Orlando City is headed to the Big Apple, still looking for the team\u2019s first points of 2026.<\/p>\n
After opening the season with losses to the Red Bulls<\/a> and Inter Miami<\/a>, the Lions (0-2-0, 0 points) take on New York City FC (1-0-1, 4 points) at Yankee Stadium on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.<\/p>\n \u201cI think our team, in the last game, already just gave signs of improvement and commitment and trying to do much more efficiently what we need in order to win,\u201d said Orlando coach Oscar Pareja said. \u201cNow we need to keep doing that, but win games, and no doubt that we are urgent to get results, and I feel that is a challenge, but I think we have a good mentality, and the boys are ready.\u201d<\/p>\n Playing at Yankee Stadium is tough for any team, with the narrow field presenting a unique challenge in Major League Soccer. Teams are often forced to play through the middle, something NYCFC is excellent at. Keaton Parks plays a crucial role in connecting their defense to the attack, and Orlando will hope to man-mark him and shut him down.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that the field up there is always, always really complicated to play on, right? It\u2019s difficult, it always feels strange when we\u2019re up there playing on that field. But we\u2019ve worked well during the week with the coaching staff,\u201d Orlando winger Ivan Angulo said. \u201cWe\u2019ve narrowed down our training field so that way we can simulate the size and the feel of how it\u2019s going to be on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that it\u2019s a really small field, and the game is probably going to be very centralized throughout the entire thing, and we\u2019ve been working on that throughout the week to make sure that we\u2019re prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n NYCFC\u2019s fluid 4-3-3 formation also utilizes a false nine, with the attackers moving between different positions across the front. They also like to bring their fullbacks up high, exposing space in behind. Orlando will need to be compact and on alert, something Nolan Miller has helped with at the center of defense for the Lions.<\/p>\n If they can shut down the middle and pounce on the counterattack, they stand a chance of earning their first points of the season. Martin Ojeda and Marco Pasalic both scored in the 4-2 loss to Inter Miami, and they will need to keep that form going against New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando City is headed to the Big Apple, still looking for the team\u2019s first points of 2026. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181177,"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":{"0":"post-181176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-orange-county","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-city-sc","12":"tag-orlando-headlines","13":"tag-orlando-news","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-social-sports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181176","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=181176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}