The Orlando City Worst XI

Ever wonder who the worst players in Orlando City history are? Here is Orlando City’s worst XI, a lineup of the least productive players in the team’s MLS history. USL stats and games were not taken into account.

Below the graphic is an explanation of why each player made the team. For players to qualify, they had to have played at least 800 minutes or 10 games started with Orlando City.

Donovan Ricketts

Expectations were not high for Ricketts. In fact, he came to Orlando as a backup. He played in 10 games when Tally Hall was unavailable and gave up 14 goals during that span. He wasn’t exactly terrible, but of the starting goalkeepers who qualify, Ricketts had the least impressive Orlando City career.

Donny Toia

Left back was the most challenging position to fill for this list because there really weren’t any outright poor players at this position, although some were better offensively while others were defensive-minded only. Toia gets the nod for two main reasons. The first being that he provided close to nothing on the attacking end. With his lack of forward play, the team looked very different with him on the field.

He also amassed close to 3,000 minutes and didn’t produce much. There were two other left backs with more minutes in MLS — Brek Shea and Luke Boden. Boden was the best left back out of the trio, and Shea, primarily an attacker, gave the team an extra option going forward.

Sean St. Ledger

If a guy gets kicked off the team for “a serious breach in club policy,” then they are definitely making this team. Not only was St. Ledger not great on the field, he was nearly just as bad off it. The center back made it to August in Orlando’s inaugural MLS season before being cut, making 15 appearances.

David Mateos

Mateos played in 27 games across two seasons. He was a player that was in the starting mix every game in 2016 when healthy, but the back line never looked great with him in. The defense gave up 50 goals and only had four clean sheets when he played.

Amobi Okugo

The defensive midfielder played in 15 games without scoring or grabbing any assists in his sole season in Orlando. He came in as a promising player after making 32 appearances for Philadelphia the previous two years. Since coming to Orlando, Okugo’s career has not been the same and Adrian Heath preferred Servando Carrasco over Okugo in that position.

Lewis Neal

Neal will always be known as a club fan favorite. He was a tremendous asset to the team in the USL days and was a big reason for the team’s success. However, Neal was never able to make the same impact in MLS with no goals and only one assist in 21 MLS games.

Josué Colmán

Colmán’s story technically is still being written. The Paraguayan is currently out on loan, but his narrative has not been pretty so far. Brought in as a Young Designated Player, there was huge buzz around Colmán. However, after 32 appearances, the youngster only found the back of the net once and that goal was shot off of him by Scott Sutter. Colmán was a regular off the bench for Jason Kreis, but his minutes suffered after Kreis’ firing. James O’Connor did not play him often, and eventually the team sent him out on loan. It is up to the 21-year-old to see how the script will end, but he is currently one of the most disappointing players in Orlando City history.

Richie Laryea

Laryea was very good at Orlando City B. He has also since become an almost every-week starter in Toronto — but at an entirely new position as a fullback. As an MLS player in Orlando though, the Canadian was a poor attacking midfielder. He scored no goals and managed just one assist in 21 games. He played in various midfield positions, but could never get things going in the attack. Luckily for him, a move away from Orlando saved his career.

Martin Paterson

Paterson is the exception to the minimum games stipulation of this list. He only played in four games — all coming off the bench — and did not score. However, in the short period that Paterson was with Orlando, the presumed starting striker on the inaugural MLS side spent a significant period of the time injured. He missed his flight home from New York and skipped practice. Expectations were pretty high for Paterson coming in and he failed on just about every level.

Hadji Barry

Similar to Laryea, Barry did well with OCB. He often was the best player on the field for the second team but struggled to make to cut in MLS. The UCF product failed to find the back of the net in 11 appearances in two seasons in MLS. The Lions declined his option after 2017, and Barry’s MLS career seems to be over.

James O’Connor

The team’s play under O’Connor looked significantly better than the Lions did under Kreis. However, this coach was picked strictly off of stats. Oscar Pareja has only been in charge for two games so he does not count. Heath and Kreis both had a 33% winning percentage in MLS while O’Connor only won 22% of his games. O’Connor is also the only one of the three to have gotten less than one point per game (0.92).

Who do you think is the worst Orlando City player? Vote below, and be sure to comment with your thoughts.