It begins again.
Tuesday night starts Orlando City's defense of the U.S. Open Cup title as they take on Charlotte FC in North Carolina. This will be the first time under head coach Oscar Pareja that the Lions will play a USOC match on the road, having played all six matches at home last season.
For Pareja, the memories of the run to the cup last year are still fresh in his and his team's heads. Just last week, the team received their championship rings and got a sneak peek at the documentary of their run to the final.
While those are fond memories to look back on, the focus is looking forward to try and repeating the success they found in the country's oldest soccer tournament just a few months ago.
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"It's a cup that brings a lot of pride when you win it, but it doesn't allow you to bounce back because you have just one game where you can keep going or just stop the competition," Pareja said. "The concentration and the occasion for that one game has to be 100%. Sometimes we take it lightly and then after the game, you regret [it] because you didn't want to lose and instead you wanted to be part of those finals or keep going into the competition."
This game will be the second time that the Lions and Charlotte FC have faced off this year, after the 2022 expansion team took a 2-1 win in Orlando back in March.
Now the team heads to Charlotte to begin another cup run, hoping to change the outcome and continue the dream of winning another trophy.
"My advice for players is to treat every single match as it was their last," Pareja said.
"Every single match means a lot for their career, our club, and our fans. It does not matter if it's a Cup game, it is a league game, or an international competition. We have the responsibility to defend the jersey and whether it is a Cup, it's a Wednesday, it's Saturday league game, we have to perform and try to win games."
Odds and ends
- Pareja said on Monday that defender Luca Petrasso is still a few games away from rejoining the team as he's currently dealing with a right thigh injury. The team will wait until after they get back home later this week to start reincorporating him back into training.
- Captain Mauricio Pereyra is awaiting reports from the medical department before joining the team back in training. Pareja said that the team will opt to "give the player correct time and not rush them out on the field."
- The Lions will be back in Orlando for two days following Tuesday's match before heading off to Columbus for their league match against the Crew.
