several new faces<\/a> set to take the field for the first time, including new starting goalkeeper Maxime Crepaeu. The Canadian international is an experienced starter in MLS, and he believes the Lions are prepared for the long season ahead.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a preseason that everybody worked very hard to get physically, tactically, mentally there, because it\u2019s a marathon at the end of the day,\u201d Crepaeu said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a long season with the World Cup in the summer. But everybody\u2019s feeling good, excited. The mood is great in the team right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York has undergone some significant changes as well, welcoming in a brand new head coach in U.S. Men\u2019s National Team icon Michael Bradley. The experienced former midfielder took charge of the club\u2019s MLS Next Pro side in 2025 and had them playing explosive attacking soccer. The expectation is that his Red Bulls side will match that energy, but with a bit more skill added into the equation.<\/p>\n
With several offseason changes to the defensive side of the field, Orlando will be leaning on its veteran attack, led by designated players Martin Ojeda and Marco Pasalic. Striker Duncan McGuire will take over the lead attacking role from Luis Muriel, and he knows how important it is for the forwards to contribute and give the defense some help as the players find their footing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to defending, (coach) Oscar (Pareja) says that it\u2019s not just the back line defending the goal, it\u2019s the entire team, and it starts with the guys in front,\u201d McGuire. \u201cI think we\u2019ve also brought in some good guys that can help us, you know, Noel [Miller], Iago and Griffin [Dorsey] recently. They\u2019re quality players that can help us defensively. So I think it\u2019s going to be a strong back line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando City kicks off the 2026 season at home on Saturday, looking to make a statement with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,1335,139,4788,141,140,2062,76046,110],"class_list":["post-162996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city-sc","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-soccer","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162996","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=162996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}