It’s easy to make excuses for Orlando City’s 4-0 loss in Houston on Saturday night.
The team played a hard fought, mid-week match in Toronto. They then travelled across the entire country the next day, had one day of rest, and then played again. They were missing Jonathan Spector, who has anchored City’s backline all season. On short rest, Carlos Rivas and Kakà were forced to come off the bench. The list could go on. But for the team? You won’t hear any excuses from them.
“I'm not making any excuses,” said Jason Kreis. “I don't have anything negative to say about my team. ”
And he shouldn’t. If you take a snapshot of Orlando City’s 2017 season, even including the loss to Toronto, it’s a very positive picture. An out of character loss on short rest in Houston shouldn’t change that outlook.
“We've had four games on the road. We won one of them, so we've shown that we're capable of it,” said Jason Kreis. “We've performed pretty well in the other two. So for me, there's only one game where I would say it was a negative performance. I think if we perform as well as we did in the other three, then we will get points on the road, but this one, again, full credit to our opponent.”
I’ll take the head coaches advice on this one. For me, the match in Houston was an Anomaly for a side that has shown nothing but positive things in 2017. I think they’ll prove that at home on Saturday night.
