New York City FC are set to travel to Florida for their match against Orlando City SC on Wednesday night at Exploria Stadium for their third match in a week.
Here’s the Keys to the Match, presented by Tri-State Ford…
Mid-Week Match
After a tough defeat from the New England Revolution, New York City FC are back to training and recovering for their third match in a week, as they take on Orlando City SC.
The Boys in Blue suffered a 1-2 loss to the Revolution on Sunday evening ending their three-game winning streak. This was their second defeat in their last 11 games. Two goals from Teal Bunbury and Lee Nguyen secured New England’s win, but City did hit back late with a goal from Alex Callens in stoppage-time.
Looking ahead of tonight’s match, Head Coach Ronny Deila spoke to the press about how the team is preparing after a two-day recovery time after their last match.
Deila said: “It’s the first time that we have only two resting days between games. It’s important that we are using all the time to recover, and everybody knows that it’s a different temperature when we go there, so, we have to be prepared for what’s coming. Luckily, we had the game against Miami a week ago and we know what we’re going to go through. We have to take a lot of the things that we did in that game with us and things we can do better as well. If we do that, we have the chance to get 3 more points, that’s of course the goal.”
Maxi Nears Return
As they head into their seventh match in Phase 2, Ronny Deila and the Boys in Blue will still be without the services of Gedion Zelalem, Héber, Tayvon Gray, and Maxi Moralez.
Although Maxi is missing again, he is nearing a return according to Deila and could even feature vs. Columbus Crew at the weekend.
“I think it's too early [Wednesday], we need to have him training more with the team,” Deila explained. “But he feels pretty good and looks pretty good as well, so we're happy about that."
Orlando Form
The Lions had the last weekend off due to a postponed match as their competitors confirmed positive cases of COVID-19. However, their last face off against Atlanta United ended in a scoreless draw.
Currently, Orlando is on a club record ten-game unbeaten streak and their standings are 8W-2D-6L with 30 points, four more than NYCFC.
It's also 374 days since Orlando last went down to a home defeat, so our boys will know they're in for a tough match vs. our 2015 expansion cousins to the south.
H2H
This will be the team’s second meeting of 2020 after they previously met in group play during the MLS is Back Tournament at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.
The Boys in Blue fell 1-3 against the Lions with City’s only score coming from Jesus Medina in the first half. Sitting just four points ahead of NYCFC, the Lions hold 4th in the Eastern Conference, only one rank above City’s spot in 5th.
As they look to close the gap, a win for City would put them one point below their hosts, and end Orlando’s four-game unbeaten streak against the New York team in all competitions.
Keep cheering New York and let’s get this W. #ForTheCity
