The Orlando Pride hosted the North Carolina Courage at Inter&Co Stadium on Friday night, and the line that mattered most came before kickoff: the Pride ran out the same starting XI they used last weekend against Washington. The match was scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Prime Video.
Orlando’s lineup was Anna Moorhouse, Hailie Mace, Cori Dyke, Rafaelle, Oihane, Ally Lemos, Angelina, Haley McCutcheon, Summer Yates, Solai Washington and Barbra Banda. The bench was mostly unchanged from last weekend as well, with one swap that stood out: McKinley Crone replaced Cara Martin, while Hannah Anderson was unavailable because of illness.
The Pride’s decision to stay with the same group from one week to the next says plenty about where the team was heading into this one. They had used that exact starting lineup against Washington one last weekend, and Friday’s home match came just before a two-week road stretch, making the final minutes at Inter&Co Stadium the last look at Orlando in front of its own fans for a while.
Orlando listed eight substitutes for the match: McKinley Crone, Marta, Seven Castain, Simone Jackson, Reagan Raabe, Luana, Nicole Payne and Julie Doyle. The bench move was small on paper, but the absence of Anderson meant the Pride had to absorb one illness-related change as they moved into a spell that would take them away from home for two weeks.
That left the night framed by continuity rather than surprise. The North Carolina Courage vs Orlando Pride matchup was about more than a single lineup card, because it marked the start of a road-heavy run with the same core group the Pride had already trusted a week earlier. What came next was simple enough: Orlando left Friday with no more home games for the immediate future, and the test shifted from familiar surroundings to life on the road.
