In terms of excitement and drama, the USL couldn't have asked for much more from a championship game as red cards, late equalizers and a penalty kick shootout highlighted Orlando City's victory over the Harrisburg City Islanders to take the USL Pro title in front of their home fans.
After a relatively quiet first half, the game was sparked into life with the ejection of Orlando City's starting goalkeeper, Miguel Gallardo. The Mexican native brought down Harrisburg's Sainey Touray outside the box but was sent off for denying a clear goal-scoring opportunity. Gallardo was replaced by Sean Kelley, who would be called upon multiple times throughout the game.
Despite a plethora of chances, the contest remained scoreless for nearly all of regulation until Orlando City snatched a goal in the 89th minute. Lawrence Olum took advantage of Lewis Neal's slow, dribbling cut back to slot home what appeared to be a dramatic winner. However, the Islanders desperate rush forward in the dying minutes allowed J.T. Noone to head home a corner kick in the fifth minute of stoppage time.
Harrisburg took advantage of its man advantage five minutes into overtime as Touray beat Kelly to his near post to give the Islanders the lead. However, Orlando was able to equalize when Geoff Bloes was sent off after he brought down Dennis Chin inside the box. Neal made no mistake from the spot and the game went to penalty kicks.
Kelley saved Harrisburg's first two penalties and Touray sent the Islanders' fifth penalty kick wide left of the post and Orlando grabbed the championship on the back of a 3-2 penalty shootout victory. Orlando celebrates both the regular-season title and the league championship.
Here are some highlights from the crazy and entertaining match.
What did you think of the result? Are Orlando City worthy champions? Disappointed that Harrisburg couldn't pull out a victory? Are you going to check out the USL Pro next season?
Share your thoughts below.
Orlando is a unique city vs the rest of FL. The population is much more in tune with the sporting landscape. They are younger and wealthier than Tampa. If MLS were to award them with a franchise, they would pull fans from coast to coast across all of Central Florida. Some die hard Rowdies fans may snub them but majority of real football fans would support a top flight club in Orlando. The East side of Tampa (Plant City and Polk County) would easily support a top flight club in Orlando, as they are about equal driving distance to St Pete (currently where FC Tampa is playing) and Orlando. Florida Youth Soccer headquarters is down the road in Auburndale, so marketing to that segment should be easy and beneficial.
Miami and Tampa definitely have problems supporting their sports clubs. In baseball, the Rays won the division one year and went to the World Series another and still have one of the lowest attendance averages in the sport. Staying in the same sport, the Marlins (based in Miami) have 2 World series titles and wouldn’t surprise me if there weren’t more people working at their games then attending them. Most of the cities seem to find one sport club and stick with it. Tampa supports the Buccaneers of American football and Miami supports the Heat, a basketball team. Florida is a hard nut to crack when it come to supporting multiple clubs, if any at all. But, to see 11,220 people supporting a 3rd division team (it would be like that many people supporting a AA baseball team) shows a lot of passion for the city and the club.
This comment makes absolutely no sense because I was at the game and saw everything. Yes, the teams played like third division sides, but Orlando’s midfield players passed and possessed like top class squad. Sure, they struggled to connect passes when they were trying to “thread the needle” in the final third but they looked like a championship caliber squad. Orlando did most of the attacking, despite being down a man for most of the match. The referee influenced the match too much as well. I think your comment has no merit.
The reason for Orlando’s passion for sports is that we are always overlooked when compared to the big three (Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville). Because of this we have a sort of grassroots fan base full of diehard supporters. We’re less than 90 minutes away from Tampa but I doubt we would win supporters from them because of our local rivalry. There’s some bad blood between our two clubs.
@ Christopher…one correction.. NASL Montreal Impact have been averaging between 11035-12696 since 2005.
It’s nice to see that the owner of Orlando is serious about the team and that he wants to bring an MLS franchise. I wish Orlando would get #20 over NY. We need an MLS team in Florida but Miami and Tampa were a disaster. So Orlando sounds like the logical choice for me.
I used to be bitter about the leaving Austin but now I hope they get into MLS and succeed. We certainly can’t expect Miami to “fan up.”
As far as skill level and professionalism, this game was far far below what Orlando City consistently provides. I have been to every single home game this season, and I can say that we deserve to be USL champions. Unfortunately the game you saw on FSC didn’t show it. You saw the 11,000 fans (more than any other team in the USL or NASL could possibly hope for). But you also saw american football lines on the pitch (this was the first game all season the lines were painted on). And you saw incessant fouling, offsides and choppy play–very much the exception during the rest of our season.
I love you, City! MLS 2013!
Went to the game, and the play and the atmosphere were fun to watch. Congratulations, Orlando City! Can’t wait until next season…
This league needs to get it’s disciplinary act together. Harrisburg was a train wreck in the semis and it obviously carried over to the finals. I’d like to see USSF fine the league and teams if they can’t keep their players and coaches in check.
Congrats to Orlando. Certainly the tallest midget this year.
Why, because Don Garber says so? Or because the lawyers will make sure the single entity structure is never broken?
Let me ask you, Chris, if you have done a great job at work, wouldn’t you expect a promotion or a reward of sorts? Promotion/relegation is a concept part of human nature, part of what makes us better and looking forward to something.
The arguments against are plain wrong: you see, NYRB are afraid of relegation and the league will suffer if NYRB goes down to NASL. When was the last time Manchester United/Milan, etc. were relegated? And even if a giant gets relegated (recently, River Plate and Juventus), a cinderella team would come up, even if based in Cary, NC or Tampa, FL. The league won’t fold just because NYRB, LAG go down for a season or two. And, heck, if they are so awful, they deserve to go down. No need to cultivate the Cincinnati Bengals and promote mediocrity for generations to come.
Don’t make MLS a clone of other professional leagues in the US, keep an open mind, make some changes, see what works and what doesn’t.
Mexico just moved to a single table; last I checked, they are doing just fine.
I am not saying do relegation/promotion now. But it must happen to take the league and the sport in this country to the next level. Credit to the Don, it’s time for a a non-NFL protege to make the next step. And get rid of the stupid conferences, already! Move to a single table!
Can’t wait for a proper second division to get sorted out. I bet there is a good mix of current NASL and USL teams that could make a pretty competitive and well supported league in smaller soccer markets along the East Coast and Great Lakes
Great game, are you kidding me! I stumbled upon this game ( or mess) trying to find some real soccer. There was NOTHING attractive about this game at least from what I saw in the 2nd half! Big dumb physical play with virtually no real skill whatsoever. Just dreadful fouls and NO rhythm at all! It was college soccer on steroids!
Is there a particular reason Orlando seems to not fit the general ‘Florida sports fans suck’ mold? As far as I can tell, the Magic get great support, and for their division, so does Orlando City. My Florida geography isn’t great, but do the Orlando and Tampa Bay area metro areas overlap enough where if Orlando got a MLS team they could get some old Rowdies fans?
Wont work here get over it.
Great game, great atmosphere. I was really impressed watching the second half an ot on FSC. And the crowd was awesome. I usually don’t give the USL much love other than the USOC.
Congrats to Orlando City on the title.
It would be nice to see Orlando compete v. Rowdies and Strikers at NASL next season as winners of USL.
But, wait, everyone on this board tells me that I am a troll and that promotion/relegation is impossible in the US. You gotta love franchise systems and sinlge entity sports structures…promoting mediocrity every step of the way!
you didnt mention the 11.5k in attendance at the citrus. i hope they move up to NASL next yr. If they hit 12k average for NASL, then its obvious they should be in MLS after that. Great organization top to bottom.
Completely disappointed that the City Islanders couldn’t win, but clearly both teams were deserving of a victory. The way the teams played, the exact same thing would be written had the City Islanders won, too.