Two very inconsistent teams in the shape of Orlando City and Columbus Crew face off against each other at the Exploria Stadium in Florida on Saturday night with a valuable three points at stake for both teams.
Orlando City currently occupy 9th place in the Eastern Conference but find themselves just 1 point behind 7th placed Toronto who sit in the last play-off spot in the conference, despite producing mixed results of late.
Recent wins against Cincinnati, Montreal Impact and Columbus Crew (away from home) have been let down by defeats to LA Galaxy, DC United and Philadelphia Union, while on home turf at their Exploria Stadium, Orlando City have lost 3 of their last 4 matches.
However, the hosts have shown they can perform at home this season as they’ve collected victories over Colorado Rapids, Vancouver Whitecaps and Cincinnati - the latter being a 5-1 thrashing of the new franchise club.
Goals have the potential to come from various sources for Orlando with the likes of midfielder Mueller (5 goals) along with forwards Nani (8 goals), Akindele (6 goals) and Dwyer (5 goals) in their attacking personnel.
Visitors, Columbus Crew, head over to Florida on the back of a worrying 4-match losing streak as they seek to avoid a fifth straight defeat against an inconsistent Orlando City outfit.
Defeats to Sporting Kansas, Orlando City (at home), Real Salt Lake and Seattle Sounders isn’t the greatest of preparation for a difficult road trip, and indeed, it’s now 8 league matches without a win for the visitors.
Within this poor sequence of results, Columbus Crew have been subjected to 7 defeats out of these last 8 matches, so confidence is expected to be at an all-time low for the visiting Crew outfit.
In addition, Columbus Crew’s results away from home have been simply woeful as they’ve lost their last 7 matches on the trot on their travels.
Within a poor away record which has witnessed just 1 win but 7 defeats, Columbus Crew have not only failed to score in 5 of these 8 away matches, but they’ve also kept just the single clean sheet on the road so far this season.
This is a clash of two very ordinary sides, but Orlando City have won the last two encounters against Columbus Crew and the hosts look fairly well placed to inflict further misery on The Crew in this clash too.