ORLANDO, Fla. (July 24, 2018) - Orlando City SC (7-12-1, 22 points) returns home to face 2015 expansion rival New York City FC (12-4-4, 40 points) on Thursday, July 26. Kickoff is set for 8:00 p.m. ET at Orlando City Stadium.
The match will be nationally televised on ESPN. The game will be transmitted on FM 96.9 The Game in English and La Nueva 990 AM in Spanish. Tickets are still available at www.OrlandoCitySC.com/tickets.
“The biggest thing for us is making sure we’re prepared. [New York City] are having a fantastic season, very strong team,” Lions head coach James O’Connor said. “We need to reinforce some of the positives we saw in Columbus, try to make sure there’s a good understanding of what we’re trying to do and then there’s a few things we need to be a little bit sharper on. We’ve got a group of guys that are open to growth, and that’s what we’re looking for. We want to make sure that we get good understanding of what we’re trying to achieve, and that we bring the same level of intensity that we did in Columbus.”
The Lions are coming off a 3-2 loss at Columbus Crew SC on Saturday. Sacha Kljestan scored his fifth goal of the season in the 16th minute. Kljestan then set up Stéfano Pinho for his second goal of the season in the 59th minute. Columbus scored in the 51st, 88th and 92nd minutes.
Dom Dwyer leads the team with eight goals and Yoshimar Yotún leads the team with six assists.
New York City FC enters the match on a three-game winning streak, most recently defeating Columbus 2-0 on July 14. The Pigeons haven’t allowed a goal since their last loss on June 30 at Chicago.
David Villa leads NYC with eight goals and Maxi Moralez leads the team with 10 assists.
This is the last of three meetings between the 2015 expansion rivals this season. The Lions will look to snap a three-game losing streak against the Pigeons dating to 2017, but own the all-time series with a 5-4-2 record against NYCFC.
