s goal…and why the hell doesn’t MLSSoccer.com show saves as a stat anymore?

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.