The Fire's first game of a lengthy stretch of road games in league play ended with victory, even if it took them a while to get there after a near two-hour delay due to thunderstorms in Orlando.
Here's what we learned about the Fire on a hot, muggy night in central Florida.
Nothing is more beautiful than ugly
Let’s get this out of the way first: The Fire’s win against Orlando was not a thing of beauty. The Fire were outshot, and arguably outplayed, for a majority of the match. Orlando had almost three times the number of touches in front of Brady as the Fire got the other direction.
And that’s not even mentioning the near two-hour weather delay. On a day that was hot and so humid that David Poreba (more on him in a bit, don’t worry) said that it was “insane,” “it’s like you’re trapped in the air.”
And despite all that, the Fire, in the words of Gregg Berhalter, “bent but didn’t break and got a solid road win" – the team’s first since the 3-1 victory over D.C. United on May 13.
It was an ugly win. And particularly for a road win, that can be a thing of beauty.
The bench is getting bigger at the right time
In 2026, the Fire have played 1,710 minutes in league play. Nine players have played more than 60% of that total, with Anton Salétros (86.3%) leading the way amongst outfield players, and
Jack Elliot (86.3%) and Philip Zinckernagel (84.1%) not far behind.
Throughout the spring, predicting the starting XI was about as difficult as predicting that it’d be hot and humid in Orlando for this one.
Since then, though, schedule congestion, combined with injuries, the departure of Hugo Cuypers and Robert Lewandowski’s arrival, have meant that more players have had to get minutes.
It’d be understandable – in fact, it’d be expected – for the Fire’s form to dip as those adjustments were made.
Instead, the FIre have continued to get results, even as more and more players are getting serious minutes.
We’ve seen Robert Turden’s debut start with the first team in Leagues Cup, and in this game, David Poreba’s. We’ve seen Puso Dithejane’s emergence from an occasional bench option to a key part of the Fire’s offensive production, and we’ve seen Sam Rogers get his first first MLS start since February.
And the Fire have been winning through all of it.
“That’s key to what we’re doing right now,” Berhalter said after the win, “Our solutions being able to come in and not drop the level. I think we've rotated a lot over these last games, four or five players each game, and you don't see the level drop that dramatically. “You know, that is absolute key right now. It's the full squad contributing. I think it's a good feeling. But you know, like anything, we're still hungry for more.”
Considering the schedule congestion going forward, that’s exactly what you want to hear.
The margins are tight
Despite all that, the Fire haven’t been steamrolling over opponents in every game they’ve faced.
Orlando could make a case that they played better and thus deserved to win, and it took strong goalkeeping from Brady, Jonathan Dean using his speed to harry Antoine Griezmann as he started to get a good look on goal, and any number of other individual moments going the Fire’s way for them to get the victory over Orlando.
Berhalter is right – the Fire should take pride in the fact that they overcame fatigue, a weather delay, and any number of other headwinds – and still came back with three points, but it’s a reminder the margins are fine.
The Fire’s current winning streak took a late surge over Santos, Cruz Azul deciding to press rather than shake hands and settle for a draw, and Robert Lewandowski earning a PK against Orlando in a game where most of the action in the box was going the other way.
You could argue that means that luck also plays a factor – and you might be right, but for years, it felt like the Fire’d end up with snake eyes no matter how many times they rolled the dice – but the Fire are also a good enough team to make their own luck.
Sometimes, dreams come true
David Poreba was set to make his MLS debut in 2025 after winning both the MLS Next Pro MVP and Golden Boot a year prior, but an ACL injury derailed those plans.
In Orlando, Poreba finally got his MLS debut, 616 days after he signed his first team deal with the Fire. The journey spanned two continents, and was postponed – though not derailed – by injury. That alone would make it a dream night for most players – but there was an extra element to Poreba’s debut.
Asked if he thought in his “wildest dreams” that his first MLS start would come next to Robert Lewandowski, the Polish-American midfielder was blunt: “I'll be completely honest: No, I did not. Obviously he's my favorite player growing up, being of Polish descent. Looked up to him my whole journey as an academy player. You know, watching him play for Poland, for Borussia [Dortmund], for Bayern [Munich] and Barça. Honestly, it's surreal but it shows you that [life] can have surprises and at the end of the day, I'm just super grateful because after all I've been through, as well, it's an amazing, amazing moment for me”
Poreba set up Puso Dithejane on the Fire’s opening goal,with Lewandowski yards away from him.
Sometimes, dreams come true.
And on that note….
It’s back to the future for the Fire
Readers were the first to know that the Fire were nearing a modern record winning streak: It wasn’t on the team’s radar, with Berhalter saying after the win in Portland that they’d just been tracking MLS victories, but word, like it frequently did, spread, and now the Fire, for just the second time in their history, have won six games in a row.
The last time, in 1998, was part of a 11 game winning streak, but there’s an asterisk: MLS didn’t have draws in that year, the seventh victory of that stretch came off of PKs following a draw. The Fire have had other undefeated streaks make it to stretch this long, but this is just the second time in the team’s nearly 30-year history that they’ve had 6 W’s in a row.
That means that every time the Fire have won this many games in a row, they’ve ended the year as champions, and, combined with their five game winning streak in 2000, every time they’ve won at least five straight, they’ve made it to the final.
The team is by no means a favorite to make it to the MLS Cup, let alone win it – but then again, if it wasn’t for the 11 consecutive wins in the middle of the 1998 season, they wouldn’t have been then, either.
It hasn’t happened, and the Fire aren’t there – yet. But it doesn’t seem crazy anymore, does it?
