Thank you to Orlando City Communications for all pictures shown.
By: Luis Carlos Pineda
Orlando City bounced back from their disastrous defeat against Montreal and eliminated Philadelphia Union from US Open Cup contention. Ercan Kara and Andres Perea scored for the Lions and advanced to the round of 16 in this prestigious tournament.
Coach Oscar Pareja made some changes to his starting lineup with Mason Stajduhar in goal, Kyle Smith and Mikey Halliday in the backline and Andres Perea and Cesar Araujo at mid. On the other hand, Philadelphia started the game with 7 bench players on their starting lineup, therefore, giving us hints that they were very confident their bench could steal this game from the lions, but eventually those plans certainly backfired for them.
In the first half, Orlando came out swinging and created chances in attack. First it was Facundo Torres with a nice cross to Junior Urso that he missed with the open goal. The issue with the lions in the first half was the finishing. The team was creating chances in the final third but they could not score. As well, the recurrence of turning the ball over kept occurring. Halliday, Pato and others were great going into the attack but when they tried to find an association when going forward, they would turn over the ball and Philly would just go for the counter. Thankfully, Philadelphia did not capitalize on the opportunities. Jansson and Kyle Smith came up big on defense to contain Philly’s counters. When it came to Philly, Paxten Aaronson was the most influential in attack for the union. Cory Burke missed some chances as well. One of the most clear chances for the lions was in the 36th minute, Facundo Torres connected a beautiful cross to Alexandre Pato and the Brazilian legend instead of going for the goal, second guessed himself and Philly’s defense contained Orlando’s chance. It could’ve been the 1-0 lions.
In the second half, Orlando City kept creating chances in attack and in the 54th minute, Ercan Kara scored a golazo. Urso passed the ball to Mikey Halliday then he went on a run through the right flank and found Urso again who shot the ball and Ercan Kara scored off the rebound. It was 1-0 Orlando and the wall roared. In the 57th minute, Philly’s defense clears the ball and finds Andres Perea who dribbles, sees no one was around him and shoots a banger from 30 yards out and scores a golazo. Probably, the best of his career. Orlando City went up 2-0 and Currin’s side realized they were in trouble. Philly sent Carranza, Santos, Martinez into the game and things looked much better for Philadelphia. Philly started connecting and attacking the Lions non-stop. In the 77th minute, Philly got on the scoreboard. Bad coverage off a set piece, and Martinez found Findlay who scored past Stajduhar. Everyone in the stands was stunned because, in reality, the Union were just attacking non stop. The whole Orlando City backline did an amazing job containing Santos, Aaronson and Martinez. Kudos to Rodrigo Schlegel, Kyle Smith, Mikey Halliday. Orlando City eliminated the Union, a top contender for this trophy and moved on in the tournament.
Coach Oscar Pareja in the post press conference said: “I thought it was a very enjoyable game for our fans. The intensity shows the respect that both teams have for the Cup. It was not far from the high-level of the league and I like it a lot from the effort that our players put in, especially in a very, very difficult match against a very good team, too. I thought we were more consistent during the whole game, not just in the possession side where we wanted to keep the ball and have sequences, numbers and things like that. But to just have the creations, it was much more like us. So, a good time today to bounce back, now we will refocus on the league. But today was a match that we enjoyed a lot and congratulations to our players.” “I know the fans want more consistency, but today showed that we are getting there.” “Toronto is going to be a difficult rival.” “These 11 games have been positive rather than negative, we have found players that can play different positions.”
Andres Perea added: “I hope the goal helps me with my confidence moving forward for the next games.”
Mason Stajduhar added: “Means a lot to play these games, Oscar gives us a lot of confidence.” “The backline had an incredible performance, everyone stepped up and made it easy for me.” “Switching from 4 defenders out back to 5 it’s something we practice often.”
The Lions head to Canada for the second time to take on Toronto FC at BMO Field.
