Coming from a disappointing defeat against Colorado Rapids, LA Galaxy have a lot to prove in the upcoming match when they visit Orlando City at Orlando City Stadium.
Los Angeles Galaxy comes into the upcoming fixture after a disastrous performance against Colorado Rapids, who can thank Galaxy for the first win of the season. While their performance against Rapids was disappointing on its own, the match was just one of many mishaps of Galaxy, who are now on a 4 game losing streak and well on their way down the leaderboard. In the recent matches, we could clearly see how valuable Zlatan Ibrahimovic is to the team, and how poorly LA performs without him. While it’s true LA Galaxy started with their bad performances before Ibrahimovic was suspended, without him, LA Galaxy look even worse. That won’t change in the upcoming fixture as he is again suspended and won’t attend the clash against Orlando, leaving LA Galaxy to fight on their own.
The home side, Orlando City are not fairing too well this season. Holding a poor 4-3-6 record, there is a lot of room for improvement but Orlando can at least be happy they won their most recent match against Cincinnati (5:1), which ended their streak of 3 consecutive defeats. Looking back at their matches prior to the win against Cincinnati, Orlando drew against New York City (1:1), and lost the remaining 3 against Toronto FC (0:2), Atlanta United (1:0) and Seattle Sounders (2:1).
Orlando will play at home, which could, in theory, give them a huge advantage over LA Galaxy, but I still believe their home advantage is not as strong as it could be. Taking into consideration they have lost 3 home games in 7 played this season, Orlando proved before they can be beaten at home. On the other side, LA Galaxy are not a good traveler. Winning only 1 out of 5 away games, road games seem to not suit Galaxy, who on top of all enter the upcoming fixture without their star player. While I believe Orlando will have an excellent chance to win this one, we won’t be betting on the home side, but rather take a look at the over/under market.
Looking at LA Galaxy recent matches, they have proven to us their defence is leaking goals. In the last 4 matches, LA Galaxy conceded 9 goals, 6 of which came from 2 away games against NY Red Bulls (3:2) and Columbus Crew (3:1). That is good news for Orlando, who have more than enough firepower to take advantage of that. They are coming from a match against Cincinnati, where they scored 5 goals, which should give them enough confidence to continue with more aggressive playstyle. On the other side of the field, Orlando have their own issues. They tend to give up a lot of great opportunities to opponents, which I believe should result in at least one goal for Galaxy, even though they are without Ibrahimovic. Taking all into consideration, we will be looking at an open match that should end with at least 3 goals scored.
Prediction: Over 3.00 goals
Odds: 1.92 Asianodds
