Two games remain for Orlando City B on the season. Two games will determine if the USL side will make the playoffs for the second straight season, or miss out by the skin of their teeth. As the team heads into their second to last match on Saturday against the New York Red Bulls II, OCB sit in seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings. Only two points separate seventh and ninth, with RBNY II trailing Orlando by one.
A win on Saturday puts OCB in an ideal position to make the final eight spots and Head Coach Anthony Pulis feels that their place in the standings is essentially up to his team.
“It’s good that it’s in our own hands,” Pulis said on Tuesday, “But there’s still an awful long way to go. An awful lot can happen in two games. We know that Red Bulls are a very good team. They have the same fundamentals, the same principals as what their first team do. They play a slightly different system, but we know it’s going to be a difficult game.”
The team has won back-to-back games heading into this weekend, after pulling out a 1-0 result over the Richmond Kickers this past Sunday. The Hadji Barry goal in the 80th minute marks the second game in which the team has scored in the final 10 minutes of the match. That never-say-die attitude and winning mentality has been key down the stretch for the USL team, a quality that Anthony Pulis admires within his squad.
“The mentality of the last few games has been spot on.,” He said. “We spoke about the importance of a good performance and a good result against Charleston at home off the back of two defeats. They responded great. Then we go to Richmond, playing Sunday night, after everyone else has played and won around us. So everybody kind of knows, it’s almost kind of like a must win game and the guys just responded fantastically. Really good performance on the road, good result and hopefully we can take those results into Saturday.”
The Red Bulls II play a midweek game against Tampa Bay on Wednesday before coming to Orlando on the weekend, meaning both teams will come into the matchup with everything to play for in the standings.
The game will kick off at Orlando City Stadium on Saturday at 7:30
