\n By Alejandro Guzm\u00e1n<\/p>\n
Orlando City will look to keep its Leagues Cup run alive when it hosts Atl\u00e9tico de San Luis on Wednesday, August 12, at 7:30 p.m. ET (4:30 p.m. PT) at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando.<\/p>\n
The Lions enter the match with three points after opening Phase One with a 2-1 victory over Monterrey before falling 2-1 to Club Le\u00f3n. Orlando still has a chance to advance to the Knockout Rounds, making its final Phase One match a crucial one for the home side.<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico de San Luis, meanwhile, has already been eliminated after a 4-2 loss to Inter Miami\u00a0and a 4-1 defeat to Nashville SC. Despite being out of contention, head coach Diego Mej\u00eda made it clear that his team will approach Wednesday\u2019s match with the intention of winning rather than treating it simply as preparation for its return to Liga MX action.<\/p>\n
Orlando City won their only previous matchup via penalty kicks in 2024 Leagues Cup
\nRecord at Leagues Cup: Orlando City (8-7), Atl\u00e9tico San Luis (2-7)<\/p>\n
Orlando City:<\/p>\n
3 Wins, 0 Draws, 2 Losses<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico San Luis:<\/p>\n
0 Wins, 2 Draws, 3 Losses<\/p>\n
The Lions enter the final Phase One match with their Leagues Cup hopes still alive and will look to take advantage of playing at home.
\nAlthough Atl\u00e9tico has already been eliminated, Mej\u00eda said his team will not view the match as preparation for its upcoming Liga MX campaign. He plans to use the best possible lineup while managing the workload of players who have accumulated significant minutes.
\nMej\u00eda described Orlando as\u00a0\u201ca very strong team\u201d\u00a0and said the Lions present a different challenge from Inter Miami. He characterized Orlando as a more positional team that looks to have the ball and shares some similarities with San Luis’ own playing philosophy.
\nLlorente’s individual production:\u00a0Mej\u00eda praised Llorente’s impact since joining the club and his ability to score in important moments but stressed that the team’s priority is turning individual performances into points.<\/p>\n
Orlando City:<\/p>\n
Have scored 10 goals and conceded six in its last five matches.
\nTyrese Spicer has recorded three goals and two assists in his last five matches, while Antoine Griezmann has added two goals and one assist during the same stretch.
\nMarco Pa\u0161ali\u0107 scored Orlando’s goal against Le\u00f3n and will look to build on that performance as the Lions look for another attacking spark.
\nWilder Cartagena\u00a0enters the match with\u00a0two yellow cards accumulated in Phase One. A third yellow card against Atl\u00e9tico San Luis would result in a\u00a0one-match suspension\u00a0for Orlando City’s next Leagues Cup match.<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico San Luis:<\/p>\n
Enters the match looking for their first win since April 22nd, they have gone six straight game without a win.
\nHave scored seven goals and conceded 13 in its last five matches.
\nRafael Nicol\u00e1s Llorente has scored four goals in his last five matches, while David Rodriguez has added two. The pair has combined for six of San Luis’ seven goals during that span.<\/p>\n
\n WHAT TO EXPECT?<\/p>\n
Orlando enters Wednesday\u2019s matchup with the clearest incentive: a chance to extend its Leagues Cup campaign. The Lions will need to turn their recent attacking production into a positive result while maintaining the defensive discipline required against a San Luis side that still possesses dangerous individual scorers.<\/p>\n
San Luis may be out of contention, but Diego Mej\u00eda made it clear that his team will continue to compete. The head coach emphasized that Atl\u00e9tico represents an important institution and that the team approaches every match with the objective of winning.<\/p>\n
The Mexican side will also be looking for a response after Mej\u00eda described the defeat to Nashville as its worst performance in the last five matches. He pointed to defensive mistakes and a drop in physical intensity as key factors in the loss, while insisting that his players must learn from those errors and move forward.<\/p>\n
Mej\u00eda\u2019s assessment of Orlando adds another layer to the matchup. He views the Lions as a strong, possession-oriented team that plays a more positional style than Inter Miami while sharing some similarities with San Luis in its desire to control the ball.<\/p>\n
With Orlando fighting to keep its Leagues Cup campaign alive and San Luis looking to close out the tournament on a positive note, Wednesday\u2019s meeting brings together two teams with different motivations as they face each other again following their 2024 encounter.<\/p>\n
Playing at home with its Leagues Cup campaign on the line, Orlando City enters with 60% of the market on Polymarket. Atl\u00e9tico de San Luis, already out of contention, sits at 19%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alejandro Guzm\u00e1n Orlando City will look to keep its Leagues Cup run alive when it hosts Atl\u00e9tico…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[147645,8943,84956,9500,139,4788,141,140,147644],"class_list":["post-369163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-atletico-san-luis","tag-latest-news","tag-leagues-cup","tag-match-preview","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city-sc","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-tournament-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369163","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=369163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}