Orlando City heads west after a two-week break, trying to snap out of a brutal early-season slump, but the Lions face a steep climb against a Los Angeles FC squad that hasn\u2019t conceded a goal this year.<\/p>\n
The Lions (1-4-0, 3 points) travel to BMO Stadium to take on unbeaten LAFC (4-0-1, 13 points) on Saturday at 9:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, we are focused on our team, on our game model, on our topics. We got a lot of work to do there,\u201d Orlando City head coach Martin Perelman said. \u201cWe know we face a good team, top players, and we will be ready for that. But again, we are focused mainly on our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orlando City is off to a rocky start to its 2026 campaign and most recently lost, 5-0, to Nashville SC on March 21. While the front office grabbed headlines during the international window by signing French superstar Antoine Griezmann for a July arrival, the current roster has to immediately plug a porous defense that has leaked a league-high 17 goals in five matches.<\/p>\n
Bouncing back requires internationals like keeper Maxime Cr\u00e9peau and midfielder Marco Pa\u0161ali\u0107 to find their form quickly, while also figuring out how to get striker Duncan McGuire (1 goal in 2026) back on the scoresheet. Saturday presents a massive hurdle. LAFC has been untouchable at BMO Stadium, opening the year with a MLS-record 450-minute shutout streak, anchored by veteran goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.<\/p>\n
The troubling reality for Orlando is that LAFC sits at the top of the Western Conference despite an attack that hasn\u2019t fully clicked. Denis Bouanga and Son Heung-Min have combined for just one goal and five assists in league play. If those two find their rhythm Saturday against a struggling Lions backline, it will be a long night for the visitors. Orlando has to stay locked in defensively and capitalize on transition chances if they hope to steal a positive road result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando City heads west after a two-week break, trying to snap out of a brutal early-season slump, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,420,48,6,1725,47,87664,76,3883,1326,80939,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-696485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-magic","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-orange-county","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-city-sc","15":"tag-orlando-magic","16":"tag-orlandomagic","17":"tag-soccer","18":"tag-social-sports","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116342623517769409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}