Orlando City’s lineup against Real Salt Lake featured some familiar faces as José Aja and Cyle Larin made their returns to the pitch. Both players had a noticeable impact on the game and helped lead their team to a 1-0 road victory against Salt Lake City in Rio Tinto Stadium.
Aja has been competing for a spot in the starting defensive four. Jonathan Spector has been a constant, starting in 17 of the team’s 19 matches. But players such as Aja, Leo Periera, and Tommy Redding have been in and out of the lineup depending on the match.
"I thought he was excellent,” Head Coach Jason Kreis said about Aja’s performance. “Really well-played game by him. He was in the right spot to make critical defensive plays. Never got caught on the ball. He was superb."
"At some point in the season we're all going to go through ups and downs and that’s why we're a team,” Servando Carrasco added. “After those two not so sharp performances by him he bounced back and he trained hard, he's been positive this entire time so to see him play so well tonight, we're all so happy for him."
Cyle Larin was cleared to rejoin the Lions during the week, and while he didn’t make the scoresheet, he fought hard in the final third and helped create attacking chances. His return to the pitch brought a spark to Orlando City’s attack.
"Its big, we probably don't win that game without Cyle,” Will Johnson said. “He runs down a lot of things, he is our only true target guy, he plays a lot of solid minutes for us and he hold the ball up really really well, so we probably don't win that game without him."
"I thought he really worked for us,” Kreis said. “I thought he was really good on a couple of occasions when he turned and ran at their players. He was strong on the ball a lot of times. It's not easy to do in his first game back after he was out for a few weeks, especially to do it here at altitude. We'll get him refreshed and recharged, and hopefully he'll have enough energy to build on that performance for Wednesday night."
Orlando City will return home on Wednesday for a midweek match against Toronto FC. The match will kickoff at Orlando City Stadium at 7:30pm.
