Orlando City vs. Inter Miami: Keys to Sunday Night Soccer | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

After a brief, Leagues Cup-inspired hiatus, Sunday Night Soccer returns this week with the second edition of the Copa del Sol as Orlando City host Inter Miami CF (8 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+).

Not only is this one a renewal of one of the league’s testiest rivalries – Orlando crushed Miami 3-0 in Fort Lauderdale back in May in the teams’ first meeting of the season – it’s also a possible Leagues Cup semifinal preview, as both teams made it to the knockout rounds and are drawn onto the same side of the bracket:

Lots to play for here.

Players in focus

Orlando City

Inter Miami CF

What’s at stake for Orlando City?

All year long there’s been the perception that there’s a top five in the East – Miami, Cincy, Philly, Nashville and Columbus in some order – with Orlando just behind that group. And the season-long points per game total has largely backed that up, with the Cats more or less comfortably in sixth throughout the season.

But with two regular-season wins just before the Leagues Cup break, followed by a strong showing in the Leagues Cup itself, Orlando have suddenly narrowed the gap not just in points per game, but in terms of perception. They are officially knocking on the door of that lead group, and while they can’t catch Miami in points per game with a win in this one, they can actually pass the Herons in raw points.

And then suddenly you’re talking about a stretch run where the top four – and the first-round homefield advantage in the playoffs that comes with it – is in sight.

What’s at stake for Inter Miami CF?

The Herons are flying. After a downturn in form in mid-spring – they went 1W-3L-2D from April 26 to May 24 in MLS play – they’ve gone 9W-2L-4D across all competitions, with “all competitions” meaning not just the MLS regular-season and Leagues Cup, but also their landmark performance in the FIFA Club World Cup.

They’ve climbed back towards the top of the Supporters’ Shield race and are playing the type of ball that says they’ll likely be staying at these lofty heights for months to come. And now, over the past two games, they’ve started to look like a team that can do so even if Messi stops being superhuman for a minute.

Plus there is the revenge factor. These teams haven’t liked each other from the jump (a testy match in the 2023 Leagues Cup set the tone), and I’m sure that 3-0 loss is still fresh even though it happened back in May.

Tactical breakdown

Orlando City

Since Day 1 in MLS, Orlando head coach Oscar Pareja has preferred a 4-2-3-1 with a classic No. 10. That’s how he won the Shield/US Open Cup double with FC Dallas nine years ago, and it’s how he scraped the Cats off the bottom of the table since his arrival in central Florida at the start of the decade, a run that included a second US Open Cup title back in 2022.

But as the game’s changed and the personnel’s changed, Pareja's had to change a bit himself. The big one is the tactical shift: Orlando’s still using a 4-2-3-1, but instead of a 4-2-3-1 with a pulley system where one fullback stays if the other goes, which creates overloads on one side or the other (with the downside of occasionally getting the rest defense out of whack and leaving the backline exposed), they’ve shifted to the asymmetrical version where only one fullback pushes forward and the opposite fullback tucks in to create a back three.

For Miami it’s Jordi Alba, the left fullback, who pushes up while the right fullback tucks in. For Orlando it’s right fullback Alex Freeman, who’s No. 30 on the below graphic:

Bear in mind that he and No. 24 are nominally playing the same position in the back four. But it’s a very different role.

For a while it was either all gas no brakes or all brakes no gas – they had a loooong shutout streak back in the spring, which coincided with a looooong scoreless streak of their own. At one point it was four 0-0s in five outings.

Since then, though: 10W-5L-4D in 19 outings. Sure seems like they’ve found the balance!

A key to that is Ojeda’s propensity to drift out left and form overloads out there – you can see where he is (No. 10) on that graphic above, which opens up the central channel for either the striker to drop in (which Muriel will choose 9 times out of 10) or for the striker to stretch the line and pin the center backs (which Enrique will choose 9 times out of 10), opening up space for either the brilliant Eduard Atuesta to push forward from deep midfield, or for DP right winger Marco Pašalić to cut inside and occupy zone 14 as a pure playmaker.

This team has a ton of weapons and tactical flexibility. They’re playing great ball.

Inter Miami CF

They’ve primarily played out of what I’ll call a 4-4-1-1 this year when both Messi and Suárez have been available. In that shape Messi is nominally a forward – they’ll usually defend with a front two and banks of four behind him, so it looks like a 4-4-2 without the ball – but he’s totally free to drop in and become a playmaker, or flare wide to become a winger, or even, yes, do forward things running off of Suárez’s movement and hold-up play.

It’s a completely free role, and that’s why I hesitate to call it a 4-4-2. In the modern game, the function of the 4-4-2 is to create a forward partnership that operates almost exclusively in transition (there are no possession-focused 4-4-2 teams anymore).

Without Messi in their last two outings (or most of their last two outings, anyway; he was injured early vs. Necaxa) it’s been more of a 4-3-3 with De Paul dropping into a sort of free 8 role alongside either Yannick Bright or Federico Redondo, and Sergio Busquets as a true No. 6. That put more of the attacking onus on wingers Tadeo Allende and Telasco Segovia – the latter of whom has been one of the most impressive young players in the league.

That 4-3-3 morphed into a 4-2-3-1 at times, with De Paul looking like a box-crashing No. 10 (think Frank Lampard with tattoos), which was super effective when Suárez was making those inside-out channel runs that have been a staple of his for 20 years. It should be no surprise that these guys have figured things out so quickly given their respective pedigrees.

The backline is oriented around left back Alba’s relentless desire to push forward, which has its pluses and its minuses. The biggest plus, obviously, is that he and Messi have a decades-long final-third mind-meld. When the GOAT finally retires and the six-hour-long “All Messi’s Goals” compilation is released, Alba might show up more often in a supporting role than anyone except Dani Alves.

The minus is this:

That’s on Jordi. He goes walkabout for no reason at all.

He did that a lot at the start of the season, but has been much more conservative about it since this excellent run of form began in late May. With that has come not just better boxscore numbers, defensively speaking (at least against anyone except PSG), but better underlying numbers as well.

Miami are not winning games in spite of their defense anymore, is what I’m saying. That doesn’t mean they’re winning games because of their defense – the pendulum hasn’t swung that far – but it’s no longer a glaring liability.

Projected lineups

I think they’re a much better team with Enrique starting and Muriel off the bench, but you don’t drop a guy who just scored a hattie. Note that Atuesta is recovering from a knock – he’s back in training – so I don’t think he’ll start. I’d also expect cameos from new acquisitions Adrián Marín and Tyrese Spicer.

And yes, that is career defender Kyle Smith starting in central midfield. Hey, it worked against Necaxa!

I just can’t imagine that Messi is going to miss this game, and if he’s at all fit, he will start. It’s just how he is. Other than that, no changes from the win over Pumas – which means another start for Rocco Ríos Novo in goal while Óscar Ustari continues his recovery.