Sports

Orlando City ends Camping World Stadium Season With a Win

The Orlando City Soccer Club ended their run in Orlando’s Camping World Stadium with a dominant win over DC United, 4-2.

The Orlando City Lions played an aggressive game from the start with nothing to lose, as they have already be eliminated from playoff contention. DC united, however, had home field advantage to play for in the upcoming MLS Playoffs.

DC decided to play younger players and back up goalie Travis Worra instead of fully pressing for the win. The strategy is to preserve starters and avoid injuries while getting some experience in for their reserves.

Orlando’ s Matias Perez Garcia blasted a shot towards goal the was saved by goalie Travis Worra. Kevin Molino took an assist from Rafael Ramos and slid goal in to being the evening’s scoring in the 13th minute.

In the 21st minute when Kaka was challenged 1 on 1 on the fest side of the field by Sean Franklin. Kaka, got past Franklin to beat Worra for the second Orlando City Goal.

DC retaliated with a goal by taking advantage of a errant and lazy pass towards goal that was taken by Julian Buscher who slid it over to Alvaro Saborio in the 43rd minute, bringing the score to 2-1.

Orlando City coach Jason Kreis talked about concerns of having a motivated team with no playoff spots to play for. He congratulated his squad for playing with passion simply because the honor of the team meant something to them.

“[I’m] obviously very, very pleased with the performance. [It’s] not easy to do as players to, sort of, not have an objective in front of you with the opportunity to make playoffs for two games in a row now. So the motivation now comes from within.” Said Kreis. “Self motivation, self pride, respect, doing thing for fans, doing things for ourselves, without the ability to make playoffs. So I think the challenge that was put in front of the players for the last two matches they took on with full bore, embraced it and gave us everything that they could. ”

“But we are still not a team that can handle any sense of complacency. As you saw in the game today, we got to 2-0 and there was a little bit sense of complacency, then we got to 3-1 and there was a little sense of complacency. So that is happening in the games we cannot have complacency, and it is going to happen during the offseason. There is nobody that will be coming back next season that can have any sense of complacency.”

Orlando’s Cristian Higuita brought a little more confidence to the Lions after blasting a shot from a Kaka assist, taking the score to 3-1 in the 50th minute.

DC retaliated with a goal in the 77th minute byKennedy Igboananike. Julio Baptista finished the game in the 89th minute with a goal, taking Orlando to a 4-2 win.

The match was the Lions’ last at Camping World Stadium, where the Lions played their 2011-2013 United Soccer League (USL) seasons and its 2015 MLS season. Over those seasons, City captured two regular season titles and two USL Pro Championships with the backing of the passionate home supporters. City hosted 1,090,907 fans at Camping World Stadium in two seasons in MLS. Orlando City and Orlando Pride of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) will move into the Club’s brand new downtown stadium in 2017.

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