ORLANDO – Jamie Watson, Long Tan and Yann Songo provided enough offensive in a tightly contested battle as Orlando City beat the LA Blues 3-2 at the Citrus Bowl infront of an announced crowd of 9,140 Saturday.
“Yeah, I think it would have been a travesty if we hadn’t have won the game,” said City head coach Adrian Heath. “If you look at the full 90 minutes, we dominated nearly all the possession for most of the game.
“Tan has a few injuries and I thought Jamie Watson was very good tonight. I’m normally critical about forward players, but I thought Jamie was very good this evening. I thought he put a really good shift in on and off the ball and he got his goals, which he deserves and I am pleased for him.”
Orlando got close to scoring when, Dominic Dwyer hit the post, but couldn’t convert their chances in the first half.
Orlando got on the board first in the 57th minute, when Tan played a low cross into the box where Jamie Watson fired into the back of the net to make it 1-0 Orlando.
“We created a lot of chances in the first half, but we didn’t score. We learned a hard lesson in LA,” said Watson.
In the 62nd minute, Orlando City added to the tally, when Watson hit a corner that found Songo at the back post, who headed it into the net to make it 2-0 Orlando.
“He is a good all-around player, he really helps and he is scoring goals and he is creating goals for others so it is easy to play off players like that,” said Watson.
LA answered the goal with a goal of their own as they got a goal in the 70th minute, when Rodrigo Lopez crossed in a ball which found Connor Hearn at the back post for a goal to make the score 2-1 Orlando.
Not too much later in the 72nd minute, Orlando City was awarded a penalty. In the 73rd minute, Watson converted the penalty to make it 3-1 and give Orlando some breathing room.
Toward the end of the game Orlando conceded a late penalty to LA, which they converted in the 89th minute by Lopez to make the score 3-2 Orlando. That goal made the game interesting again and a thriller down to the last minute because now LA was only one down with three minutes of add time left.
Orlando City next play at Charlotte Eagles on Tuesday, April 23 at 7 p.m.
