Orlando City suffered its first loss of the season and one would never have guessed that would come at the hands of an FC Cincinnati side riding 14 straight losses and which had yet to score a goal in 2022. But soccer is a funny game and sometimes the joke is on you. So it was on Saturday as the Lions dominated every statistical category but the one that matters most in a 2-1 home loss. In the first absence of co-host David Rohe in 225 consecutive episodes of The Mane Land PawedCast, I’m joined by TML staff writer Ben Miller this week. We break down the important plays, moments, and trends from the game and make our Man of the Match selections. We also discuss what the Lions can do if teams are just going to continue fouling them like crazy every week.

As a special treat, we’re joined by Orlando Pride Head Coach Amanda Cromwell, who is entering her first season at the helm of the club’s NWSL side. She will lead the Pride into its first competitive match of 2022 on Saturday night at Exploria Stadium in the NWSL Challenge Cup. But it will be a trial by fire as Orlando hosts the defending NWSL Cup champion Washington Spirit. The coach was kind enough to discuss what enticed her away from UCLA to coach the Pride, some of her assistant coaching staff hires, her philosophy, and more. In the midst of such a busy week, we can’t thank her enough for her time.

We also discussed the Orlando Pride’s opening day roster, which dropped this week. And Orlando City B named its coaching staff for the Young Lions’ inaugural season in MLS NEXT Pro. We hate the name of the league but we love having OCB back.

This week’s mailbag was interested in how Ben felt about his first time in the co-host chair, and which Lion we’d most like to spend spring break with. If there’s anything — and we do mean anything — you want us to address on the next show, just ask by tweeting it to us at @TheManeLand with the hashtag #AskTMLPC.

And we closed the show by giving our key match-ups and score predictions for Saturday’s trip to play the LA Galaxy.

Stay safe and enjoy the show!

Here’s how No. 286 went down:

0:15 - Orlando City lost. To Cincinnati. Yeah, that’s not great. But there were some positives. We try to think about those.

45:00 - Amanda Cromwell interview! The new Pride coach seems ready to get started this week and it was great to hear her talk about how hard the team works on the training ground.

1:02:17 - The Pride named their 2022 roster ahead of the Challenge Cup opener, OCB has a coaching staff, the mailbag was relatively light this week, and we give you our predictions for Saturday.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices