As the title suggests, this article will be focusing on Orlando Pride’s performances in the NWSL so far and how the team can overcome their negative start to the 2023 NWSL season which they kicked off with four losses in a row.
Nevertheless, Orlando Pride’s latest win against a tough team like San Diego Wave was a very positive step towards achieving better results in the near future and the team should therefore build on this win and keep on improving what is not going well within the team’s tactics.
So in this tactical analysis scout report, a look at the team’s formations and what can be improved in this regard will be provided prior to moving to the team’s in-game analysis of what is currently positive and what needs some work ahead of the upcoming fixtures.
Orlando Pride’s formations, positions and tactics
During this start of the NWSL season, Seb Hines, the team’s head coach, who took charge of the team in 2022 but who knows the players very well since he has been in the coaching staff since 2018 as an assistant coach, used different formations and looks like he is trying to find the most suitable formation for the actual players at his disposal.
He teed off the season using the 4-2-3-1 formation against Portland Thorns before switching to the 4-4-2 formation when hosting the game against Angel City and returning to the 4-2-3-1 for the third game against Gotham FC. He also kept the same formation for the NWSL Challenge Cup encounter against North Carolina Courage before switching to the 4-3-3 formation against KC Current and then going back to the 4-2-3-1 against San Diego Wave to earn their first win of the season.
In fact, this continuous change of formations makes it difficult for the players to adapt to their roles and be accustomed to what they need to do on the pitch. Such continuous change obliges the players to lack organisation and chemistry as well since it is very difficult for any team to be solid in the non-possession phase as an example while not maintaining one or at maximum two precise formations.
In order to have the identity which Hines tries to incorporate within the team, it is rather necessary to minimise the formation changes during this part of the season in order to familiarise the players with their roles and help them develop and acquire more mastery of their duties from one match to the other. And since the 4-2-3-1 formation worked with the team against San Diego Wave, it would be beneficial to build on it and use it for the next few games while applying the necessary player changes or switching the positions of some players.
At the same time, it would be more useful to play players out of their positions in order to get 100% of their qualities and not less. For instance, playing Marta as a striker in the 4-2-3-1 formation was not really a successful move since the player excels more when playing as an advanced playmaker or as a winger, especially when knowing that Messiah Bright and Adriana Leal da Silva can be considered as proper strikers and can fill this position in a more efficient way. This is not criticism towards Marta who has been and is one of the best players in her position, but not really as a striker and that’s normal because she is not a proper striker. Therefore, giving more time to Bright and Adriana would suit the team more while playing Marta on the right wing or as an advanced playmaker.
In fact, it was not strange to see Orlando Pride win the game against San Diego Wave despite the difficulty of the opponent and the fact that Orlando Pride played away, mainly because the coaching staff and Hines picked the adequate players for each position and did not try to complicate things for himself and for the players.
In addition to Haley McCutcheon and Kylie Strom. who have been playing regularly during the first part of the season and do not have positioning issues, it was useful to play with Mikayla Cluff and Viviana Villacorta as central midfielders while employing Marta as a right-winger where she can be a more dangerous player, and playing Erika Tymrak as the advanced playmaker since she has the vision and the passing quality needed for that role.
