It’s another losing season for the Orlando City Lions. Any small hopes of making the playoffs despite having a guaranteed losing record were crushed on Sunday with the team’s latest loss. For saddened Lions fans, it was almost fitting rain hit downtown Sunday afternoon.
The goal all season was clear: make the playoffs. Orlando City failed. For the second consecutive year, Orlando City has failed to make the Major League Soccer playoffs. And the Lions’ second MLS season wasn’t pretty throughout.
Orlando City has struggled to earn any wins. The team only has seven wins (that’s right, just 7), with 11 losses and 14 ties. This is the team’s second losing season but the win count went down this year. In Orlando City’s first MLS season last year, the team had 12 wins and 14 losses with 8 ties. At the end of the day, it’s hard to be excited about a team that wins only one out of five games played.
Even the players are already talking about much-needed change ahead. Star player and captain Kaká lamented about missing the playoffs two years in a row. He said the team needs to change “a lot of things,” but mostly their mentality. It’s hard to tell if the players will have anything to prove in the final two games of the season.
Fans are apparently not pleased either. “Fire all the players,” Tony Rivera wrote on Orlando City Soccer Club’s Facebook page. “Seems like our defense is just so trash that it puts the breaks on the offense,” Keith Morton added.
“Baptista, Kaká, Nocerino are overpaid and over rated; Kaká tried but is not effective most of the time,” Marco Franco posted. “I don’t see much fault on the coach although he needs to make changes early in the game.”
Orlando City coach Jason Kreis did promise to make major changes in the offseason. The coach also warned players they will have to prove themselves if they want to continue playing for the club in the future.
