Courtesy of Alyssa Taifi
A lot happened on Wednesday in the Orlando soccer-verse. The MLS season schedule dropped, Orlando City announced a new streaming platform, the Lions played another preseason match and the OC Academy 23‘s played their first match of their UPSL season.
Here’s a rundown of Wednesday’s events:
Orlando City beat Philadelphia 3-1 in preseason scrimmage
The Lions took home their second preseason win thanks to goals from Alexandre Pato, Chris Mueller and Matheus Aiás.
“I would say the progress has been going very well,” defender Kyle Smith said after the match. “We have a lot of returning players, so I feel like the chemistry has picked up from last year. And then we’ve added a lot of good pieces to the puzzle and I think they’ve all fit in very well, so I’m very excited to see how we pan out this year.”
Orlando will train for the rest of the week and will scrimmage against the Columbus Crew this Saturday night at Osceola County Stadium.
OC Academy 23’s take home their first win
After being announced officially just days prior, the newest arm of Orlando City, the OC Academy U-23s, played their inaugural UPSL match against Deportivo Lake Mary on Wednesday at the club’s training facility in Kissimmee. The team consisted of players ranging from U-15’s, U-17’s and college graduates.
After a slow start, Sebastian Bastidas slotted OCA23’s first goal in the 37th minute to take a 1-0 lead into half. Then as the second half started, the team struck again, taking a commanding 2-0 lead courtesy of 19-year-old Kenji Tanaka (former OCB)
Tanaka would seal the game and secure his brace in the 72nd minute after this near post strike to make it 3-0.
The OCU23’s will play their next match on Wednesday, March 31st against CFL Gosa Spurs.
All home matches are closed to the public.
MLS regular season schedule drops
Orlando City finally know who they’ll be playing this season as MLS released the 2021 regular season schedule.
You can check out the full schedule, as well as some key matches and facts about the schedule in our story from yesterday here.
Orlando City announce LionNation TV
With no access for streaming platforms last season, the Lions came up with a solution to help fans watch matches without cable: create their own streaming service.
Pairing it with the already existing LionNation, LionNation TV will be included with the LionNation Premium, which costs $60 a year.
You can read more about what is included in the app and how to stream games by clicking here.
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