Five days after its last match, Orlando City SC (6-3-1, 19 points) heads to Canada to face Toronto FC (2-6-1, 7 points) on Friday, May 18. Kickoff is set for 8 pm. ET at BMO Field.
The match will be locally televised on WRDQ TV 27 and YouTube TV. It will also be broadcast on Real Radio 104.1 in English and La Nueva AM 990 in Spanish.
“[Toronto] is a very good team, a team that’s a little bit hard-done with some decisions that have gone against them in the past couple of games to pick up losses where they probably should’ve picked up draws, and then maybe a bad performance or two and a ton of injuries,” Lions head coach Jason Kreis said. “We believe there’s going to be some important players coming back from injury for our match and we believe that it’s going to look like a Toronto that we know a lot about and have a ton of respect for. It’s a really, really difficult place to go, which I do think says something because now we have taken this emotional loss after having six wins in a row, so it will be, as it always is, about the response.”
After wins at Philadelphia and Colorado, the Lions will look to win a third consecutive road game for the first time in Club history, as well as their first win at BMO Field.
Orlando City enters the match following a 2-1 loss to Atlanta United on Sunday that snapped a Club-record six-game winning streak. Josef Martinez and Ezequiel Barco scored for Atlanta before Justin Meram scored his first goal as a Lion in the second half.
Dom Dwyer is tied for third in MLS with six goals. The Lions will be without midfielder Yoshimar Yotún, who will serve a one-game suspension for yellow card accumulation.
Toronto is 1-2-1 in MLS since losing the CONCACAF Champions League Final, most recently falling to New England 3-2 in Foxborough on Saturday. The Reds will be without 2015 MLS MVP Sebastian Giovinco, who was shown a straight red card in the 90th minute against New England. Toronto will also be without forward Jozy Altidore, who is recovering from foot surgery.
This is the first of two meetings between these two teams in 2018. Toronto visits Orlando City Stadium on July 14. The match begins a stretch of six road games in the Lions’ next eight matches.
