Lake Mary, Fla. — A month away from the game has a way of making you miss it even more.
Since their last match at the end of May, a 3-1 win over Bay FC, the Orlando Pride have rested, recovered, trained hard, and taken a hard look at the first half of the season, specifically what they want to change in the second half. That second half now begins Friday night in Los Angeles, where Orlando heads to face an Angel City FC side that is looking to start their second half of the season strong under new leadership.
"It was a well-needed break," Head Coach Seb Hines said this week at Orlando Health Training Ground at Sylvan Lake Park. "Leading up into the break, we had a pretty long time on the roads, you know, going from Boston to Denver to then San Diego, but what was most pleasing is how we ended the period of the season with two wins. It's allowed us, with the break, to reset, feel re-energized, and go after this next period of the season feeling confident and ready to go and compete."
For forward Julie Doyle and the rest of the players, the month off arrived at exactly the right time. On the heels of a hectic three-game road trip that saw the team away from Orlando for almost two weeks straight, it was important for everyone to take time to reset heading into the latter stages of the NWSL season.
"It's super nice," she said. "It's good for our bodies to physically recover and mentally regroup, and work on the things that we as individuals need to work on, and as a team. But we've been training really hard and really intensely, and we miss playing in those games. That's why we do it. So we're really excited to get back into it."
"I feel the first 12 games of the season we haven't quite looked ourselves consistently," Hines added. "We've had some good moments, but we just want that consistency now, to make it difficult for other teams to play against us. We want to be hard to play against, which has always been our foundation, and we've kind of let ourselves down in certain games. We're just looking for that consistency of putting teams under pressure off the ball, affecting them, and then having a bit of class in possession as well, not just looking direct and putting hopeful balls in. We've spoken about that, we've started to implement it in training, and that's been the challenge with all these games so quickly is that we haven't been able to train. It's been game, recover, game, and rotations, players getting injured, players coming back from injury, but we're in a good place right now."
During that first half of the season, the Pride showed they can find that level. The last two matches before the break, the wins over San Diego and Bay FC, were perfect examples of how the team can grind out wins on the road and be a dominant force at home. Now, the challenge for the second half of the season is having those performances be consistent on a weekly basis.
"We've had an even amount of wins and losses and a few ties, and we would like to turn those losses into wins," Hines said. "It can't just be one-off performances. We're not looking for any excuses. The challenges of travel and midweek games are applicable for everyone. It's how you face those challenges and go out there and perform."
Angel City, meanwhile, used the downtime to make a significant change, parting ways with head coach Alexander Straus on June 17 after the club won just once in eight games to close the first half, slipping to 12th in the NWSL standings. Assistant coach Leif Gunnar Smerud was named interim head coach, and Friday's match against Orlando will be his first in charge.
The coaching change adds an element of uncertainty to Orlando's preparation, and Hines acknowledged as much. Film from the earlier April matchup between the two sides at Inter&Co Stadium that Orlando won 2-1, won't be as much help this time around.
"There's a lot of unknowns with a new coach coming in, new feelings, new vibes," Hines said. "They're not content with where they are in the league, so they'll be wanting to move on. I think you look at personnel, I think that can tell you a lot of how they play. They have some great athletes in their team, they've got a very quick back line. We'll analyze it when we get the injury report, but also it's a little bit about ourselves. We've been working hard these last three weeks on being back to who we are, and it's going to be great to be tested in LA in front of their home crowd. I know everyone's itching to get back onto the field."
For Doyle, Friday's trip to LA is always a special one. The Southern California native grew up just south of Los Angeles and went to college at Santa Clara in San Jose, making this matchup another homecoming for the veteran forward.
"They're my favorite games to play in. One, because of the weather, getting out of the heat in the summertime in Florida," she said. "But it's a full circle moment for me. I grew up playing there my whole life, and I see a lot of familiar faces in the stands. It just gives me a little bit extra motivation to do well."
Kickoff at Angel City FC at Inter&Co Stadium is set for Friday night at 7:00 p.m.
