The Orlando Pride generally controlled the game against a significantly weakened Washington Spirit team, but fate came down on the side of the Spirit, who managed to steal the whole result 1-0. The Pride dominated most statistical categories and Washington generated little danger, but Orlando could not finish its chances and an Anna Moorhouse gaffe provided Gift Monday with a tap-in goal. The defeat was the Pride’s first defeat of the season and their first home defeat since August of 2023.

Orlando dominated the first half, not allowing a shot at all from Washington until the 30th minute. The Pride generally got the ball into good attacking areas, but for some reason Orlando was unable to produce very many dangerous shots. Those they did produce missed the target or were blocked, so credit Washington for have a stout final defense.

As always, the second half brought adjustments and was more balanced until Ashley Hatch took a ball to the head. This broke any game rhythm as it took several minutes for the initial evaluation, but then a few minutes later Hatch needed re-evaluation and was removed from the match.

A few minutes later, Moorhouse was not attentive in receipt of a back pass from Emily Sams in the six-yard box. Monday made just a moderate press but managed to close the space. Moorhouse inexplicably turned into Monday’s press rather than allowing the play to flow to the other side of the pitch (with an open teammate ready to receive the pass), and Monday nicked the ball and touched it across the goal line.

The Pride showed their characteristic confidence after that, keeping well organized and pushing for a goal. They even managed to put the ball in the net in the 83rd minute, but the goal was overturned after video review for a foul. However, Orlando failed to produce a goal in the end, and Washington left with the win.

We hope you enjoy the photos despite the disappointing result. The Pride play next on Friday night at Inter&Co Stadium, hosting Angel City FC at 8 p.m.

Orlando City hosted New York Red Bulls on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to already close out the season series. While Orlando generally dominated the game, the Lions did not take their chances in the first half and found themselves down a man for most of the second half. While Orlando continued to push for the win — even down a man — being shorthanded proved too much and the team had to settle for the second scoreless draw in a row.

Luis Muriel and Marco Pašalić had good looks in the first half that just missed. Ivan Angulo also missed wide from the middle of the top of the area in the opening half. Of the chances on target, Red Bulls netminder Carlos Coronel had a good save on Martin Ojeda and snuffed out a one-on-one opportunity with Muriel. When contrasted with the Red Bulls’ single low-quality chance, based on the first half, it looked that Orlando had the game well under control, despite the lack of score.

If Orlando had managed to convert one of these chances, it would have made for a much different game, however, the match was turned on its head early in the second half when Rodrigo Schlegel was sent off with a second yellow card in the 56th minute. Orlando still found opportunities for a good chunk of the rest of the game, but eventually the game devolved to the typical 10-man game.

Despite putting on the remaining attacking power from the bench, Orlando wound up staying in an organized defense for the final 15 minutes plus stoppage time, fighting to earn a single point.

We hope you enjoy the gallery of images from a rare (these days, anyway) Orlando City day game.

The Pride welcomed San Diego to town on a beautiful March day. Hopefully, the visitors enjoyed the weather, as Orlando continued its winning ways, dispatching the Wave 2-1 in a hard-fought match on a hot afternoon.

Maybe due to the early start, both teams seemed to take awhile to find their rhythm. The Pride pulled out their scoring boots at the intermission, going ahead on yet another Haley McCutcheon goal shortly after the intermission. Unfortunately, Seb Hines’ side switched off for a moment shortly after that and the Wave drew level on their only real chance of the game two minutes later.

The Pride kept showing their grit, with Barbra Banda drawing a penalty, which was eventually dispatched by Marta in the 75th minute. It did take Marta two attempts — she had a rare miss off the right post on her first attempt, but a retake was awarded for encroachment as San Diego goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan came off her line early. After the penalty, the game really opened up, with San Diego forced to push for an equalizer. The Wave managed to get several good runs in behind, but the Pride defense covered well, running down and cleanly tackling several breaks.

Goal excepted, it was another excellent showing by the Orlando defense. While San Diego did get forward multiple times, the only shot on goal resulted in the goal, and the other four attempts were all blocked.

We hope you enjoy these photos of another Pride victory on a beautiful day at Inter&Co Stadium.

With Orlando City’s thus-far proficient offense on one hand and Christian Benteke on the other, Saturday’s game had the potential for a high-scoring affair. The Lions did not disappoint on that front, scoring twice in the first half and twice again just after the break to thoroughly overmatch D.C. United. The only black mark on the evening was the consolation goal that D.C. got late, resulting in a 4-1 scoreline that didn’t feel that close.

Orlando’s attack was clicking, with all three Designated Players making substantial contributions both in play and on the score sheet. Luis Muriel (goal, assist), Martin Ojeda (goal, two assists) and Marco Pašalić (goal) at times looked like they were playing a charity game instead of a league match, especially later in the game. Ojeda especially seemed to take upon himself a personal challenge of doing all his shots the hard way. Of his six shots, he deflected off Aaron Herrera’s leg in the 24th minute, Hosei Kijma’s foot in the 38th minute, and off Herrera’s rear end in the 44th minute — his goal — and then volleyed a shot in the 60th and murdered the right post in the 69th.

Goalkeeper Javier Otero got his first MLS start, stepping in due to the international window taking Pedro Gallese to South America. While D.C. provided inconsistent attack, United challenged occasionally, and Otero acquitted himself well, making three good saves. He parried away a wicked curling shot in the 77th minute and smothered two shots well in the fourth and 68th minutes, adding a handful of other critical claims.

His one sweeping foray in the 25th minute was successful but nervy, as he did not get the ball, but he and Robin Jansson managed to protect the ball and each other until the Swedish defender could clear it away. He had no real chance on the goal conceded, as Benteke beat two defenders in the air to head back across to a box full of crashing D.C. attackers in desperation time. Overall, it was a great game for the young goalkeeper to learn from and build confidence.

Overall it was an exciting game on a beautiful evening in Orlando. We hope you enjoy these images from a memorable win over D.C. United.

The Orlando Pride opened the 2025 NWSL season in style Friday night, celebrating their record-smashing 2024 campaign with a double banner raising for their NWSL Shield and NWSL Championship. They then provided a performance of intent to hold onto those honors with a thorough 6-0 beatdown of the newly rebranded Chicago Stars in the game that followed. The community seems to have noticed, as the attendance of 19,237 was the second largest for the Pride and a new record for the team at Inter&Co Stadium.

Haley McCutcheon and Barbra Banda set the tone early, each causing Chicago goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher to make good saves in the opening three minutes. McCutcheon found the net in the seventh minute and the Pride did not look back. By the time the final whistle blew, four different Pride players contributed goals — McCutcheon, Ally Watt, Julie Doyle, and Banda (twice), with an own goal by Hannah Anderson rounding out the scoring. It could have been even more, as Banda played in Zambian Women’s National Team teammate Prisca Chilufya, who buried her shot in second-half stoppage time. However, Banda was offside on the play, and the flag went up quickly after the strike. Still, it was an excellent sign that a new member of the team is finding her form already.

The Pride smothered the game, affording Chicago only 36% posession. Without the ball, Chicago was only able to manage two sequences that even led to shots during the run of play (plus some desperation low-chance looks in second-half stoppage time).

We hope you enjoy these images of a celebratory night at Inter&Co Stadium.

The Orlando Pride played their first meaningful game of 2025 in the NWSL Challenge Cup Friday against the Washington Spirit. While the Pride looked sharp, they couldn’t quite earn their third trophy in a row at the expense of the Spirit, with regulation ending in a 1-1 draw, and Washington taking the competition in penalties, 4-2.

Both teams brought back most of their rosters from last year, so instead of new faces, anticipation more revolved around the return of several key players from injury. Center back Rafaelle made an impactful return from an injury-marred 2024, scoring Orlando’s only goal in her 45 minutes. New Pride signing Prisca Chilufya made her debut in the second half, almost pulling Orlando back into the lead in the 85th minute. Grace Chanda and Trinity Rodman did not see the field but were on the bench for their respective teams, indicating promise for the 2025 campaign.

Rafalle’s goal stood up until a set piece late in the game gave the Spirit the opportunity to equalize, and they did. Leicy Santos delivered a great free kick, but Anna Moorhouse got two hands to it and will likely think she should have kept it out. The game went straight to penalties, where the Pride got off to a good start with strikes by Julie Doyle and Angelina, but neither Summer Yates nor Ally Lemos were clinical and the Spirit prevailed.

The Pride will open their 2025 campaign at 8 p.m. Friday at Inter&Co Stadium. The pre-game will include a celebration of the record-smashing 2024 season, including raising banners for the the NSWL Shield and the NWSL Championship.

We hope you enjoy this gallery of photos from the NWSL Challenge Cup.

After dominating the first part of the game, including scoring the first goal early, Orlando City allowed the Philadelphia Union to climb back into the season-opening match Saturday with a costly mistake in the 24th minute. The Lions then made several mistakes at the back early in the second half, digging a huge 4-1 hole that was too much to overcome, despite a brace on his debut from Marco Pasalic, allowing the Union to leave Orlando with a 4-2 win.

The Lions created enough chances to climb back into the match, but Andre Blake was outstanding in the Philadelphia goal, denying nearly everything thrown at him. Pasalic was a bright spot for Orlando City, and Martín Ojeda also had a strong match, assisting on the first Pasalic goal and putting two shots of his own on target. Alex Freeman also played well, coming off the bench for meaningful minutes and putting a headed shot from an Ojeda delivery off the crossbar.

Joran Gerbet and Nicolas Rodriguez both made their MLS and Orlando City competitive debuts, but nothing was quite able to dig the Lions out of the hole they’d dug with catastrophic defensive-third turnovers. Orlando City suffered its first opening day loss and will enter Matchday 2 without a point for the first time.

We hope you enjoy these images from the season opener more than the match. The Lions will look to get on track Saturday when Toronto FC visits Inter&Co Stadium.

The U.S. Men’s National Team came to Orlando to play a January friendly against Costa Rica and kept its perfect record at Inter&Co Stadium intact, improving to 7-0-0 at the home of Orlando City and the Orlando Pride with a 3-0 win over Costa Rica. Hopefully Orlando was not chosen for it’s warmth, as temperatures hovered around 40 degrees with a fine mist for maximal heat dispersion. The conditions did not seem to bother the team however (or maybe it bothered Costa Rica more), as the youthful U.S. lineup picked up the win.

As is often the case for a January camp, the makeup of the Unitd States squad consisted of largely less-experienced pool players, so the game started a little on the nervy side. A little before halfway through the first half, midfielder Diego Luna took an errant arm across the face, breaking his nose. Luna running around the field with both nostrils packed may have helped galvanize the team, as he found Brian White a just moments after he returned from getting treatment and a new shirt, and the Yanks were up 1-0.

The Americans continued to grow into the match and by the second half mostly orchestrated the game, with a couple acrobatic saves by Zack Steffen as punctuation. The U.S. didn’t find the net again until late in the second half, however. Caden Clark finally broke through again in the 77th minute to relieve some nerves and ensure the victory. Patrick Agyemang’s goal in the 90th minute put an exclamation point on the match, sealing the victory.

We hope you enjoy these images from a cold, wet night of international soccer at Inter&Co Stadium.

Orlando City followed the lead of the Pride, advancing to the Eastern Conference final by a score of 1-0 over Atlanta United. Orlando came out attacking, creating several good chances but either putting them straight at Atlanta goalkeeper Brad Guzan or missing entirely. Ramiro Enrique finally found the net late in the first half, cleaning up a fortunate deflection off a defender on a corner kick in the 39th minute to lead at the half.

Desperation settled in for Atlanta in the second half, as the visitors pressed hard to find an equalizer. Orlando continued to attack opportunistically and still managed to outshoot the Five Stripes but generally dropped the line of confrontation. Atlanta was forced to settle for only poor chances, and was unable to land a shot on target for the entire game. If you can’t get your shots on target, you can’t score, and Orlando’s goal held up as the Lions advanced with the win over their rivals.

The sold-out crowd was exceptionally vociferous in this match. Normally, the supporters end is the clear vocal center of the various chants and songs, but for this match the whole stadium was in full voice by the end. Especially of note was the final rendition of ‘Do you hear Atlanta sing?’ with the last line absolutely ear splitting from the whole building. (I’m afraid you’ll have to look up the lyrics if you aren’t familiar with this particular cheer.)

With the victory, the Lions have secured one last home game on the season, facing the New York Red Bulls on Saturday. A victory will see them through to the MLS Cup final, facing the winner of LAFC and Seattle on the road.

We hope you enjoy these images from a memorable win in the Orlando-Atlanta rivalry, even if the match itself was sometimes not the most entertaining example of the beautiful game.

The Orlando Pride continued their impressive 2024 season Sunday afternoon, holding off the Kansas City Current 3-2 to advance to the NWSL final. The teams gave each other a lot of respect through the first half of the game, emphasizing organization and defense and relying on organized buildups. This was a successful plan as both teams still found team goals in the opening half. Kansas City was first successful in the 33rd minute on a millimeter-perfect cross from Michelle Cooper that Debinha converted while lurking at the back post. The Pride kept their cool and equalized before the half, with Ally Watt finding Haley McCutcheon darting into the space that Barbra Banda had provided, drawing the defense with her.

Orlando kept its defensive solidity but got more aggressive in trying to get the attack out on the run, taking control of the game for the majority of the second half in doing so. This strategy, aided by the removal of Lo’eau Labonta from the Current midfield in favor of attacker Nichelle Prince, worked to the Pride’s advantage, freeing Banda several times throughout the half. She scored in the 51st minute when Kylie Strom lifted a perfectly weighted ball into the top of the box. Rather than trying to touch down the incoming pass in tight space, Banda brilliantly boxed out her defender, letting the ball run into the box and finished with authority, slamming the ball into the back of the net.

Marta doubled the lead in the 82nd minute when Banda poked the ball from defender Kayla Sharples in midfield, touching it into space for Marta. The Brazilian then showed her class, dribbling into the box, forcing two defenders to commit to blocking a shot that never came, and then touching the ball around goalkeeper Almuth Schult and finishing the play in a highlight reel moment of brilliance.

After that, desperation prevailed for Kansas City, with all 11 players coming forward on corner kicks for the entirety of the announced 12 minutes of second half injury time and a lot more — just over 18 additional minutes in all. The pressure and volume of attacks pulled the Current within a goal as one of the shots caught Kerry Abello in an outstretched arm. Though she tried to pull it in, it was instrumental in blocking the shot and an easy decision upon video review to award a penalty.

Up only a goal, the Pride defended desperately and held on. With the victory, the Pride advance to the NWSL Championshipin Kansas City, where they will face the Washington Spirit Saturday at 8 p.m.

We hope you enjoy these images from a memorable and historic match at Inter&Co Stadium.