Orlando City won its first game on the west coast since 2015 with a win over the LA Galaxy and followed that up with a credible draw in Portland the following week. That success and wild stat after the Galaxy match got me thinking; how good has Orlando been on the road under Pareja?
To answer this, we have to take the 2020 season with a huge grain of salt. The COVID year was weird and shouldn't really be looked at when we take historical records, especially for road games, so keep that in mind. With that out of the way, how good are the Lions on the road under Pareja?
The answer is they're ok.
For some reason my mind expected Orlando to be surprisingly good on the road, but honestly that isn't the case. In Pareja's two years plus the start of this season, Orlando has eight wins, 10 draws and 11 losses on the road. I will say, a lot of these road losses have come later in seasons, when Orlando as a team have hit rockier patches of form.
Pareja is a coach who's good at adapting to specific situations and conditions. He can be progressive, but he's very comfortable being pragmatic. That flexibility can lead to big results in tough environments, like in Los Angeles two weeks ago, but it's not perfect.
The biggest disappointment of all the Pareja-era road games is by far the 3-0 drubbing in Mercedes-Benz Stadium against Atlanta United last season. Those are the environments and matchups that define quality teams, and Orlando laid a phat egg. A close second place is the playoff defeat to Nashville.
The promising thing is that Pareja's best road win is probably that Galaxy result, so one can reasonably hope that the best road form for the Lions is yet to come.