MLS Winners and Losers: San Diego FC’s depth, Real Salt Lake’s youth movement & more

It’s in the title, folks. Every week during the MLS season, Backheeled is here to dive into the biggest Winners and Losers from around the league. Let’s get right to it.

Loser: Orlando City’s sense of direction

In the 18th minute of Orlando City’s visit to New York City FC, goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau seemed to lose his bearings and wandered out of his box, bringing the ball into his hands before realizing what he’d done. Quickly, the Canadian dropped the ball and hoped no one noticed. Everyone noticed. He was sent off with a red card. This moment not only led to the phase play that resulted in NYCFC’s first goal, but it feels like a fitting analogy for Orlando’s entire season so far. 

It has me asking, “what exactly were they doing?” and realizing that I don’t have an answer – and they don’t either.

Orlando City have played maybe 75 minutes of decent soccer this season. They looked solid in the second half of their loss to the young Red Bulls, but they were down 2-0 at that point and they never really looked like they’d bring it back after being thoroughly dominated in the first half. They were lucky it was only a two-goal deficit. The Lions had a 2-0 halftime lead against Inter Miami but they never really looked like the better team, to the point where our own Joe Lowery even predicted Miami was going to come back. Orlando eventually lost 4-2.