Exploria Stadium | Orlando, Florida – Sunday, August 20 at 7:00 PM ET
Players to watch:
Orlando forward Messiah Bright scored the Pride’s most recent goal in all competitions, finding the back of the net against Gotham in the Challenge Cup and in the regular season against the OL Reign. Bright has scored in five different games this season in all NWSL competitions, the most of any player drafted in the 2023 NWSL Draft.
Chicago forward Penelope Hocking, also a member of the 2023 NWSL Draft class, notched a first-half brace in Chicago’s last match, a 3-0 win over Houston in the Challenge Cup. Hocking is the fifth Red Stars player ever to score multiple goals in the first half of a match (all competitions) and the second to do so this season joining Ava Cook (in June against Angel City).
Match facts: Regular season play resumes for the first time in over a month as the Orlando Pride host the Chicago Red Stars at Exploria Stadium on Sunday night in the fifth of six games across the league this weekend. Orlando are currently in 8th placed with 19 points from 15 games played, while Chicago are in 11thplace with 16 points from 15 games played.
Orlando’s last match in a regular season play came on July 7 in the form of a 1-0 home win over OL Reign, which followed a 3-0 road win over Washington to start July. The Pride are no looking to deliver clean sheets in three straight regular season games for what would be just the second time in club history (May 2016).
Chicago are on a two-game winning streak in the regular season with shutout wins over San Diego and Houston helping them close the gap on a higher spot in the table. This is the first time the Red Stars have recorded consecutive shutout wins in regular season play since September 2019, when they did so in three straight.
Chicago has five straight wins over Orlando, all in the regular season, with four of those coming by a 1-0 scoreline. The Red Stars have beaten the Pride exactly 1-0 on eight different occasions in regular season play, while no other fixture has seen a team beat another by that score more than six times.
