{"id":247445,"date":"2025-10-24T01:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/247445\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T01:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:37:08","slug":"what-now-orlando-city-real-salt-lake-fall-in-wild-card-matches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/247445\/","title":{"rendered":"What now? Orlando City, Real Salt Lake fall in Wild Card matches"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can find the Western Conference non-Audi MLS Cup Playoffs teams HERE<\/a>, and the Eastern Conference ones HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In we go, examining the seasons of the two teams with the longest continuous postseason streaks in MLS. Seriously, I bet you didn\u2019t know that one!<\/p>\n

For the first two-thirds of the season, they looked like one of the half-dozen best teams in the league. Part of that was Mart\u00edn Ojeda<\/a> playing at a Best XI clip, part of it was Luis Muriel<\/a> finally looking like a DP, part of it was Pedro Gallese<\/a> turning back the clock, and part of it was Alex Freeman<\/a> being such a devastating attacking presence that head coach Oscar Pareja actually adjusted the game model to get him more final-third touches than any defender in the league.<\/p>\n

They made it to the Leagues Cup<\/a> semifinals for a date with an Inter Miami<\/a> team they\u2019d owned. And they\u2026 fell apart. Then they kept falling apart, losing in the Third Place Match (and seeing a 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup<\/a> berth go up in smoke) against the LA Galaxy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those losses very clearly crushed their spirit and depleted their emotional reserves. By the time they were eliminated on Wednesday night with a 3-1 loss<\/a> at the Chicago Fire<\/a> \u2013 that wasn\u2019t as close as the scoreboard \u2013 they\u2019d won just once in their past 11 across all competitions. They were cooked.<\/p>\n

Six straight postseason berths is great, but the fans are eager for more. Part of that will be making big decisions on guys who are out of contract or have options, like C\u00e9sar Ara\u00fajo<\/a> (Orlando hit a death spiral when he got hurt in August) and Eduard Atuesta<\/a> in central midfield. Part of it might be batting away offers for Ojeda and Marco Pa\u0161ali\u0107<\/a>, while potentially accepting an offer for Freeman \u2013 he could be off to Europe this winter.<\/p>\n

Part of it, though, might be an assessment of Pareja. He\u2019s been a very good-to-great coach in the regular season, with a Supporters\u2019 Shield and a couple of US Open Cup<\/a> titles (including one with the Lions) under his belt.<\/p>\n

In the postseason, though? It\u2019s grim: 6W-10L-6D, -13 goal differential (20 GF, 33 GA).<\/p>\n

What to watch for this winter<\/p>\n

If they\u2019re serious about winning MLS Cup, they probably need to bite the bullet on the last year of Muriel\u2019s contract and part ways with Gallese. Muriel disappeared for the past three months, while Gallese had maybe the worst run of his career down the stretch.<\/p>\n

Getting younger and more consistent at those two spots, as well as at left wing, has to be the priority.<\/p>\n

I hope Ara\u00fajo and Atuesta are back and healthy for the whole season. Orlando were at about 2 points per game when those two started together, which is a Shield-caliber pace.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not an accident.<\/p>\n

It would be great if they started getting more out of their academy and MLS NEXT Pro<\/a> pipeline. Maybe Freeman\u2019s breakout season will have shown them there\u2019s value to be found there.
\nHow many years does Robin Jansson<\/a> have left? The 33-year-old’s still one of the best center backs in the league, but it\u2019d be smart to start succession planning now.<\/p>\n

Through August of last season \u2013 before Andr\u00e9s G\u00f3mez was sold to Ligue 1 and Chicho Arango<\/a> was suspended \u2013 RSL averaged 0.11 xG per shot. Not great, but not bad.<\/p>\n

After those guys were out of the lineup, that dropped to 0.10 per shot, which was in the bottom five in MLS.<\/p>\n

This year, they finished dead last on 0.09 per shot.<\/p>\n

All of this is to say they never replaced their two best attacking players from last year, despite spending reportedly around $10 million on attackers in the transfer market over the past three windows. That lack of quality meant they had to take more risks getting numbers forward; those risks compromised their defensive shape. That compromised defensive shape meant they were always scrambling.<\/p>\n

Somehow, they made the Wild Card anyway. But it was a quick trip, losing 3-1<\/a> at the Portland Timbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The six attackers they spent on:<\/p>\n

Victor Olatunji<\/a>, a center forward who was yanked in the 65th minute of the Wild Card game with RSL down 2-1 after he put forth what I\u2019d call a substandard effort<\/a> on a potential equalizer.
\nRwan Cruz<\/a>, an on-loan DP center forward who came in and put together one of the worst sub appearances in MLS postseason history.
\nDiogo Gon\u00e7alves<\/a>, a DP winger\/10 who\u2019s been ok.
\nDominik Marczuk<\/a>, a U22 winger who lost his starting spot to 18-year-old Zavier Gozo<\/a> and was loaned out to FC Cincinnati<\/a>.
\nLachlan Brook<\/a>, a winger who lost his rotation spot and left this summer via a mutual contract termination.
\nAriath Piol<\/a>, a U22 center forward who scored once in 24 appearances for the first team.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s four premium roster slots and nearly the entirety of their winnings from the G\u00f3mez sale. All on guys who haven\u2019t moved the needle.<\/p>\n

They have to assess their talent ID, acquisition and integration protocols. The front office has to sort itself out before it tries to sort the roster out.<\/p>\n

What to watch for this winter<\/p>\n

There is obviously overseas interest in both Gozo and Diego Luna<\/a> (who had a good-not-great year), two of the few guys on this roster who delivered at or above expectations (shout out to goalkeeper Rafael Cabral<\/a> as well). I think RSL fans would be pretty bummed if either was sold, but there\u2019s obviously a number out there on each of them that you can\u2019t walk away from.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also likely to be a difficult conversation about head coach Pablo Mastroeni. As with Pareja, he\u2019s raised the floor for this team, getting them to the postseason for five straight years. As with Pareja, it\u2019s probably fair to wonder if he\u2019s the guy who can get them to take the next step.<\/p>\n

Gon\u00e7alves was benched at one point, and there were whispers he was ready to head back to Europe. He\u2019s an ok player, but if you can open up a DP slot by moving him, you probably have to do that.
\nThere\u2019s a cadre of academy kids \u2013 wingers Aiden Hezarkhani<\/a> and Owen Anderson<\/a>, and attacking mid Omar Marquez<\/a> \u2013 who showed well in MLS NEXT Pro and seem likely to get real chances with the first team next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can find the Western Conference non-Audi MLS Cup Playoffs teams HERE, and the Eastern Conference ones HERE.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[8769,30055,30064,6868,403,99],"class_list":["post-247445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-armchair-analyst-matt-doyle","tag-orlando-city-sc","tag-real-salt-lake","tag-sendtonews","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}