The Orlando Satisfaction have fun a win over Racing Louisville FC at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Fla., on Could 5, 2024. (Photograph credit score: Nathan Ray Seebeck | USA TODAY Sports activities)
Because the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League inches nearer to its break for the Paris Olympics, two groups proceed to contend for the highest spot on the leaderboard: the Kansas Metropolis Present, at the moment No. 1, and the second-ranked Orlando Satisfaction.
For the Satisfaction, the primary half of the season has already seen 4 shutouts and a league-record eight consecutive wins. They’re 8-0-5, tied with Kansas Metropolis on factors however second on purpose differential. They enter Friday’s conflict towards the Utah Royals trying to rekindle their profitable streak after consecutive attracts. Within the second of these, towards North Carolina on Saturday, Orlando was held scoreless for the primary time all season.
Regardless that the record-setting run was snapped, Orlando’s turnaround underneath third-year head coach Seb Hines speaks for itself. A staff that racked up 21 losses over his first two seasons, ending final yr out of playoff competition, now sits undefeated, among the many league’s prime contenders and with its eyes on a championship.
“Final yr was loads about younger gamers coming via, getting gamers again from damage, but additionally setting the tone and setting a tradition of what this staff wished to be after they step onto the sector — finally, your id,” Hines, who joined the staff as an assistant coach in 2020 earlier than changing into head coach in 2022, informed The Equalizer. “We had season final yr, simply fell wanting the playoffs, however groups had been conscious of us and what we had been able to doing. We simply wanted that final touch.”
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