Soccer. Football. Whatever you want to call it, Central Florida loves, lives and swears by it. If you follow the Orlando City Soccer Club organization in even the slightest way then you have to know about our new National Women's Soccer League team, the Orlando Pride.
The Pride consists of two United States Women's National Team players, Alex Morgan and Ashlyn Harris; along with a mixture of Canadian, Australian, English, and Brazilian Women's National Team players. This list including: Josée Bélanger, Kaylyn Kyle, Laura Alleway, and Steph Catley, Lianne Sanderson, and Monica, respectively to each team. But, within this teams roster Orlando has managed to bring home Central Florida natives, Ashlyn Harris and Toni Pressley, who both have expressed their gratefulness for being able to come home and play in front of friends and family for the first time in years.
The fact about this team is that it is not short on talent ranging from the coaching staff, head coach being Tom Sermanni, to the old and new talent they were able to acquire through expansion and college draft picks. But, the case with the beautiful game, soccer's nickname for those new to the sport, is that this is not a game in which you can throw together talent and have it magically work itself out. Now that is exactly where the Pride have proven themselves to be up for the fight, only drawing a 2-1 loss in its first match, against a quality football team. Despite the obvious odds stacked against them from the get go: they're a brand new team, they've only been practicing all together for a couple weeks, they're playing NWSL, National Women's Soccer League, champions with multiple across the board National Team players, and so forth, they've managed to secure the number five seed on the charts in week four.
The road to this spot hasn't been as easy as these gals have made it seem, though. Right after their first match, an away 2-1 lost in Portland, they returned home with their eyes set on crushing the NWSL attendance record, 21,000 and change, and to bring home their first win in their inaugural home match. Of course they not only annihilated the attendance record but squashed the Houston Dash, team of World Up Champions Carli Lloyd and Morgan Brian, in a 3-1 win with a record breaking 23,403 in attendance.
Now, this left the team at a 1-1 standing point going into week three where they traveled to Chicago and came up short in a 0-1 loss to Christen Press of the Chicago Red Stars. But they did not let that set them back because this past Sunday the team took on Hope Solo of the USWNT and Seattle Reign who are two time NWSL Shield winners on their own turf, Camping World Stadium, and defeated them 2-0 earning Ashlyn Harris and her entire backline the clubs first clean sheet in history. This leaving the team at number five out of 10 on the table with a total of six points.
You may not be a 'footy fan' but you cannot deny that Central Florida is a special place for soccer and something special is most definitely brewing in our backyard. If you want to be apart of history and attend one of the first matches in inaugural season history, there are seven left for the year spreading from May 14 to September 24, tickets start as low as $19!
