Sports

Orlando City Loses to Los Angeles FC 4-1 in New Coach’s Debut

Orlando City (6-11-1, 19 points) continued it’s struggles last night with a 4-1 loss to expansion club Lost Angeles FC (10-4-4, 34 points). It was the Lions’ ninth loss in a row, and a tough introduction to the MLS for new head coach James O’Connor.

“I thought we played to some wonderful opportunities, when you look at the saves that their keeper made, when you look at the shots, the chance creation I thought that was really positive,” head coach O’Connor said. “Equally we gave them too many opportunities. It was a pretty open game, we didn’t intend it to be that way.”

LAFC opened the scoring in the 28th minute when Mark-Anthony Kaye found Adama Diomande. Latif Blessing scored in the 32nd minute, finishing off a cross pass from midfielder Aaron Kovar, putting  LAFC up 2-0.

Orlando worked it back in the 59th minute when Toia moved the ball to Kljestan, who curled a beautiful shot inside the far post to make it 2-1. It appeared as though City had equalized in the 72nd minute when Dwyer tapped in Meram’s feed, but the goal was ruled off following Video Review that verified Meram was offside in the buildup to the goal.

LAFC quickly took advantage after that, scoring goals in the 82nd and 84th minutes. Diomande secured a brace by barely getting a shot over the line after a scrum in front of the goal following a corner kick. Diego Rossi put the exclamation point on the match two minutes later.

“They’ve obviously got tremendous quality” Said O’Conner. “They are playing with a lot of confidence so I think that when you look at it it became pretty evident that you’ve got one team that is full of confidence and one team that is really lacking confidence.”

Note: Jonathan Spector was substituted off in the 25th minute after an apparent hamstring injury.

The Lions return to Orlando City Stadium on Saturday, July 14 to host Toronto FC.

 

 

 

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