{"id":267007,"date":"2026-05-11T19:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267007\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T19:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:21:11","slug":"orlando-starts-critical-road-trip-against-expansion-side-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267007\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando starts critical road trip against expansion side Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orlando Pride earned an important 1-0 win<\/a> Friday over the North Carolina Courage, and now they embark on a three-game road trip looking to build on that momentum.<\/p>\n

The Pride start their travels against the expansion Boston Legacy FC on Tuesday at Gillette Stadium. Kickoff is 7 p.m. Orlando is 3-3-2 with 11 points. Boston is 1-5-2 with 5 points and is unbeaten in its last three matches after losing its first five matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe travel that we have to deal with \u2014 obviously, it\u2019s not easy,\u201d Orlando head coach Seb Hines said. \u201cWe\u2019ll assess everyone. We\u2019ll make sure the players who didn\u2019t get many minutes (are) ready to go as well. (It) gives us that platform to go on and get another win against Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbra Banda has been instrumental for the Pride again this season and has scored a league-leading eight goals in eight matches. She proved against the Courage that stopping her is incredibly difficult, but Orlando is going to need someone else to step up and help add to the attack, or the team risks becoming too one-dimensional.<\/p>\n

Banda is responsible for two-thirds of the Pride\u2019s 12 goals this season. The only other Orlando player with more than one goal is Haley McCutcheon, with two. Lizbeth Ovalle and Hannah Anderson have scored the Pride\u2019s other goals this season.<\/p>\n

Facing an expansion side like Boston is a great chance for players to make that leap and get on the scoresheet. Boston is allowing 1.75 goals per game, and currently sit at the bottom of the league table. The Legacy showed more fight in a 1-1 draw against Gotham FC last time out, but they are still finding their footing in the league and earned their first victory May 3 against the NWSL\u2019s other expansion club this season, Denver Summit FC.<\/p>\n

Where the Legacy struggles the most is in the attack, where they are scoring only 0.88 goals per game. Their seven goals in eight games are tied for second-worst in the league, which is good news for an Orlando defense that has been inconsistent this season. Alba Cano and Aissata Traore lead Boston with two goals each.<\/p>\n

\"OrlandoOrlando midfielder Summer Yates (28) heads the ball Friday against North Carolina and helped the Pride to a 1-0 victory. (Stephen M. Dowell\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

Hines made some tweaks to the formation against North Carolina that allowed Orlando\u2019s defense to earn its third clean sheet of the season. If he keeps the same lineup against Boston, it will be a great opportunity for those players to continue growing into their adjusted roles for tougher matchups later in the season.<\/p>\n

Following Tuesday\u2019s match, Orlando travels to Denver to face the Summit on Saturday at 8:45 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Pride earned an important 1-0 win Friday over the North Carolina Courage, and now they embark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267008,"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-267007","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\/267007","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=267007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}