ORLANDO, Fla. (April 27, 2018) - Orlando City SC (4-2-1, 13 points) will look to win its fifth match in a row when it visits the Colorado Rapids (2-2-2, 8 points) on Sunday, April 29, at 4 p.m. ET.
The match will be nationally televised on ESPN. It will also be transmitted locally on Real Radio 104.1 FM in English and La Nueva 990 AM in Spanish.
“In their last four matches [Colorado has] had three extremely positive results and then one poor one, the one poor one comes away when they went down a man early in the game at Real Salt Lake, so I think that’s a bit of a blip. For me it’s a team that’s riding some confidence and a team that works extremely hard. Going to be a massive challenge for us there in Denver for sure,” Lions head coach Jason Kreis said.
The Lions enter the match on a four-game winning streak, most recently defeating the San Jose Earthquakes 3-2 on Saturday. Rookie Chris Mueller scored the fastest goal in Lions history just 65 seconds into the match before picking up his first career assist on Sacha Kljestan’s second goal of 2018. Dom Dwyer scored his 100th career goal and the eventual game-winner in the 69th minute.
Dwyer’s goal was his fifth of the season and his league-leading third game-winner in four appearances. Mueller’s goal was his third in as many games. Yoshimar Yotún is tied for fourth in MLS with four assists.
Orlando City is 2-0-1 all-time against the Rapids. The Lions picked up 2-0 wins at home in 2015 and 2017 and a 0-0 draw in Colorado in August 2016. The Rapids are the only team (excluding Los Angeles FC) never to score on City in MLS play.
Colorado lost its last match 3-0 at Real Salt Lake on Saturday. Goalkeeper Tim Howard was shown a straight red card in the 20th minute and the shorthanded Rapids held on until Joao Plata converted his penalty kick in the 82nd minute. Damir Kreilach added another in the 89th and Albert Rusnak scored in stoppage time.
Dominique Badji leads Colorado with four goals, though three of them came on March 31. Johan Blomberg, Tommy Smith and Jack Price lead the Rapids with two assists each. Howard, who played every minute in goal for Colorado before his red card, will be suspended for the match. Zac MacMath took over in goal following Howard’s ejection.
