Luck and skill combine to net Reign 2-1 win over Orlando in 2026 opener

ORLANDO - Don't let the three points fool you, I still think the Pride are the better team on the whole: they have a sharper breakaway with a more seasoned and precise striker, they did a generally better job of containing breakaways, and even outside of Barbra Banda, they produced more threatening chances.

But for a Reign side that had drawn Orlando in the final game of the regular season and lost to them in the first round of the playoffs, taking all three points in the 2026 opener was a catharsis and a good omen. It was also a case where some of the adversity didn't come from things on the field, as the team dealt with a delayed flight and a tough training environment once they landed.

Seattle showed a lot of early improvement in the attack, with the connection between the midfield and the top line looking much improved from last year. But an inordinate amount of giveaways in the back gave Orlando chance after chance, and a lethargic start to the second half - the Reign clearly suffered more than their hosts from a lightning-induced 150-minute halftime delay - saw that connection broken into pieces as the Pride tied it up.

But despite this clear adversity, Seattle managed to hold off from slipping into a loss. Actually, they managed to regain their lead and take the first three points of the season on Sunday. It was a lot of luck, sure, but it was an example of skill generating luck. Phoebe McClernon bailed out her teammates time and time again, and even when it was all but a coin toss, her good pressure kept potential Pride scores off the board. Nérilia "Coco" Mondésir had a strong first half and recovered from a slow start to the second with some clinical play in the waning minutes, enough to allow the Reign to cash in their chances.

"We didn't come out of the weather break the same as what we'd done in the first half," Reign head coach Laura Harvey said. "But credit to the players: they dug in, they showed some grit, they showed some personality."

Battle of transitions shapes up in the early game and strong connection between Fishlock, Mondésir, and Fishel makes early difference.

Perhaps it was fitting that Jess Fishlock netted the first Reign goal of 2026. Seattle struggled with her limited minutes last year, with a lack of premier options at 10 during her absences. She connects the two halves of the team when she's on the pitch, providing an extra spark that the team has needed even as it pivots to its younger players.

The Reign had a prime opportunity scarcely 15 seconds into the game, as the ball came up to Fishlock who found Mondésir who passed up to Mia Fishel just a few feet in front of the net. Fishel tried to work past Orlando keeper Anna Moorhouse but found herself outplayed by the home goalie and pushed away from the net.

Still, the opening episode was promising for a team that has had issues scoring in the past couple of seasons. If the trio of Fishlock, Mondésir, and Fishel have that level of connection throughout the year, the offense will be in good hands.

The Pride, of course, are also a team built on quick transitions. Barbra Banda leads the front edge of the Orlando side as one of the biggest scoring threats in women's soccer, and the Reign had their work cut out for them in keeping her contained. Phoebe McClernon nixed a nascent sixth minute breakaway and another threat became a free kick after Emily Mason knocked Banda over. An Orlando corner kick in the 12th minute landed right in Dickey's hands.

There's still stuff to work on, however. A 13th minute transition moment for the Reign fell off the rails as Mondésir's pass to Fishlock curled off target. Seattle regrouped possession and found another opening, with Fishlock and Fishel connecting up top, but Moorhouse made a highlight reel save to keep the match knotted. But still, the middle minutes of the first half had quite a few potential transition moments come apart early on with an errant pass and the like.

But it only takes one perfectly executed play to make a goal. Sam Meza tapped it up to Mondésir in the 24th minute, who dribbled forward until finding an opening to Fishlock at the edge of the box. Despite being surrounded, with Rafaelle behind her and Hailie Mace on top of her left foot, Fishlock broke away from both and produced a wide-open line to the net. Moorhouse didn't have a chance, and Seattle punched first.

Back line has a spotty first half despite McClernon excellence and good offsides traps.

Despite some strong play up top, the (thinly stretched due to injury) Reign back four showed a notable amount of weakness in open play, providing far too many openings for Banda and company to create threats. Seattle benefited from some rustiness on Banda's part - a weak header in prime position in the 40th minute comes to mind - but they kept cutting it way too close against a team that can turn air into goals.

Some early mistakes were apparent, such as a Maddy Curry slow play in front of her own box under pressure and Emily Mason getting herself a yellow on the aforementioned Banda contact. But the biggest stalwart among the defenders held her own, and that made a big difference.

Phoebe McClernon all but saved a goal in the 23th minute. Barbra Banda beat herinitially and passed up to Seven Castain, who flicked it back to Banda in the box, but McClernon slid perfectly into the ball for the clearance. Another big moment in the 28th saw McClernon again get the ball out of dodge.

But no one is perfect, and neither was McClernon against the Pride's lightning-quick attack. Banda got the jump against her and Sofia Huerta in the 31st and rocketed a ball towards the net. That was where Dickey saved the day, batting the ball away on a dive, but the chance ended on an errant follow-up boot by Ally Lemos.

Curry and McClernon repelled an attack in the 45th as the Pride applied a vise-grip on Seattle's half, but the first half of stoppage provided Curry's best moment: a high-leverage header to turn a potential prime opportunity into a corner that Seattle managed to repel.

Several potential opportunities for Banda stopped short thanks to some well executed offsides traps, showing a level of good back line coordination in spite of some of the clear mistakes.

I should mention that the game probably should have been tied in the 42nd minute. Dickey went forward on a corner kick, away from the path of the ball and into the general crowd, and the ball went right to a waiting attacker and immediately found its way to the net. Dickey had managed to draw a foul - and crucially, a ref's whistle - in the box, however, and the goal was null.

Still, Seattle was playing a dangerous game allowing this many opportunities for their opponents.

"The pace of the game? Yeah, (it was) great. What I can't handle is how transitional we made it," Harvey said about her team's performance. "It's a little bit as to be expected in the first game of the season, but I think they're the things we want to tidy up: in that when the game starts to become transitional, we need to get back in control of the game quicker."

The Reign didn't pay for their ball control issues as much as they perhaps should have, but they did pay once not long after the second half began.

Second half opens after lightning delay with an early Banda equalizer and apparent Reign rustiness.

It was two and a half hours between the end of the first half and the beginning of the second, the rule being that play cannot resume until 30 minutes have passed since the most recent nearby lightning strike. In a situation like that, momentum essentially resets itself. Fans leave the stadium in the interim, taking away the power of the home crowd.

"Rain delays are like, good and bad," noted Brittany Ratcliffe, who would become a hero in the final minutes of Sunday's game. "You get a reset, you get to go over things, but at the same time, you have to find a way to stay warm, stay focused."

The Pride came out of the gate roaring, pushing into Seattle's final third immediately and forcing Dickey to make a quick save on a Banda shot before producing a corner. A couple of transition moments fell through for Seattle around the 50th minute, with Mace beating Fishlock to a ball in the Reign final third and a missed connection between Mondésir and Fishel.

And then, boom. Orlando put together a perfect transition, with Haley McCutcheon finding Banda with Huerta out of position and finding a beautiful shot on net. This time, Dickey didn't get a glove on it, and the game was tied in the 51st minute.

The Pride had a good few chances to take the lead in the following minutes, the best being a tailor-made Banda breakaway that McClernon barely managed to keep a lid on before Banda slightly shanked her shot to the left - but Seattle benefited from a bit of the luck they had in the first half, evidently still lingering.

The Reign's rustiness out of the sheds was more apparent with some players than others. Fishlock and Mondésir's dip in sharpness as compared to their first half continued to be evident, while Maddie Dahlien had a couple bad moments in the first 10 minutes of half number two. Fishlock ended up being the first subbed off for either team in the match, with Maddie Mercado coming on in the 61st minute. Play began to approach something of a possession battle as the final 20 minutes arrived, with Orlando's opening salvo spent and continued attempts to go up through Dahlien on the left side failing to produce a spark, either through bad connecting passes, missed reads on Dahlien's part, or both. She did manage to create some space in the 71st minute and get a relatively unimpeded shot off, but her left-footed strike went high as she put too much moxie on the ball.

Orlando's edge had clearly faded by the 76th, but a prime breakaway for Castain very much should have put the Pride in the catbird seat. Seattle caught yet another lucky break when her near-open shot went wide, but it was still another lapse in control and another rough sign for the young team. Split points began to come into clear view for both sides.

The Reign make their first corner count in the 83rd minute, regaining the lead and sealing a 2-1 road victory.

Seattle's beleaguered front line got a pair of rejuvenating subs in the 78th minute of play, as Emeri Adames and Brittany Ratcliffe came on for Fishel and Dahlien. Both players hadn't been on their A-game during the second half, making the subs obvious, though Harvey's hand was forced as Fishel seemed to be dealing with some sort of discomfort in her left hamstring.

The visitors worked a corner kick just a few minutes later in the 83rd, their first of the entire match. The initial service got deflected, but the real chance came as Mondésir lifted an arcing cross into the crowd. Ratcliffe knocked in a clean sideways header to put the Reign up 2-1 with less than 10 minutes of regulation remaining.

It wasn't over yet, though. Despite the Pride having subbed Barbra Banda off for Julie Doyle, they still had everything else in place to produce the breakaways needed to tie the game right back up. Phoebe McClernon, of course, wasn't done shattering Orlando's dreams of a comeback, and stoppage was barely half over by the time the last of the Pride's attacks had petered out.

Perhaps the subs could have been made earlier, given the evident exhaustion in the front line for much of the previous minutes. But they made their impact, and all's well that ends well.

"Honestly, at the end of the day, as subs, we need to call ourselves game-changers," Ratcliffe said. "We need to go in and change the game, whatever that means, whether that's bringing energy, whether that's keeping the ball, whether that's running and defending and getting a hard tackle in."

MOTM: Nérilia Mondésir. Runner-up: Phoebe McClernon.

Mondésir's recovery from Seattle's slow start to the second half marked her out as unique among the front four, as Fishel and Fishlock showed clear exhaustion and Dahlien seemed to struggle in connecting with her teammates out of the sheds.

Two assists will get anyone MOTM honors 90% of the time, and both of Coco's were stellar. Finding Fishlock in the first half required her to go through two Pride on her target's tail and a couple more in front of the ball. Her second assist was perhaps more impressive, as she had the chance to try for a screamer on net - and it seemed the Pride might have been expecting that - but she left it right over Ratcliffe's head for the game-winner.

I've already mentioned the strong connection with her teammates that showed itself over much of the game. Mondésir's best moments had a way of happening exactly when Seattle needed them to, though that's a reciprocal thing: when her touches were off, the chances didn't materialize to begin with.

McClernon's performance was, simply put, probably why the Pride didn't score four times. Her 14 defensive contributions were the most of anyone on either side, and they all seemed to come when no contribution would have spelled disaster. Most of McClernon's eight clearances were hard-fought against someone like Banda or Jacqueline Ovalle, players with serious speed on the ball in transition.

From a collective standpoint, the team toughed out three points in a situation where the 2024 or 2025 side would have left with one or none.

"I'm just glad that we were able to get the win," Ratcliffe noted postgame. "Considering all of the adversity, all of the things we had to go through, just shows who we are as a team."

It's a quick turnaround for Seattle, who go up against the Portland Thorns on Friday in Providence Park, an early Cascadia matchup in the 2026 NWSL season.