Orlando City searches for a point at D.C. (Sep 09, 2017)
D.C. United may enter the weekend still in last place in the Eastern Conference standings, but it's Orlando City SC that will be trying to reverse a spiraling season and overcome acute adversity on Saturday night.
The Lions (8-12-7, 31 points) haven't won since the final day of June, a stretch of eight matches that sent them plummeting from a fourth-place position down to 10th, just one spot and three points above D.C. United.
Making matters worse, midfielder Will Johnson was arrested on domestic battery charges early Wednesday morning. And with Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida, Orlando may not even be able to return home after its match with D.C.
"I think we're just taking it day by day," Lions coach Jason Kreis told the Orlando Sentinel. "I don't think there's any decisions made, but obviously our next game is in Atlanta, so there could be a situation where we would just go straight to Atlanta, but we'll sort that out as we go."
If Orlando doesn't return home, it will have to go a whole week before facing Atlanta United on Sept. 16.
Meanwhile, D.C. is entering the game on a three-match winning streak. All those wins came by a 1-0 score, giving the Black-and-Red (8-15-4, 28 points) their longest stretch of shutouts in league play in 10 years, according to the Washington Post.
There is still room for improvement on the offensive end, where D.C. benefitted from a pair of own goals in two of those wins. Luciano Acosta, with five goals, remains the only player on the roster who contributed more scoring to D.C.'s offensive cause than their three own goals received.
That said, United's offense looked dangerous -- if not clinical -- in its 1-0 victory two weekends ago against the same New England side that hammered Orlando 4-0 last weekend. And that's enough to give coach Ben Olsen hope that his team can close the eight-point gap to get above the playoff line.
"It's certainly a huge task ahead," he told reporters Tuesday. "We've got to win a bunch of games. But it's doable, and we've seen it before in this league. And the mentality is, 'Why not us?'"
