Orlando City takes to the road Friday for the first time in the 2021 season to face Sporting Kansas City and search for the team’s first win of the year.
The match comes against a familiar opponent for Lions coach Oscar Pareja. He and Kansas City coach Peter Vermes have been competitors since Major League Soccer’s third season — first as players on the field, then as managers beginning in 2012 when Pareja took his first head coach post.
“We know them,” Pareja said. “It’s a team that has kept every coach and the model of the idea of their game, their patterns.