It’s a heck of a weekend for games featuring Kansas City and Orlando. Sporting Kansas City hit the road to face Orlando City while the top of the table KC Current host the Orlando Pride at CPKC Stadium.
To help us learn about one of the Orlando teams, Ben Miller, Senior Columnist at The Mane Land, shares his expertise on Orlando City ahead of this weekend’s MLS clash and I do the same for his readers.
Below are Ben’s answers to my questions.
1. Talk me through some of Orlando’s offseason moves. Who left, who arrived, and how have those arrivals looked up to this point in the season?
The biggest offseason departure was Designated Player Facundo Torres, who left to join Palmeiras. Also going out the door were Nico Lodeiro, Felipe, Luca Petrasso, and Mikey Halliday.
The big signings coming in the door were Marco Pasalic and Eduard Atuesta. Pasalic was signed as a DP to replace Torres, while Atuesta was signed after Wilder Cartagena suffered a ruptured Achilles Tendon in preseason. Nicolas Rodriguez was also signed as a U22 Initiative player. Adrian Marin and Tyrese Spicer have been signed in the summer window as additional reinforcements at winger and left back.
Pasalic has done pretty well so far with 11 goals and four assists in league play so far. Torres finished last season with 14 goals and six assists in the league, so the Croatian isn’t far off from matching those 20 goal contributions.
Atuesta has been excellent, and is really important to Orlando’s success. Cartagena was an excellent defensive midfielder and formed a strong partnership with Cesar Araujo as the double pivot in Oscar Pareja’s 4-2-3-1, but Atuesta is so good at orchestrating play from that deep-lying role, and pulling strings for the offense. He’s got seven assists from a position that’s nominally defensive. We haven’t seen a ton of Rodriguez on the field, Spicer got a cameo last game against Miami that showed some flashes of promise, and we’re waiting on new signing Marin to make his debut.
2. Walk us through Orlando’s recent form.
It’s been a bit of a weird summer for the Lions. You see some questionable results like the 1-1 draw against
CF Montreal at home and a 2-1 home loss to
NYCFC where they coughed up a lead at the end of the game. On the flip side, since those two results OCSC is on a six-game unbeaten run in all competitions, with a 3-1 away win over
Columbus, 3-1 and 5-1 Leagues Cup wins over Atlas and Necaxa respectively, and a 4-1 win over
Miami. That makes it hard to get a truly good read on this team, but lately the results have been pretty good.
3. The Eastern Conference is full of killers and Orlando is in the running. Where do you think they’ll finish?
Orlando has a lot of tough games remaining, and at present is still involved in Leagues Cup as well, which further complicates things. After Kansas City visits, there are a pair of games against
Nashville, a date with
Vancouver,
Cincinnati on the road, and another match with Columbus.
That being said, Orlando is a team that struggles to break down opponents who pack things in and sit in a low block, which goes a decent way to explaining two draws with Montreal this year. By contrast, when playing teams that want to come out and attack, OCSC is really great at creating things in transition moments after winning the ball in midfield; that’s how the Lions scored three of their four goals against Miami on Sunday. With Cincy and Nashville second and third, and Columbus in 5th, if Orlando can keep to its recent trend of good results against strong teams, then it could absolutely make a push.
Another factor to consider is that the Lions seem to be getting healthy at the right time, with Joran Gerbet and Duncan McGuire nearing returns, along with the additions of Spicer and Marin. I’ll be optimistic and say that the reinforcements help buoy the team when it needs the extra help, and project a 3rd place finish.
4. Can you give us a projected Starting XI and who may be out with injury?
McGuire is still limited in training, so we shouldn’t be seeing him quite yet. Gerbet could make an appearance from the bench though. Cartagena and Yutaro Tsukada are both out for the season. Other than that it should be a clean bill of health. I do anticipate some level of rotation with a Leagues Cup quarterfinal against Toluca looming large next Wednesday.
Pedro Gallese; David Brekalo, Robin Jansson, Rodrigo Schlegel, Alex Freeman; Eduard Atuesta, Kyle Smith, Tyrese Spicer, Martin Ojeda, Nicolas Rodriguez; Luis Muriel.
Below are my answers to Ben’s questions.Â
1. Talk me through some of SKC’s offseason moves. Who arrived and how have those arrivals looked up to this point in the season?
The biggest moves were the signing of two new Designated Players. Dejan Joveljic became the first ever cash transfer in MLS history, joining from the LA Galaxy for $4 million. He’s largely been a success, scoring 13 goals this season. The other DP is the new #10, Manu Garcia. The game absolutely moves through Garcia. He leads the team in key passes (41) and assists (9) and the first week he was out injured the team was lost without him.
While the defense has been historically bad, the team’s first round pick, Jansen Miller, has established himself as a starting caliber CB who is comfortable playing against the best players in the league.
The last stand out new signing is Santi Munoz, who is on loan from Santos Laguna. He’s also a CF and the team has struggled to get him and Dejan on the field at the same time, but they rolled out a 4-4-2 for the first time last week and it showed real promise.
2. For the first time in a long time, Peter Vermes is not the manager of Sporting Kansas City. Are there any differences in the way that the team is set up and wants to play under interim manager Kerry Zavagnin?
If you ask some fans, they’ll say Zavagnin is a continuation of PV, but they aren’t paying attention. Sure, the team has mostly run out Vermes’ preferred 4-3-3, but KZ has been very willing to change. He’s started a lot of younger players, he’s quick to make changes when things aren’t working, and we’ve seen numerous formation/tactical flips midgame.
Last week was the first time we saw something overtly change before the game, so Orlando might not know what they’ll get Saturday. The team has flipped into a back three several times and many believe that may be the best way to set up the defense to get the best out of this team. The team just signed Alan Montes on loan from Necaxa but he only got a brief cameo at CB last week.
3. With just an eight point gap between Kansas City and the playoff line, plus a game in hand over the teams in 8th and 9th place, the postseason is by no means out of reach. What is the biggest thing SKC needs to change if it wants to climb up the table and get into the playoffs?
Personally, I think it’s the formation. The team has no right backs worth being on the field, but they have some guys that could play right wing back. They rolled out a double pivot for the first time last week and it completely disrupted San Diego FC’s gameplan. If not for a worldie from Chucky Lozano, and the
inability to finish when the team had 2.7 xG, they probably win. A switch of formation would also allow the team to get the best three attacking players, Joveljic, Garcia and Munoz, all on the field together.
4. Will any players be unavailable due to injury, suspension, etc.? What is your projected starting lineup and score prediction?
The only notable injury is Erik Thommy, who is third on the team in goals. Despite that, he’s a man without a position on this team. Logan Ndenbe also left the last game early and his absence broke apart the team’s double pivot.
As far as the lineup, since the 4-4-2 was so successful last week, I suspect we may see that again. The issue is, Manu Garcia wasn’t in that starting lineup as he returned from injury and he can’t play as one of the two midfielders in a double pivot (nor should he).
I think the best way to get him on the field is something like a 3-4-1-2 or 3-4-2-1. The issue is, that leaves Daniel Salloi no clear spot. Something wild would be to play the left winger at right wing back. He’s right-foot dominant and has a good defensive work rate and with a back three for cover and Davis and Bassong as an active double pivot, he could range forward. Alternatively, he could just start on the bench and the team can play either Khiry Shelton or Andrew Brody at RWB, but let’s go nuts and play Salloi there.
Pulskamp | Miller – Montes – Voloder | Salloi – Davis – Bassong – Ndenbe | Munoz – Garcia | Joveljic
That probably won’t happen, but we’ll see. It’s tough to imagine Sporting KC breaking their four-game winless streak on the road against Orlando. I’ll say it’s a 2-1 loss but hope deep down to surprise their former USL affiliate.
