Defending, attacking woes on display during loss to Sounders
Orlando City fell 2-1 to the Seattle Sounders at home Wednesday after going down 2-0 early and failing to find an equalizer late. Here are three takeaways from the match: know where players should be. We shouldn’t have that type of shape when the ball is in the position it’s in.
“It becomes really easy when you’ve got players of [Seattle’s] caliber to play balls into areas of space that are that big. It’s basic defending principles: you deny space when you’re trying to defend. You need to be compact. When you start the game like that, the way that we are on the run we’re on, I think confidence gets really affected.”
The second goal was just as bad. Handwalla Bwanna got around Sutter pretty easily and had space to shoot because Shane O’Neill was backing up toward his own goal. Bwanna fired, the shot deflected off O’Neill and the Sounders were up 2-0 in the span of 13 minutes.
“We make it too easy for teams to be able to play through us,” O’Connor said. “It’s stuff that we’ve worked on, we’ve spoken about and I think it becomes really important when you’re trying to deny space that you do deny space. You don’t have such big massive gaps that people are able to just slide through because I don’t see [opposing] teams giving us that kind of space when we’re trying to attack.” make those runs into the penalty area.
“I think when the ball goes wide you have to have energy and you have to have people in the box,” O’Connor said.
“We’ve got quite a few that are showing enough to get the ball but if the ball is going to be crossed, we’ve got too many on the outside the box. We need more numbers inside the box and a couple backing up play in behind.”
Dwyer echoed his coach and added there needs to be a bit more hunger from individual players.
“You know, I think it’s something we are going to work on as a squad,” Dwyer said. “We need to focus on how we can get numbers forward, first, and then get the ball wide once we have numbers forward and we have numbers in the box.”
Orlando City has played three goalkeepers this season. All have had levels of success. Joe Bendik saved a penalty to start the season. Earl Edwards Jr. won in his first start and nearly had a clean sheet. Adam Grinwis had three saves in his first start to preserve a clean sheet.
They’ve all also had bewildering stretches of poor play. And they’re on the wrong end of an MLSrecord 72 goals conceded.
“I think at this point, everyone’s playing for their own personal pride, as well as pride in the club and the badge that we have on our chest,” Grinwis said. “I said it before, we want to make our fans proud. I know that’s really difficult because of where we're at right now, but they deserve more, and we want to do more for them. It’s about digging deep and just trying to do our best.”