KISSIMMEE, Fla. — It's the biggest game of Orlando City SC's season on Saturday.
Facing down a pivotal game 3 against Charlotte FC, you would think the atmosphere around training would be tense and stressful, but this morning, the coaching staff made sure it was anything but.
Instead of heading into their usual practice routine, the team opted to spend some of the session playing Teqball, similar to soccer table tennis but played on a curved table. There were six tables set up in a covered part of the training facility as the players were paired off into teams.
The competition and passion from the players was palpable, each one wanting to beat the other. The banter was spicy, the intensity was high, and overall, it was a great way to break up the team's practice as they head into such an important game.
"It's important," Head Coach Oscar Pareja told me after training today. "There is a bunch of things during the week, when we're preparing for games that are not very tangible, that you can see, but is in there. And sometimes, you tighten things up, be demanding when we need to. But there are moments where you have to release that pressure, too, and that's normal for any team and any competition because I don't like to see our team playing without that feeling of compromise and responsibility and desire and willingness to do the right thing. So it's just trying to put that stimulus during the week on the right day, in the right moment."
The rounds of Teqball went on for a while, with games going back and forth. Duncan McGuire and Mikey Halliday had some good moments early on, but faltered towards the end, leaving Duncan to trash talk everyone else as he sat on the sidelines. The Brazilian duo of Felipe and Rafael Santos showed off some flair in earning their points, but ultimately didn't crack the top three teams at the end of it.
By the time it came down to the final three teams, it was the duos of veterans Nico Lodeiro and Luis Muriel and of Argentines MartÃn Ojeda and Rodrigo Schlegel and players that play on opposite ends of the pitch in Facundo Torres and Pedro Gallese.
The teams played each other in a best of three points at the end, and with Wilder Cartagena singing and goading his national team teammate on from the sideline, it was Gallese and Torres who won the final point over Lodiero and Muriel.
From that point on, the switch was flipped, and the team headed out onto the pitch to get to the real nitty-gritty: preparing for their make-or-break Round One game at Inter&Co Stadium on Saturday.
