{"id":263110,"date":"2026-05-08T05:59:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T05:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/263110\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T05:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T05:59:15","slug":"orlando-pride-to-host-north-carolina-courage-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/263110\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Pride to host North Carolina Courage on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orlando Pride are back in action Friday night, looking to rebound from a disappointing 4-2 loss to the Washington Spirit.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Pride (2-3-2, 8 points) take on the North Carolina Courage (2-2-3, 9 points) at Inter&Co Stadium at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn any game in this league, it\u2019s always going to be a tough matchup. They\u2019re looking to bounce back from a defeat this past weekend; similarly, we are as well,\u201d Orlando head coach Seb Hines said. \u201cWe want to get our home form going again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlando has just one win in four home matches this season, a 2-1 victory over Angel City on April 3. Hines and his players have stressed the importance of establishing home-field advantage, but defensive mistakes have derailed those efforts.<\/p>\n

The Pride have conceded 11 goals in seven games, largely due to a struggling backline partnership between Rafaelle and Hailie Mace. While there have been brief flashes of stability, Orlando needs more consistent defensive performances to climb back into the playoff picture before the summer break.<\/p>\n

Offensively, Orlando continues to lean heavily on forward Barbra Banda. Banda has seven goals in seven games, while the rest of the roster has combined for just four. The coaching staff has tweaked the formation and shifted players to generate more chances, a strategy they hope pays off against a Courage side that has allowed 10 goals this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working on shifting faster and covering splits more and making changes for this North Carolina game and making sure that our press is matching their style of play,\u201d Orlando forward Simone Jackson said. \u201cI think the changes that we\u2019re about to make for this upcoming game [are] going to be effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

North Carolina sits just below the playoff line on goal differential, paced by winger Ashley Sanchez\u2019s five goals. The Pride must also contain attack-minded right back Ryan Williams, who leads the Courage with five big chances created and three assists.<\/p>\n

Following Friday\u2019s match, Orlando heads out on a three-game trip, starting with a midweek clash against expansion side Boston Legacy FC on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Pride are back in action Friday night, looking to rebound from a disappointing 4-2 loss to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,1335,139,141,140,3968,2062,76046,110],"class_list":["post-263110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-pride","tag-soccer","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263110","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=263110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}