ORLANDO, Fla.
–
Jason Kreis was waiting to see if his Orlando City SC players suffered any
reaction to two weeks of intense work on the training ground, and he got his answer in a 3-
1 home defeat courtesy of the Seattle Sounders on Sunday night.
It was a chastening experience for all concerned, but not unexpected, according to the Lions new head coach
, even coming off the back of a positive win of their own the previous week.
The loss also ended an unbeaten run at Camping World Stadium dating back to July 18, 2015,
but Kreis was more concerned with the lack of energy and defensive “confusion” that allowed
the visitors to run into a comfortable lead before they were seriously challenged.
“The energy definitely looked a little bit low,” Kreis said. “We have asked a lot in the last two
weeks and some of the adjustments will take time. From a tactical standpoint, we are still
working on a couple of things and we had a little bit of confusion with the back four with what
we were trying to do. It looked like we were trying to play the offside trap, which wasn’t the
intention.
“We have also been training a little longer and harder, so we are putting more fatigue on the
players. It was one of the things I had been looking for signs of, and I think we saw it tonight.”
Kreis said there will be a defensive shakeup before next Sunday’s trip to Chicago, not least
because David Mateos picked up a booking that will lead to a one-game ban.
“We had spoken a lot about reactions to adversity, and, to me, some of the yellow cards have
come because of poor reactions,” Kreis said. “Hopefully in future we can have less of that
happening and not have so many players suspended, but, guess what, now we have a huge
opportunity to react to adversity.”
Orlando were without influential midfielder
Kevin Molino
, who tweaked a hamstring in training
on Friday, and Hadji Barry took his place on the right flank before giving way to Matias Perez
Garcia after 55 minutes. Kreis was encouraged by the 35-minute display
from the ex-San Jose midfielder, who was acquired via trade last week.
“I think he did some interesting things. It looked like he established a relationship with Ricky
[Kaka] on the wing right away,” Kreis said. “So we will look at that for consideration next
week.”
Defender
Seb Hines
, who headed the Lions into an early lead only for the backline to get over-
run by a combination of Nicolas Lodeiro, Jordan Morris and Clint Dempsey, admitted the team
struggled defensively.
“It was definitely a learning experience,” Hines admitted. “Rome wasn’t built in a day and it is
going to take time for us all to be on the same wavelength, and some of the things we did last
week didn’t work so well this week. But we’ll take a look at it on video and I’m sure coach Kreis
will get things right.”
Hines also insisted the 70th-minute double near-miss when
Julio Baptista
’s header hit the bar and
his follow-up effort was scrambled off the line was the second-half turning point.
“Most definitely [I thought I had a second goal], there,” he added. “I thought being that close to
the goal it was for sure going to go in. But the 'keeper saved it and it crawled along the line and
hit the post. If that goes in, I think the game would have changed. We would have been on the
front foot, and I believe we would have gone on to win the game.”
