ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando City SC forward Stéfano Pinho joined Major League Soccer this season seeking a new challenge. Nine games into the 2018 season, he has found it.
Pinho played, perhaps, one of his worst games in a Lions uniform in a 2-1 loss to Toronto FC on May 18. Judging by his response to media on May 21, it seemed Pinho recognized it, too.
“Was a little bit sad, yeah… Was a bad day for me there, but you have to keep working. Everyone has their bad day, you know?” Pinho said after training. “You can’t always be perfect, but I look for a new chance to start. I think I have to improve every day, every training, so I keep doing that.”
Pinho started and played for 64 minutes against TFC but managed only one off-target shot. His performance extended to his body language, as head coach Jason Kreis noticed and spoke with Pinho at halftime.
That was, perhaps, the boost Pinho needed, as Kreis said he thought Pinho had improved play in the second half.
“At halftime, I talked to him because I knew that he was really struggling,” Kreis said after training on May 22. “It was obvious from some of the touches that he had but obvious from his body language, too, that he was really down on himself. And my experience tells me that you have to rebound back from those situations.
“Every player in the world has bad games; every single one has bad performances. It’s the best players in the world that move on from that extremely quickly… That’s why God made soccer with two halves. There was an opportunity for him to do better in the second half, and I actually think he did do a little better in the second half.”
This kind of slump is something Pinho might not be used to. The 27-year-old dominated in his previous league, the North American Soccer League. Pinho won the league’s MVP award and was the NASL Golden Boot winner in both 2015 and 2017.
He scored 16 goals in 23 matches for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in 2015 and beat that total in 2017 with 17 goals for Miami FC in 2017.
After the Lions lost to Toronto, Pinho said he spoke with family, friends and teammates, specifically mentioning City defender Victor “PC” Giro. The two played together in 2015 for Fort Lauderdale, and PC has since helped Pinho in his transition to Orlando and MLS.
“I give confidence to him because he’s very good player, so I know him a lot. So, I try to help him outside the field, inside the field,” PC told New Day Review after training on May 22. “So, he’s new here in the team, so I try to keep his head up and keep going. He need to keep going to help us. And he’s very good player… That’s it.”
Pinho has shown he can be an effective player for the Lions. His most notable contribution came in the team’s season-opening, 1-1 draw with D.C. United, wherein Pinho scored a stoppage-time equalizer for 10-man Orlando City (coincidentally enough, PC drew the red card to put the Lions down).
Now, Pinho is seeking another opportunity at another goal and, more importantly, a chance to improve his confidence.
“I’m [working] for that, to score more goals, to be more confident, you know?” Pinho said. “So I’m work very, very hard every day, so I hope to score next game.”
A noticeable deficiency in Pinho’s outing against TFC was his hold-up play. That was more noticeable, in part, because Pinho was replacing forward Dom Dwyer in the starting lineup. Dwyer has scored six goals in seven starts and seven appearances but could miss his second-straight game with an injury on Saturday, thrusting Pinho into the lineup, again.
For Kreis, he doesn’t expect or even want Pinho to be like Dwyer; he simply wants Pinho to be himself.
“Every player has strengths and weaknesses, and every player should show a desire to work on their weaknesses,” Kreis said. “And that’s what Stéfano wanted to work on today was a little bit of his hold-up play. But the other thing is we don’t need Stéfano to be Dom.
“We need Stéfano to be Stéfano. He doesn’t have to do all the same things that Dom does. He can do some things differently and, perhaps, maybe a little bit better.”
Dwyer trained inside and away from the rest of the team at Friday’s training, according to the Orlando Sentinel and ProSoccerUSA.com’s Jordan Culver. That could give way to Pinho’s second-straight start for the first time since back-to-back road starts against the Philadelphia Union and the San Jose Earthquakes.
Update: Dom Dwyer is training inside today. https://t.co/Vy7DSyuNHD
— Jordan Culver (@JordanCulver) May 25, 2018
City and the Chicago Fire kick off Saturday night at 7:30 p.m.
For more on Pinho, as he hopes to rebound against the Fire, follow Victor Tan on Twitter at @NDR_VictorTan.
To contact Victor, you can email him at vtan@newdayreview.com.
[…] two-time NASL MVP has scored only once in 10 appearances and four starts, including a 64-minute, starting shift against TFC in which he tallied only one […]
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