Orlando City 1-1 NYCFC — First impressions

By on March 8, 2015

Only once can first impressions be made, and today, two MLS franchises — New York City FC and Orlando City — did so with their 1-1 draw via a last-minute equalizer by Kaka.

Brek Shea is a natural left-back
Kaka might’ve drawn the headlines for Orlando City — given his injury-time free-kick that drew the game level for Orlando — but equally so, Brek Shea put in a great performance down the left wing. Liberal in tearing forward down the wing, Shea was equally as successful cutting inside as drifting down the wing to plant crosses into the box. In turn, his overlapping runs allowed Kevin Molino to drift inside and combine with Kaka. It was here, down the left, where Orlando looked brightest in attack, with Adrian Heath’s side struggling to maintain possession, especially in the first half, though threatening on the counter.

Shea was a bright spot amongst an Orlando side that struggled to break down NYCFC, and, at the age of twenty-five, might be creating a new beginning for himself as a full-back. Defensively, he was solid as well and rarely found himself caught out when roaming forward.

Orlando’s defense performed quite well in closing down Villa — crowd-defending the Spain international — while also doing a good job of containing the threat of target-man Adam Nemec. However, two defensive lapses on NYCFC counter-attacks cost them the win: first, giving Mix Dikserud all the time in the world to curl a beautiful effort into the bottom right corner on the top of the box; then Aurélien Collin committing to a terrible, high lunge of the leg-breaking sort on Villa late on, for which he found himself deservedly sent-off.

Mix Diskerud could tear apart MLS
The big-name foreigners, David Villa and Kaka might “carry”, their respective clubs, but today the American internationals dominated the actual match. Shea for Orlando, and Mix Diskerud for New York. Coming from Norway, where he played far away from the spotlight of American fans, Diskerud will make a name for himself in the MLS.

Just as he does for the US National Team, Diskerud slotted into an attacking midfield role for Orlando and combined well with Ned Grabavoy and Mehdi Ballouchy. Despite competing in the club’s first ever competitive match, Dikserud looked in-sync and jelled with his teammates, much more so than Kaka did with Orlando. The Norwegian-born midfielder also provided a dangerous outlet when Villa and Nemec looked to lay the ball off; it was the former who assisted the 24-year-old’s beautiful goal.

When New York defended and played on the break, mainly in the second half as Orlando pushed forward, Diskerud was NYCFC’s outlet on the counter-attack: countless times he tore forward with the ball or found the runs, in particular, of Khiry Shelton, whose pace troubled Shea after coming on as a second-half substitute. Sixty-seven minutes in, Shelton drove a low cross-shot just wide of the left-hand post on a break which Diskerud started.

The actual game disappointed
The sold-out Citrus Bowl was rocking at kickoff, but after NYCFC’s opener seventy-six minutes in was left in silent shock. For the first ninety minutes Orlando fans were hardly given anything to cheer from a match riddled with little mistakes, only for Kaka’s deflected free-kick to finding the back of the net and give the ninth-largest crowd in MLS history something to get excited about. The beginnings of two MLS franchises rightfully grabbed the headlines, but the actual game struggled to match all the hype.

Photo credit: Kjetil Ree on Wikipedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.