On a windy Wednesday afternoon, Orlando City B defeated Toronto FC 1-0. Head Coach Anthony Pulis had strong praise for the second group, “We were pleased with the performance. On the whole, everybody has come through well and we moved the ball really well. I think we were probably the better team in the first half, second half went exactly how we expected it to go.”
The solid outing by Orlando City B should be a great indication of what’s to come for the future of soccer in Melbourne. “Obviously all our younger players have ambitions to go on and play in the MLS one day,” Pulis noted of the young, rising players in OCB.
With both Orlando City teams using the same training grounds, the players of Orlando City B have been able to practice with their first team counterparts - and it’s starting to show. In just three weeks of preseason play, Coach Pulis has noticed the exciting change. “When you look at the players from OCB that have been training and playing with the first team it’s been really, really pleasing.”
In only their first preseason, Orlando City B has already put together three exciting wins and the future continues to look bright for the Melbourne based team. However, as the competition continues to get tougher, Orlando City B will continue to be tested. “It was a little bit of a wakeup call [playing Toronto FC], we obviously had two good performance in our preseason friendlies, but at the same time you don’t want to get too carried away,” said Pulis. “No disrespect to those college teams, but it was a bit different out here today.”
With such a vast array of talent, and an MLS team to train with and test their mettle on a daily basis, Orlando City B looks only to move forward.
