{"id":272575,"date":"2026-05-15T18:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272575\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T18:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:31:08","slug":"orlando-city-hosts-first-of-two-versus-atlanta-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272575\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando City hosts first of two versus Atlanta United"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orlando City earned an important 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Union<\/a> on Wednesday, and now prepares for the first of two meetings with Atlanta United in four days.<\/p>\n

The Lions and United kickoff at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Inter&Co Stadium in MLS regular-season action, then meet Tuesday in Orlando in a quarterfinal of the U.S. Open Cup tournament.<\/p>\n

Orlando is 4-8-1 with 13 points, good for the 12th in the Eastern Conference table. Atlanta United is 3-8-1 with 10 points and is in 14th place in the East.<\/p>\n

After Wednesday\u2019s win over Philadelphia, Orlando City interim head coach Martin Perelman is likely to rotate his squad for Saturday\u2019s match after the midweek game. That would allow key players to potentially get some rest before the important Cup match. It\u2019s a delicate balance for the coach, because Orlando\u2019s players still want to build momentum in the league with the World Cup break fast approaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just go with the flow, take the last game\u2019s three points, enjoy them, even though we know that we need to address some things within the group,\u201d Orlando captain Robin Jansson said. \u201cSo heading into this first Atlanta game, go for it, and then we have the Open Cup game after, but first this game on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atlanta has been a tough rival for Orlando in the past, holding a 12-6-7 record against the Lions in all competitions since joining the league in 2017. Seven of those defeats for Orlando have been home losses. While this version of Atlanta United is not as strong as it once was, there is still plenty of firepower. Aleksey Miranchuk has scored five goals for Atlanta. Emmanuel Latte Lath and Saba Lobjanidze each have two goals.<\/p>\n

Martin Ojeda leads the Orlando City attack and is tied with five other players in MLS with nine goals on the season. Tyrese Spicer, Duncan McGuire and Marco Pasalic all have two goals. Pasalic will make his return from injury Saturday.<\/p>\n

One of the main goals for the Lions is to shore things up along the back line. Orlando has not kept a clean sheet in any of its 13 league games this season. The Lions have conceded 14 goals in the last five matches in all competitions and 37 total in MLS this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it\u2019s during 90 minutes to stay compact and also to find the first clean sheet of the year and to work on that,\u201d Jansson added. \u201cEveryone wants to create a better surrounding and better thing than we had in the start of this season, so guys are trying to stay positive, we all are.\u201d<\/p>\n

After this matchup, the Lions take the field against Atlanta again at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in U.S. Open Cup play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando City earned an important 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Union on Wednesday, and now prepares for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,116600,141,140,116601],"class_list":["post-272575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city-is-trying-to-build-on-a-thrilling-4-3-victory-over-philadelphia-by-taking-another-home-win","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-this-time-against-atlanta-united-on-saturday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272575","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=272575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}