{"id":779369,"date":"2026-07-23T06:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T06:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/779369\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T06:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T06:31:09","slug":"antoine-griezmann-scores-first-mls-goal-in-orlando-city-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/779369\/","title":{"rendered":"Antoine Griezmann scores first MLS goal in Orlando City debut!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It didn&#8217;t take long for the French superstar to announce himself to the Orlando City faithful, giving fans the moment they&#8217;ve all been waiting for when he netted his first goal for the Lions during their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/mls-regular-season\/2026\/matches\/sjvsorl-07-22-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">4-0 road win<\/a> over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/san-jose-earthquakes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Jose Earthquakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n      No time wasted<\/p>\n<p>After starting and scoring in two friendly matches, the 35-year-old forward came into his official Lions debut on a bit of a hot streak.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That strong form carried over into MLS play, as it took Griezmann only 48 minutes to net his first-ever goal in Orlando City colors.\u00a0And in typical Griezmann fashion, he did so in style.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/justin-ellis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justin Ellis<\/a> picked off a pass in the attacking third and found his French strike partner, who slipped past a trio of defenders before firing a low shot inside the near post to give the Lions a 3-0 lead over the Western Conference-contending Quakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The brilliantly taken goal was then followed by his signature celebration, one Orlando fans hope they&#8217;ll be seeing a lot down the line.<\/p>\n<p>\n      History made<\/p>\n<p>On top of immediately making the most of his MLS opportunity, the goal was also a historic one in Griezmann&#8217;s career.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After becoming Atl\u00e9tico Madrid&#8217;s all-time leading goalscorer \u2013 with 212 career goals \u2013 as well as consistently finding the back of the net for fellow LaLiga sides Real Sociedad and FC Barcelona, Griezmann&#8217;s Orlando opener was the 300th club goal of his career, marking a major milestone.<\/p>\n<p>\n      Trending upward?<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t just a banner night for Griezmann \u2013 though his performance is sure to have Orlando fans euphoric \u2013 but for the entire squad.<\/p>\n<p>The Lions entered Wednesday night&#8217;s match 13th in the East with just 14 points. They&#8217;ll depart San Jose in 10th, just two points behind D.C. United for the final playoff position in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n<p>Spurred on by key performances from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/ivan-angulo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iv\u00e1n Angulo<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/braian-ojeda\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Braian Ojeda<\/a>, as well as a Man of the Match showing from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/eduard-atuesta\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eduard Atuesta<\/a>, who notched three assists, Orlando seem to have got their groove back.<\/p>\n<p>Could a win over one of the West&#8217;s best, coupled with the arrival of their marquee man, instill belief that Orlando can transform from outsider to contender as the second half of the season kicks off?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It didn&#8217;t take long for the French superstar to announce himself to the Orlando City faithful, giving fans&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[45929,6864,49036,6868,332030,403,99],"class_list":["post-779369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-antoine-griezmann","tag-match-reaction","tag-orlando-city","tag-sendtonews","tag-sjvsorl-07-22-2026","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779369","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=779369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}