Orlando City News Release -- www.orlandocitysoccer.com
Friday, April 22, 2011
ORLANDO, Fla. -- In front of an announced crowd of 7,279 at the Florida Citrus Bowl, Orlando City (2-1-1) tied its fourth game of the USL PRO season as Max Griffin scored twice in a 2-2 against visiting Puerto Rico United (0-1-2).
Puerto Rico struck first, with Edivaldo Silva scoring in the 30th minute from a quickly taken free kick to give his side a 1-0 halftime lead.
Orlando struck back quickly at the start of the second half as Griffin scored his first in the 47h minute to tie the game. Griffin then added his second just three minutes later, heading in a beautiful cross from Jamie Watson in the 50th minute to give Orlando the lead. The goal was Griffin's fourth of the season, putting him on top of USL PRO's scoring leaders.
At that point it appeared as though Orlando had control of the game, but PRU's Christian Turizo took advantage of a mistake by Lions goalkeeper Miguel Gallardo in 72nd minute, taking his opportunity when Gallardo came too far out of his penalty area to tie the game.
Both teams came close after the game was tied, and there was even a series of events where Orlando had three shots in a minute span by Kevin Molino and Luke Boden, but both were unable to capitalize.
PRU was reduced to 10 men in the 84th minute of the match. After a disputed call, United’s goalkeeper Jose Miranda ran out of his goal to confront Orlando City coach Adrian Heath. Already carrying a yellow card from a few minutes prior, Miranda was shown a second yellow and ejected from the game. Play was stopped for several minutes to sort things out as Miranda refused to leave the field.
A man down and with the match in stoppage time and goal-scorer Turizo acting as the goalkeeper for PRU, Orlando had every advantage possible to win the game late in stoppage time. The Lions went on the attack, but weren't able to properly test Turizo. Jamie Watson sailed a shot with only minutes left in play as the visitors dug in to earn their second point of the season.
Orlando City head coach Adrian Heath was disappointed with the way his side had performed.
“When we work hard, move the ball quickly, don’t play sloppy, we can win games," Heath said. "That wasn’t us for the most of the game. We can play better. It was disappointing because we had a great fan turnout again tonight.”
As for Miranda's actions late in the game that led to his ejection, Heath said, “It was quite surreal. I have never seen that many players going down on the field and fake injuries, try to kill the clock, et cetera. If that is what football is becoming, I don’t want to be a part of it. Some of the play today was unacceptable.”
City’s next game will be against F.C. New York at Belson Stadium next Saturday at 7 p.m. City defeated New York in their first meeting this season, taking a 3-0 victory at the Citrus Bowl two weeks ago.