Everything you need to know for the Lions’ Wild Card match in “The Road Ahead” driven by Audi:<\/p>\n
\n Milestones<\/p>\n
– Orlando City is looking to win its postseason opener for the third consecutive season after wins against Nashville in 2023 and Charlotte in 2024.<\/p>\n
– Mart\u00edn Ojeda is one assist away from achieving the first 20\/20 season in club history. A goal contribution of any kind would give Ojeda 40 combined goals and assists for the season across all competitions.<\/p>\n
– Ojeda\u2019s next goal, his 21st of 2025, will set a new single-season record for Orlando City in all competitions, surpassing Facundo Torres\u2019 20-goal haul in 2024. Ojeda would also tie Cyle Larin\u2019s 17-goal 2015 for the most goals scored in an MLS regular season in club history.<\/p>\n
– Duncan McGuire\u2019s next goal, his 31st in all competitions for the club, will tie Nani for fourth place in club history.<\/p>\n
\n Stats & Storylines<\/p>\n
– Orlando City faces a difficult road through the MLS Cup Playoffs after a tough 4-2 loss to Toronto FC at BMO Field last weekend. Despite a 53-point haul that ranks second in club history, the Lions fell to ninth in the Eastern Conference thanks to Columbus\u2019 win against the New York Red Bulls and Chicago\u2019s 90\u2019+9\u2019 equalizer in New England. The Lions\u2019 53 points would have placed them sixth in the East or better in any other season in MLS history. Orlando also would have been the 6-seed in the Western Conference, which saw a team with just 41 points qualify for the playoffs.<\/p>\n
– The Lions begin their postseason climb on Wednesday in Chicago looking to follow in the footsteps of last season\u2019s Eastern Conference 9-seed, Atlanta United, which won its Wild Card matchup in Montr\u00e9al before going on to stun Inter Miami in its Round One Best of 3 series.<\/p>\n
– Despite the loss this past weekend, Orlando City sports a strong 6-4-7 away record, earning the fifth-most points on the road of any Eastern Conference team and the second-most outside the East\u2019s top 3 teams. Only FC Cincinnati has earned more away points than Orlando over the past three years.<\/p>\n
– Orlando City ends the regular season with a club-record 63 goals, third in the Eastern Conference and sixth overall. Mart\u00edn Ojeda\u2019s historic 16g\/15a season set new club single season records for assists and total goal contributions, while Marco Pa\u0161ali\u0107 (14g\/5a) and Luis Muriel (9g\/9a) rounded out a strong Designated Player group. Alex Freeman (6g\/3a) was one of the most productive defenders in MLS while ascending into a regular role for the United States Men\u2019s National Team.<\/p>\n
– The Lions are 4-2-2 in Audi MLS Cup Playoffs action since the switch to the current format in 2023. Orlando has advanced past the Round One Best of 3 series in each of the past two years, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals last season. Wednesday will mark City\u2019s debut appearance in the Wild Card Game.<\/p>\n
\n Series History<\/p>\n
All-time vs. Chicago – 8-7-8, -5 GD (5-3-3, +3 GD home)<\/p>\n
2015 – W 2-3 (A), L 3-1 (A\/USOC), D 1-1 (H), W 0-1 (A)<\/p>\n
2016 – D 1-1 (H), D 2-2 (A)<\/p>\n
2017 – D 0-0 (H), L 4-0 (A)<\/p>\n
2018 – L 1-2 (H), L 4-0 (A)<\/p>\n
2019 – D 1-1 (A), L 2-5 (H)<\/p>\n
2021 – L 3-1 (A), W 1-0 (H)<\/p>\n
2022 – D 0-0 (A), W 1-0 (H)<\/p>\n
2023 – W 3-1 (H), W 1-3 (A)<\/p>\n
2024 – D 1-1 (A), W 4-2 (H)<\/p>\n
2025 – D 0-0 (A), L 1-3 (H)<\/p>\n
\n Meet the opponent: Chicago Fire FC<\/p>\n
– Orlando City and Chicago will face off in the MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time ever on Wednesday. The Fire will be the Lions\u2019 ninth unique postseason opponent. 2025 is the first season in which Orlando City and Chicago both qualified for the MLS Cup Playoffs at the same time.<\/p>\n
– Chicago\u2019s appearance is their first in the postseason since 2017, when Bayern Munich legend Bastian Schweinsteiger led a side managed by Veljko Paunovi\u0107. The Fire is in its first season under former U.S.M.N.T. head coach Gregg Berhalter, who is making his fifth playoff appearance in six seasons as an MLS manager.<\/p>\n
– The Fire enjoyed an extraordinary offensive season, led by MLS All-Star winger Philip Zinckernagel (15g\/15a) and DP striker Hugo Cuypers (17g\/3a). Homegrown attacking midfielder Brian Gut\u00ederrez (9g\/6a), DP winger Jonathan Bamba (5g\/10a), and left back Andrew Gutman (3g\/10a) were all major contributors as well. Chicago\u2019s 68 goals ranked second in MLS behind Inter Miami.<\/p>\n
– On the other side, though, Chicago shipped 60 goals this season, the most of any playoff team and tied for the sixth-most in the entire league. The Fire conceded two or more goals in 19 of its 34 MLS regular season matches, including each of its past three games. Chicago has also struggled at home this season, posting a 6-5-6 record that ranks as the worst of any Eastern Conference playoff team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everything you need to know for the Lions’ Wild Card match in “The Road Ahead” driven by Audi:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[7699,11909,4791,8002,7700,4792,4787,115,139,4786,141,140,7697],"class_list":{"0":"post-14431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-alexander-freeman","9":"tag-chivsorl-10-22-2025","10":"tag-duncan-mcguire","11":"tag-luis-muriel","12":"tag-marco-pasalic","13":"tag-martin-ojeda","14":"tag-matchday","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-orlando","17":"tag-orlando-city","18":"tag-orlando-headlines","19":"tag-orlando-news","20":"tag-the-road-ahead"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}