The Mane Land PawedCast

Saturday night did not go as planned for Orlando City, and that's something that can be said for several Saturdays already during this trying 2024 MLS regular season. In fact, if things don't start to turn around soon, there may only be a regular season for the Lions in 2024. We looked back at another unhappy result for Orlando City, although there is a lot to be said for the team's attitude despi...

One year ago, the Lions were second only to FC Cincinnati in the race for the Supporters Shield. Fast forward to 2024 and the Lions have struggled out of the gate, despite only losing once in their last five games, but even though Cincinnati jettisoned top goal scorer Brandon Vazquez, the southwest Ohio side is second in the Eastern Conference. Although Saturday's visitors haven't been scoring as...

Orlando City was doing OK against Toronto FC...until it wasn't. The Lions held the advantage for a good chunk of the game, but two late goals allowed the Reds to smash and grab three points from Orlando on their way back to Canada. We break down the game, check in on our score predictions, and make our selections for Man of the Match. This week's mailbagbox asked us about the EPL race, wrestling w...

Orlando City hosts Toronto FC Saturday night and it'll be the first of two meetings. A lot has changed with Toronto, so we invited an expert to join us and answer our questions about the Reds. James Grossi, beat writer for TFC's official website (torontofc.ca), jumps on with us right away and we ask all about John Herdman's style, how he's gotten the team's Italian stars to buy in, and much more....

Orlando City's regular-season series against CF Montreal is over already, and nobody won. The teams played to a 2-2 draw on Saturday night at Stade Saputo, with the Lions looking like the better side in the first half and the hosts controlling much of the second period. We finally saw some attacking players score their first goals of the season, too, so it was another positive step forward for the...

As the Lions prepare to take to the road again for a Saturday night match in Montreal, we looked back at the first MLS game Facundo Torres, Martin Ojeda, and Luis Muriel started together. The trio of 2024 Orlando City Designated Players looked good at times, but still aren't producing at a level one would expect. We discussed how their skills match, what their positioning was like against D.C. Uni...

The Lions came out of the bye week as if they were still on it, but Orlando City eventually got things going and came back twice to beat D.C. United in stoppage time at Audi Field. Nico Lodeiro came off the bench to serve as provider for heroics by David Brekalo and Duncan McGuire. After a slow start, the Lions have now gone three matches without a loss (2-0-1) and look a bit more like themselves....

The Lions were off despite most of MLS having games over the weekend, so we start this show off with a look back at Orlando City B's "home" game in Bradenton against Inter Miami II. That didn't go as well as a typical (and actual) home game typically does, and the Young Lions lost 2-0 to drop their first decision of 2024 after opening the season with a win and a draw followed by a shootout win. St...

The Lions couldn't quite pull off the comeback after Kyle Smith conceded a first-half penalty to the New York Red Bulls. Lewis Morgan made Orlando City pay for that mistake and it wasn't until late that the Cardiac Cats struck to at least salvage a point. We break down a frustrating game in terms of the result, but a positive performance for Orlando. We check in on our score predictions and make o...

The Lions will be a lot closer to whole on Saturday night when the New York Red Bulls visit Inter&Co Stadium. Orlando City is chasing New York (and most other teams) in the standings early in this 2024 season, and a good way to claw your way to the top is to beat the clubs that are in front of you. The question is: How will the Lions do that? Oscar Pareja has favored the 4-4-2 the last two matches...

Despite missing some key pieces, Orlando City did what it needed to do (and pretty much whatever it wanted to do) in a 2-0 home win over Austin FC that was not as close as the final score would have non-viewers believe. The Lions controlled the game from start to finish and got goals from Jack Lynn and Nico Lodeiro without conceding one at the other end. In fact, Austin barely registered any tries...

It's not going to be easy for Orlando City to stop the bleeding on Saturday. The Lions need a win but there are a lot of key players who will be missing due to international duty when the Texas side visits Orlando this weekend. We drop all the names of all the guys who won't be available for the match against Austin FC and try to figure out what the lineup will look like. This week's mailbagbox wa...

The Lions still aren't firing on all cylinders and hopefully the current full week between games will let Orlando City finally start turning the corner. Orlando visited Atlanta United without both starting central midfielders and a whole lot of tired legs, but the Lions were mainly done in by poor finishing and a couple of defensive lapses. There is a case to be made that Orlando only controlled m...

The Lions are out of the 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup. It was always a tough ask to go into El Volcan and come home with a result. The reality was even tougher, as Orlando City failed to match the hosts' energy early, conceded twice, and never fully battled back into the match. The Lions lost 4-2 in Mexico and at least the fixtures won't come quite so fast and furious for a while. We discuss a diff...

Be careful what you wish for, especially when that wish is for more offense without also specifying "without sacrificing anything on defense." Orlando City scored twice and created enough chances to fill a calendar month, but the Lions unfortunately didn't fill the net on the bulk of those opportunities. A late mistake defensively and a couple of goalkeeping gaffes combined to create more than Orl...

Find something you love as much as Orlando City and Tigres UANL enjoy drawing against each other. The Lions have yet to best or be bested by their Liga MX counterparts as of Tuesday night's 0-0 draw at Inter&Co Stadium. The match didn't feature many chances, but Orlando had a few good ones and couldn't put any in the net. We break down the Concacaf Champions Cup meeting and make our selections for...

Orlando City went on the road and...well, might as well not have bothered. A forfeit would have spared fans the sights we all witnessed on Saturday, and there would be some measure of comfort in not having to have seen a plethora of mistakes on both ends that were costly in the Lions' first 2024 meeting with in-state rival Inter Miami. It started early and kept going the wrong direction. There wer...

Orlando City was able to rest some starters and still put three goals on the board in a 3-1 home win over Cavalry FC on Tuesday evening. The Lions advance to play Tigres UANL of Liga MX in the Round of 16, but you've got to beat the good teams at some point if you want to win the trophy. We break down the win over the Canadian Premier League side, including our first glimpses of Luis Muriel and Sh...

Orlando City loves to draw on opening day, and so the Lions split the points in their first MLS match of the season for the seventh time in 10 seasons. The 0-0 draw against CF Montreal wasn't the worst result, but it sure wasn't what we expected or wanted. Orlando City was the better side but couldn't get the final touch right, which is an unfortunate part of the sport sometimes. It's not unusual...

Orlando City went to British Columbia and came home with a victory. The Lions were rarely threatened in their Concacaf Champions Cup opener, getting a goal from Duncan McGuire and two more from Facundo Torres to put a 3-0 beating on Cavalry FC Wednesday night. But perhaps the two best Lions on the pitch were Ivan Angulo and Dagur Dan Thorhallsson. It's subjective, obviously, and plenty of guys had...

The preseason is over. Bring on the regular season! Competitive games start this week for Orlando City in both 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup and MLS play. We couldn't be more excited to have the closed-door scrimmages out of the way and true tests lie ahead for the Lions. First, however, we open the show with a discussion of Orlando City's final preseason tuneup for the games that count. The Lions t...

The Duncan McGuire saga ended (for now, anyway), but it wasn't in a good way for anyone involved. Still, Blackburn missed a sitter by not properly submitting transfer paperwork, so McGuire is back in Orlando and the plan is to have him start the season with the Lions. Where things go from there is anyone's guess. Aside from that, Orlando City was busy in the last week, completing a new contract fo...

With the craziness surrounding the transfer-turned-loan-deal of Duncan McGuire to Blackburn last week, we pushed this show to the beginning of this week so we would have more clarity. That clearly backfired on us, because as of the writing of this post and after the recording of the accompanying episode of The Mane Land PawedCast, we still don't know for sure where McGuire will play in 2024. Becau...

're back after a full month off but there's so much going on that we could stay away no longer, off-season or not. In fact, it's not even the off-season anymore, because the Lions are back in training and there's a match coming up on Saturday — a friendly against Brazilian side Flamengo. We started with a discussion of player signings since late December, with Orlando City signing Ivan Angulo, Fac...

Our best-laid plans to go monthly in the off-season didn't last very long. We're back after only 16 days with a brand new show and it's a big one. The club has been extremely busy since we released episode 391 and we just had to talk about all of the goings on we've seen in the past couple of weeks. Our show starts with our discussion of Orlando City's roster decisions after the 2023 season and a...