The opening round of matches in the 2025 Major League Soccer season sees Orlando City navigate the challenge of the Philadelphia Union at Inter&Co Stadium on Saturday.
Unbeaten in the last four meetings against their visitors, the home side have had the upper hand in this fixture of late and will be confident of making a winning start to their campaign this weekend.
Match preview
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A slight improvement from their 2023 outing, which saw them fall at the quarter-final hurdle to Columbus Crew, Orlando City were knocked out by eventual runners-up New York Red Bulls in the semi-finals of the MLS playoffs.
Oscar Pareja's men saw off Charlotte and Atlanta FC across the opening two rounds, and with Inter Miami and Columbus Crew having already been knocked out, they were huge favourites to represent the Eastern Conference in the final.
However, despite having the lion's share of the ball possession and territorial advantage, the Lions would fall to a 1-0 defeat against the Red Bulls thanks to Andres Reyes's opener in the early exchanges of the second half.
Nonetheless, last season marked a relatively successful campaign for Orlando City, despite them finishing 11 points worse than their 2023 tally of 63 in the regular season, which remains a record since the club was founded in 2015.
Ramping up their preparations for the upcoming campaign, Orlando City took on CF Montreal, Rhode Island and Inter Miami in friendly encounters, the first two of which ended in defeat by a combined score of 6-1, while the third yielded a 2-2 draw.
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Having not missed the postseason since 2017, Philadelphia Union were considered by many a guarantee for the playoffs, and their seven-game unbeaten streak to kick off proceedings had them right on track.
A terrible slump in form between May 26 and July 14 saw the Union lose five consecutive matches and fail to win a league game in 10 attempts, during which they managed only four points and three clean sheets.
Jim Curtin's men huffed and puffed over the course of the remainder of the campaign and ended up three points shy of Atlanta United in the race for playoff contention, which led to Curtin's dismissal in favour of Bradley Carnell.
Given his underwhelming spell at St. Louis City, Carnell's appointment raised a lot of eyebrows amongst the Philadelphia Union faithful, and the 48-year-old has not done much to quash the early question marks surrounding his capabilities with three defeats from four warm-up fixtures.
Saturday's clash is the first of two straight outings against top-four sides from last season for the visitors before they face off against New England Revolution and Nashville SC, the two teams that finished just beneath them.
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Team News
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Orlando City's Duncan Maguire is out of contention for this weekend's game due to a shoulder problem which has ruled him out since the first week of December.
Thirty-year-old Wilder Cartagena is also a guaranteed absentee here, having suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon towards the back end of last season.
New signing Bruno Damiani arrives at Philadelphia Union having failed to score in his last 11 matches and will be desperate to hit the ground running with his new employers.
Quinn Sullivan racked up an impressive 16 direct goal contributions (five goals and 11 assists) last season, making the forward one to keep an eye on for the away side.
Orlando City possible starting lineup:
Gallese; Santos, Jansson, Schlegel, Thorhallsson; Atuesta, Araujo; Cortes, Ojeda, Pasalic; Enrique
Philadelphia Union possible starting lineup:
Blake; Wagner, Westfield, Glesnes, Makhanya; Jacques, Gazdag, Lukic; Sullivan, Baribo, Uhre
We say: Orlando City 2-1 Philadelphia Union
Goals have been a constant feature of this fixture such that despite Orlando City's recent dominance, they are without a clean sheet in 16 encounters against Philadelphia Union.
That said, we are leaning towards a victory for the home side at the end of the 90 minutes.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Adepoju Marvellous
