Saturday’s match at Orlando City Stadium will see the reunion of two players with their former teams. Brek Shea, former Orlando City midfielder, now a member of the Vancouver Whitecaps, and Giles Barnes, who played for Vancouver for the final 10 games of the season in 2016. Both players were traded for each other before the start of the 2017 season.
Shea played two seasons with the Lions, joining the team prior to the start of their inaugural season in December of 2014. He played in 47 games for Orlando, scoring three goals and notching six assists, appearing in defense and in the midfield throughout his tenure. This season for Vancouver, Shea has battled a bit of the injury bug, but has played in 16 matches, starting in seven of them. He’s scored twice and added one assist so far this year.
Barnes was traded to Vancouver by the Houston Dynamo in the middle of the 2016 season, where he spent almost five years, scoring 31 goals and 14 assists. Last year up in Canada, Barnes had two goals and one assist in only 10 games played. Now, this year with Orlando, he has two goals and two assists, having played in every single Lions match this year, including U.S. Open Cup play.
Both players will have some extra motivation coming up against their former teams on Saturday, with the Lions looking for a win at home before a four game road trip and the Whitecaps looking to stay above the red line in the playoff race.
For Barnes, the upcoming game is another opportunity for him and his team to get on the winning track again, much like they did in the early parts of the season.
“Every single game out here is a blessing for us all. We need to stay back at home, get back to the way it was at the beginning of the season and carry this forward.”
