Orlando City heads to the nation\u2019s capital Saturday night looking to prove that a midweek scoring surge was no fluke.<\/p>\n
The Lions (2-6-1, 7 points) take on D.C. United (2-4-3, 9 points) at Audi Field at 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all feeling very good after that great win,\u201d Orlando defender Zakaria Taifi said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a new energy that we all have. It doesn\u2019t matter we\u2019re playing every three days, we\u2019re just excited to play again because we want to keep this going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orlando finally snapped its early-season scoring funk Wednesday with a 4-1 home rout over Charlotte FC. Interim head coach Mart\u00edn Perelman asked his young players to step up and they delivered.<\/p>\n
Rookie midfielder Luis Otavio scored his first MLS goal. Short-term Orlando City B call-ups Ignacio Gomez grabbed his first MLS goal, while Justin Ellis picked up his first assist to help Mart\u00edn Ojeda secure a brace, his second of the season. The challenge now is doing it on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the experienced guys, and then we have the young guys coming in,\u201d said Taifi, an Orlando native. \u201cI\u2019ve been playing with Justin for a few years now and I think we did really well. We play really good together. It\u2019s just the beginning, so I\u2019m very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
D.C. United enters the match winless in its last five outings. United has struggled defensively at times, surrendering 13 goals over its first nine games, including four in a wild midweek draw against the New York Red Bulls. With Orlando sitting just two points below the playoff line, Saturday gives the Lions a clear shot at crucial road points so they can keep climbing the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are direct in the way they attack,\u201d Perelman said about United. \u201cThey have some pretty good players. We will be there to focus on us and try to execute our game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following Saturday\u2019s trip to Washington, the Lions remain on the road, visiting the New England Revolution in the U.S. Open Cup Round of 16 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando City heads to the nation\u2019s capital Saturday night looking to prove that a midweek scoring surge was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245873,"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-245872","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\/245872","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=245872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}