Words at Orlando City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Brekalo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Eduard Atuesta was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
15 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad21 Dec 2026
David Brekalo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Nobody at Orlando City will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Orlando City have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduard Atuesta wants continental football; whether Orlando City can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Orlando City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Brekalo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bryan Arguez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Orlando City, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Words at Orlando City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Brekalo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Robin Jansson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Orlando City have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Orlando City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Brekalo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Orlando City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Maxime Crépeau's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Orlando City lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A 2‑2 draw with New England Revolution leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Luis Otávio falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Orlando City lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Orlando City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Brekalo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Luis Otávio was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
Player ratingsBraian Ojeda misses from twelve yards
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Orlando City lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Charlotte Football Club are out and Orlando City go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Charlotte Football Club had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Orlando City did not stop to explain themselves.
Squad17 Aug 2026
David Brekalo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Isaias Galván has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Orlando City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two goals and a mark of 8.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Orlando City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Orlando City, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Still no offer on the table, and Iván Angulo’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduard Atuesta wants continental football; whether Orlando City can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Orlando City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Brekalo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Eduard Atuesta was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.