It all started out so well. A goal three minutes into the match against the New York Red Bulls on Sunday, only to see the defense give up three goals in the second half.

"It was a bit of a frustrating evening," said head coach Adrian Heath. "The bottom line of it is, our ball retention in dangerous areas was very poor."

Orlando possessed the ball for only 41% of the match, putting a lot of pressure on the back line of defense.

"I think the biggest thing is we can’t take the foot off the pedal," said defender Tommy Redding, who started the match. "We scored early, should have kept the pressure on them, but we took our foot off the pedal and made it a really hard game for us and ended up not getting anything out of it."

Preaching to the team about possession is nothing new for Coach Heath and he’s ready to see improvement.

"It’s decision making, and ultimately the change will be the change in personnel," said Heath. "We can’t keep saying the same thing and not do nothing about it, I know what this team can do in terms of keeping the ball, most of the games we have more possession than the opposition this season it hasn’t been as good as it was last year and we have to get better at that."

 

Practice Note:

Coach Heath said he is hopeful Kaka will play on Saturday against New England, as he recovers from a minor groin injury.