Orlando City: In Chris Mueller, the Lions have a star

Chris Mueller scored his third goal of his blossoming young MLS career on Sunday as Orlando City overcame the San Jose Earthquakes. The Lions might well have a real star on their hands.

It took just 71 seconds for Chris Mueller to notch the third goal of his burgeoning MLS career as Orlando City SC hung on to overcome a late fightback from the San Jose Earthquakes to extend their league-leading winning streak to four games.

Playing wide on the right again, the sensational rookie may have started the scoring in superlative fashion, but it was his overall influence on proceedings and his game intelligence later in the match that really shone through.

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Take Orlando’s third and final goal for instance. At first glance, it looks as though Mueller has no influence on the play. He does not touch the ball, he does not play a pass in the move, he does not provide the finish. In fact, he doesn’t even make a particularly severe or violent run to distract the San Jose defenders. He simply stands his ground and drifts wide.

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As Justin Meram receives the ball with a little space in the midfield after a nice reverse pass found him in between the Earthquakes midfield and defence, both Dom Dwyer, the eventual goalscorer, and Mueller come alive. But Mueller, rather than making a sharp cut to a particular part of the pitch, chooses to stay as wide as possible, holding the San Jose defenders in their positions that split second longer, opening up the passing lane for Meram to feed Dwyer with a lovely fed through-pass.

It was this spatial intelligence that was on show for the first goal: Stood on the chalk-line, stretching the pitch as wide as possible, Mueller waited patiently for the ball to come his way, rather than drifting inside in search of it and consequently shrinking the space that his teammates had to work in. The long, lofted pass duly came, Mueller chested it down, drove into the penalty area and finished with a precise side-footed shot into the top corner.

And again for the second goal. As Dwyer brilliantly brought the ball under his control, held off the defender and laid a pass backwards for the supporting Orlando runs, almost all of the San Jose defence is dragged across to their right side of the pitch. Mueller did not follow. Instead, he held his position on his right flank, the San Jose left flank, and then scampered into the space in behind a disjointed defence when he saw the opportunity to do so without veering offside. He collected the ball, drove at goal, and then had the awareness and intelligence to simply roll a pass into Sacha Kljestan who tapped into the empty net.

It is easy to focus on the goal. But Mueller showed so much more than just adding another goal to his resume. This is a wonderfully aware and intelligent player. His movement is not only sharp but wise. He recognises where the space will be in attacking moves, and then knows how to exploit that space. He then possesses the technical quality and calm, convicted decision-making to execute the right cross or pass or shot at the right time.

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And all this as a rookie. Chris Mueller is a star. Orlando City are very lucky to have him indeed.