With four games remaining in the regular season, Orlando Pride (9-6-5, 32 points) begins an important three-game homestand on Saturday night when the team hosts the Boston Breakers (3-10-7, 16 points) at 7:30 p.m. ET at Orlando City Stadium. The Pride currently hold the fourth and final playoff spot and will look to take all three points against the ninth-seeded Breakers. Saturday’s match will be the third and final meeting between the two sides, with the Pride winning once at home and once on the road in the previous games.
Saturday’s match will be streamed at NWSLsoccer.com, go90.com and is available on the go90 app. The match will also be available live on the Huffington Post Women’s Facebook page at the link here.
“Because of the run of form we are in and because of the players we have, we’re becoming the team that other teams might not want to play against. And they get really keyed up to play against us because they know that, with Marta in the form she is in and Alex [Morgan] in the form she is in and our other players, they really need to be on their game,” Head Coach Tom Sermanni said. “So we’re having to raise our game even higher and teams are taking much more tactical care when they play against us. When we played Boston last week they played five in the back so they [kept] things really tight. Teams are putting in extra preparation to play against us and nullify us.”
Morgan leads the Pride into Saturday’s match having scored the game-winning goal in three straight games, including a 2-1 win over the Breakers two weeks ago. In that match, the U.S. Federation player opened the scoring just eight minutes in then broke the tie with a 73rd-minute goal off an Ali Krieger pass.
Orlando and Boston also met on June 3, with the Pride picking up its first shutout victory of the season with a 2-0 win. Marta netted her first home goal in that match, scoring on a penalty kick.
During the month of August, Morgan scored seven of her eight goals, and also added two assists, en route to being named August Player of the Month. She has combined with Marta in three of the last four matches, and either player has played a part in 10 of the Pride’s last 13 goals. Morgan became the first player in NWSL history to record the game-winner in three consecutive matches. If she can score on Saturday, Morgan will equal the NWSL record of six consecutive games with a goal set by former Seattle Reign FC midfielder Kim Little during the 2014 season.
Orlando enters Week 19 sitting three points ahead of fifth-place Sky Blue FC (29 points) and five points above sixth place Seattle Reign FC (27 points). The Pride are tied with Chicago at 32 points, but the Red Stars hold the head-to-head tiebreaker in the series. Orlando is just five points away from second place in the table, which would guarantee home field advantage through the playoffs, with the NWSL Championship hosted at Orlando City Stadium on Oct. 14.
The Pride earned a hard-fought 2-1 win at FC Kansas City last weekend, with Morgan breaking the deadlock in the 87th minute on an acrobatic goal from Marta’s set piece. Chioma Ubogagu scored the first goal of the match 16 minutes in, her third goal of the season.
The Breakers fell 1-0 at Sky Blue FC on Saturday, unable to find an answer to Sam Kerr’s fifth-minute goal.
The Pride continue their homestand on Sat., Sept. 9 against Seattle Reign FC. Tickets for the Pride’s remaining home games can be purchased at orlando-pride.com/tickets or by calling (855) ORL-CITY.
