Lions mulling options after loss to Timbers
Defense didn’t cut it, so Orlando City brought in new defenders at the beginning of the year.
Goals didn’t come, so Orlando City signed a goalscorer midseason.
Creativity and connections in the midfield lacked, so Orlando City went out and got Yoshimar Yotún, a highly skilled and versatile Peruvian midfielder.
Statistics showed wins came more often when Kaká did not start, so Orlando City benched its superstar captain, better known to coaches and teammates as Ricky.
“I would just say that we’ve felt and made a decision two weeks ago that Ricky’s best opportunity to really affect things for us and be positive for us would be off the bench,” Lions coach Jason Kreis said. “That’s what we did in D.C. and we got a positive result. He was unavailable for Atlanta; we got a positive result. So why would we change that situation?”
It seemed to work at first, with points in backto-back games, but hope was crushed Sunday when the Lions lost 3-0 in Portland. Two players also were ejected during the match and will miss the Lions’ next game.
Right back Scott Sutter said of the score: “We were lucky it was only three.”
So where do the they go from here? Playoffs are really out of the picture now. To quote Kreis, the chances “look really grim,” and to cite FiveThirtyEight.com, they are below 1 percent.
“That doesn’t change the fact that we’ll put out our best team and we go for three points every match,” Kreis said. “It’s important the players recognize what’s at stake now.”
That’s pride and dignity, holding onto what’s been a strong fan base and their jobs. The goal always was to make the playoffs this year and at the very least finish better than the previous two MLS seasons.
To do that, Orlando City (9-13-8, 35 points) will need to be very near perfect during its final four matches.
Right now, the Lions sit 10th out of 11 teams in the Eastern Conference. During their inaugural year, they finished seventh out of 10 teams with a 12-14-8 record and 44 points.
A lot of changes came last year, including a coaching switch in July, and the final result of a turbulent season was an eighth-place finish at 9-11-14 with 41 points.
So Orlando City needs at least 10 of 12 possible points left in the regular season, and its lineup options to accomplish that are limited.
Kreis said mulling over where he’ll go next in terms of a starting XI will take a few days of consideration, all the time he has.
For Wednesday night’s home match against New England, centerback Jonathan Spector and backup left back Victor “PC” Giro will be suspended. Both received red cards in Portland — decisions Kreis called “soft” while also acknowledging it was the team’s third time this year going down two men, an issue that shows some lack of discipline.
Midfielder Cristian Higuita is out due to a calf injury and midfielder Will Johnson still is suspended while he deals with the repercussions of a domestic-violence charge earlier this month.
Centerback Seb Hines, who made his second MLS appearance of 2017 when he subbed on after Spector’s ejection Sunday, is an option that remains. Hines said the team wants to create more chances in these last four games and “make it as difficult as possible” for opponents.
“It’s going to be tough,” Sutter said. “Wednesday is obviously going to be interesting. We get back late, at 11 p.m. [Monday] and then have one day of doing something small and then we’ve got the game. I’m sure that we’ll rotate where we can. It’s not going to be easy.”