By MIKE GRAMAJO
SANFORD, Fla. — Heading into the summer swing, Orlando City sits one point adrift from playoff position in the Eastern Conference. And while on paper, it shows Orlando City can dominate its opponent on possession, there’s another statistic that suggests otherwise; The goals.
With Orlando City heading into the weekend’s matchup at Toyota Park against the Chicago Fire, Adrian Heath believes his team can do more collectively on the scoring front after previous games saw the Lions squander several opportunities.
“It’s not been easy the last few weeks,” Heath told reporters after the team’s training session on Thursday. “What we need is to get more people in the box, and I think we’ve done better at that as of late. I’m never one to label we need more goals from the front man, and we need to defend better. We defend from the front, and we attack from the back, and everybody joins in. It’s a collective rather than an individual thing.”
Orlando City has scored 16 goals so far in their inaugural season in Major League Soccer, 10 goals of which have come from Brazilian star Kaka and Cyle Larin. The true test will come on Saturday if the Lions manage to nab their fourth victory of the season against a wounded Chicago Fire side, though Heath isn’t factoring Chicago’s midweek defeat as a key to victory on Saturday.
“The parity of this league is incredible,” Heath added. “We know it’s going to be a difficult game, they got a lot of pace up top. It’s not going to be an easy game by any stretch of the imagination. We’ve got a really important game against an Eastern Conference rival.”
With Larin expected to leave for international duty after the Fire game, that opens a chance for Pedro Ribeiro to fill the striker role after Martin Paterson (MCL) fell to injury again this week. Ribeiro, who suffered a hamstring injury in April, returned to where he last left off, scoring the game-tying goal for Orlando City last week against the Columbus Crew.
Darwin Ceren’s rise to starting in defensive midfield is another asset that could benefit Orlando City’s scoring edge, Heath mentioned. The El Salvador international was called up to the national team, but will play at Toyota Park this weekend.
“Darwin [Ceren] and Cristian [Higuita] have cemented their roles,” Heath said on the midfield duo. “As long as they keep performing, they’re going to be fine. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a couple of weeks we had the same team, and got a few positive results.”
OCSC are currently in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, and have one win in their last five games. If Heath’s men manage to earn a victory on Saturday, they can potentially fall back into playoff contention.