The brief Leagues Cup hiatus is behind us and the Major League Soccer regular season is back, as is How We Voted, the column all about the latest MLS Player of the Matchday and Team of the Matchday.
The one-sided Florida Derby, a 4-1 win in Orlando City SC's favor, produced what felt like an obvious choice for Player of the Matchday. Though the player occupying the No 2 place on my ballot this week made his own strong case, keeping a clean sheet while making eight saves in a road shutout over the 2nd Place team in the Eastern Conference.
Read on for more on my latest all-Eastern Conference ballot, plus for the Team of the Matchday, a lineup that includes a handful of other players who made decent cases for PotM votes, but who didn't get them in favor of these two players.
The HRB Ballot, Matchday 28
1. Luis Muriel, Orlando City SC
Each one of Luis Muriel's goals gave Orlando the lead over Inter Miami CF in their hotly-contested, pastel-colored derby. He added an assist on a goal scored by his similarly unstoppable teammate, Martín Ojeda, and while Ojeda himself had a great performance that warranted consideration for Player of the Matchday, my vote goes to Muriel.
Video via @OrlandoCitySC on Twitter.
Muriel's opening goal was the culmination of a great sequence of combination play between he and Ojeda, the two players slicing straight through the center of a leaky Miami defense. Muriel would further expose that Herons back line on his second goal, weaving through players right near the Miami goal line before firing home a shot from an awkward angle to restore Orlando's lead after Miami had equalized.
The 34-year-old Colombian striker was the main reason Orlando earned a second lopsided win of the season over Miami. He's in ridiculous goal-scoring form at the moment considering this brace and assist followed up on a hat trick scored against Liga MX side Necaxa to close out Phase One of Leagues Cup.
Interestingly, this brace vs Miami was Muriel's first time scoring in a regular-season MLS match since May 18 when he provided one of the three goals to help Orlando beat Miami while playing away in Fort Lauderdale.
He'd endured a stretch of 11 straight appearances in MLS matches without scoring, but Orlando now has a striker catching fire in two competitions – their big win over Necaxa ensured the Lions in purple of a spot in the Leagues Cup quarterfinals, where they're set to face Deportivo Toluca FC next Wednesday, August 20 way out in Carson, California at Dignity Health Sports Park.
That Orlando attack looks scary when both Martín Ojeda and Luis Muriel are clicking, especially when they've also gotten good production from third Designated Player Marco Pašalić. All three DPs in form in attack as a team chases a trophy and climbs up the table in the conference: It must be nice.
2. Kristijan Kahlina, Charlotte FC
Goalkeepers don't tend to win these awards unless they produce huge individual displays in terms of their number of shots saved or in terms of the quality of the clean sheet they've kept. Kahlina, the reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, checked all the boxes in a 1-0 road shutout of FC Cincinnati.
Eight saves was the final total but the number doesn't even do justice to just how unbeatable Kahlina looked while his team was very much not in control of the match. Cincinnati kept knocking and Kahlina kept denying them, with Kahlina's biggest save in the 40th minute to deny a point-blank attempt headed for the top corner from Cincinnati's Gerardo Valenzuela.
Video via @CharlotteFC on Twitter
Side note, that's still Kei Kamara out there in the year 2025 causing chaos in an opponent's 18-yard box and setting Valenzuela up for the shot? If not even the magic of 40-year-old Kamara could get a goal past Kahlina, you know it was a great goalkeeping performance.
Charlotte was on the back foot until Cincinnati had Brian Anunga sent off with a straight red card under slightly questionable circumstances, and Wilfried Zaha eventually fired home a beautiful goal to give visiting Charlotte a late lead.
Still, though, Kahlina had to come up huge one last time – he got his body between the ball and Cincy's Miles Robinson on a last-second equalizer attempt off a free kick at 90'+9' in the literal final minute of second-half stoppage time.
Luis Muriel got my vote but in my mind, there was a decent challenge from Kahlina for that top spot. Others might quibble with me putting a keeper over someone like Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting from the Red Bulls who had a brace, or Danny Musovski of Seattle Sounders FC, who also had a brace. Kahlina was unbelievable in goal and was as much of the reason why his team won in an extremely tough place to win at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati, as any of those goal scorers who didn't make this list.
Official Player of the Matchday: Luis Muriel
Voters this round agreed with my assessment that Muriel was a clear-cut pick. When you're involved in three of four goals against the big names of Inter Miami, it's hard to not be noticed. Orlando's attack has been good but it looks extremely good with Luis Muriel playing like this up top. Five goals scored and one assist added for Muriel in his last two appearances for Orlando, and if he keeps that up, they might actually threaten to go and win Leagues Cup.
Cup run or not for Orlando, the team hasn't lost in regulation since Alonso Martínez of New York City FC broke their hearts and scored a winner in second-half stoppage time weeks ago. Oscar Pareja's side is unbeaten (the Pumas PK loss in Leagues Cup is a draw in my eyes) in six matches played across all competitions since Martínez's 90'+1' goal handed them a loss on July 16. Their form is pointing up and so is the scoring form of Muriel.
MLS Team of the Matchday
Starters: Kristijan Kahlina (CLT) - Ryan Hollingshead (LAFC), Lalas Abubakar (DAL), Jaziel Orozco (STL) - Philip Zinckernagel (CHI), Carles Gil (NE), Jack McGlynn (HOU), Anders Dreyer (SD) - Luis Muriel (ORL), Danny Musovski (SEA), Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (RBNY)
Coach: Oscar Pareja (ORL)
Bench: CJ dos Santos (SD), Guilherme Biro (ATX), Alex Roldan (SEA), Alexey Miranchuk (ATL), Martín Ojeda (ORL), Wilfried Zaha (CLT), DeAndre Kerr (TOR), Preston Judd (SJ), Darren Yapi (COL)
Anders Dreyer of San Diego FC could have also been added to my above list of "players who warranted votes for Player of the Matchday but didn't get them." He continues to produce all sorts of good things in front of goal for San Diego and has to be the leading non-Messi MVP candidate at this point in the MLS season, no? Two teams stood out from this Team of the Matchday because they feel like opposite-coast mirror images at the moment: Seattle Sounders and Orlando City, two teams that are enjoying serious hot streaks in the heart of the summer. Seattle's unbeaten since they returned from the Club World Cup, just steamrolling through three Liga MX opponents to finish atop the MLS table in Leagues Cup Phase One and now returning to MLS play with a resounding 4-0 road win over LA Galaxy. Musovski's goals for the Sounders got him a place in the Starting XI, but Seattle defender Alex Roldan made the bench, too, alongside Orlando's playmaker Ojeda. Seattle and Orlando, big in this Team of the Matchday, and maybe MLS's best hopes for winning Leagues Cup.
