Braian Ojeda's Volley Sends Orlando Into the Wild Card Round

Orlando's season came down to one swing of Braian Ojeda's right foot. On 45 minutes at Inter&Co Stadium on Saturday, Antoine Griezmann's cross was cleared out of the New England box and dropped to Ojeda outside it — and he volleyed it, first time, into the top right corner past Matt Turner. One goal, 1–0, and it was worth a playoff home game: the win over the Revolution clinched Orlando the No. 8 seed in the East and a Wild Card match at home.

That is the whole cruelty and kindness of Decision Day: every game in the conference kicks off together, the table moves in real time, and by full time there is nowhere left to hide. Orlando came into the finale with a losing record — 13-14-7 — and its season balanced on this one night at home. Win, and the Lions took the East's last playoff place for themselves. Anything less, and the winter started Saturday night. It is the kind of evening that produces either a hero or an inquest, and for 45 minutes, until Ojeda swung his right foot, Orlando had neither — just a scoreless game and a stadium doing the arithmetic.

It was Ojeda's second goal as a Lion and the sixth of his MLS career, and it landed on a night when Orlando's goalkeeper did the other half of the job. Maxime Crépeau recorded his fifth clean sheet of 2026, and the two saves that defined his night came at its two most dangerous moments: a reflex stop on Ethan Kohler's header in the 26th minute, with the game still scoreless and Orlando's season still unwritten, and a one-on-one denial of Alhassan Yusuf at 78' that protected the lead when giving it up would have ended everything. Between those two saves, Orlando's whole season fit.

New England thought it had its point late. Daniel Gazdag headed in what looked like an equalizer in the closing minutes — 85th, 86th, depending on the watch — and the flag killed it: offside, disallowed, and the Revolution's Decision Day ended in a 1–0 defeat that changed nothing about their own winter. New England finishes third in the East on 58 points and hosts Philadelphia in Round One Game 1 on November 20.

The discipline line tells you how tight the night ran: one yellow card in the entire match, and it belonged to Crépeau, booked at 90'+1' for time-wasting with the lead in his hands. Orlando (13-14-7, 46 points) did not need anything pretty — it needed one goal and one clean sheet on the day the table froze, and it got both.

Consider what Orlando was protecting for that entire second half: not a seeding preference, not a trophy — the season itself, by one goal, against a team with nothing to lose. New England had already banked third place; the Revolution could play the last 45 minutes free, and they played them like it, pushing numbers forward until Gazdag's header beat Crépeau and the flag brought it back. That is the save Crépeau never had to make and the moment the stadium will remember longest: the ball in the net, the celebrations starting, and then the assistant's flag up and the whole ground exhaling at once.

The reward is immediate and it is at home: FC Cincinnati comes to Inter&Co Stadium on Thursday, November 19 for the Wild Card match, with Nashville — the East's top seed — waiting for the winner. Orlando's season survived Decision Day by a single volley. Follow every kick in the Game Center.