Orlando City survived a second-half collapse and a wild back-and-forth affair to secure a 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Union on Wednesday night at Inter&Co Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Lions found their lifeline in the dying moments of the match. In the 90th minute, Adrian Marin delivered a driving cross into the box, and Mart\u00edn Ojeda got just enough of his head on the ball to steer it home, sealing the dramatic victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely made it harder on ourselves than it needed to be, but I think we did a good job at responding when they tied it up,\u201d Orlando forward Duncan McGuire said. \u201cWe needed to look for that third goal more quickly. \u2026 We let Philly get some hope, and they did a good job clawing back, but really proud of the boys for sticking with it and staying confident getting the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
The late heroics salvaged a match that began with Orlando in full control. The Lions opened the scoring in the 17th minute after Union goalkeeper Andrew Rick brought down Ojeda in the box. Ojeda stepped up to the spot and sent Rick the wrong way for the 1-0 advantage.<\/p>\n
The Lions (4-8-1, 13 points) doubled their lead in the 27th minute through strong hold-up play from Tiago. He maintained possession in the box before laying the ball off to Griffin Dorsey, who blasted a shot past Rick to make it 2-0. The ensuing celebration turned into a surprise announcement that Dorsey and his wife are expecting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting to celebrate with the fans,\u201d Dorsey said. \u201cSo it just feels good to get my first one at home, and then to announce that my wife is pregnant, due in December, is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philadelphia (1-9-3, 6 points) pulled a goal back in the 54th minute. Cavan Sullivan initiated the attack, finding Nathan Harriel, who delivered a precise cross to Milan Iloski for the finish.<\/p>\n
Orlando answered quickly to make it 3-1. Tyrese Spicer drove the ball forward on a fast break and squared it to a wide open McGuire. The substitute hammered a shot through Rick\u2019s hands for his second goal of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely a well-done play from Spicer and Mart\u00edn,\u201d McGuire added. \u201cMart\u00edn helped drag the defender away, but we definitely knew that they were vulnerable in the transition, and we were able to exploit that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Union responded again in the 75th minute. The 16-year-old Sullivan collected his first career MLS goal, playing a cross to Ben Bender and finishing the return pass to cut the deficit to 3-2.<\/p>\n
After Orlando squandered a chance on the counterattack, Philadelphia capitalized in transition to erase the remaining deficit. The Union pushed up the pitch quickly to find an unmarked Bender, who drove a low shot past the outstretched fingers of Maxime Cr\u00e9peau to level the match at 3-3 in the 79th minute, setting the stage for Ojeda\u2019s last-minute winner.<\/p>\n
The Lions will remain at home to host Atlanta United on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando City survived a second-half collapse and a wild back-and-forth affair to secure a 4-3 victory over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270357,"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-270356","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\/270356","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=270356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}