CINCINNATI – Facundo Torres scored late in the second half and Pedro Gallese made it stand up as Orlando City edged FC Cincinnati 1-0 on Saturday night.
Torres scored for an 11th time this season when he took a pass from Ramiro Enrique in the 44th minute. Gallese finished with four saves to earn the clean sheet for Orlando City (13-6-8).
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Cincinnati (17-4-6) shut out Orlando City in the previous two matches in the series. Cincinnati tied a record set by the 2002 San Jose Earthquakes with 37 of a possible 39 points through its first 13 home contests. San Jose also lost its 14th match.
“We played against a rival that has not lost one game at home, so a very difficult place to play,” Orlando coach Oscar Pareja said. “First half was at a very good level and I thought we created most of the chances and we controlled the game. We were thinking that this is the consistency that we are fighting for and playing for. The second half, Cincinnati is a very good team and started putting more numbers up front. We started to defend a little lower than we wanted, but today we played very well with the ball and we played even better without it, which is something you have to know how to do.”
Orlando City has a league-high 25 points on the road this season with a league-low three losses.
Roman Celentano did not have a save for Cincinnati.
Cincinnati returns to action on Sept. 16 when it travels to play the Philadelphia Union. Orlando City returns home to host the Columbus Crew on Sept. 16.
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