FC Cincinnati midfielder Evander has called on his team to show "more urgency" after their Leagues Cup campaign ended in disappointment with a 2-1 defeat to Atlas.

Evander had given Cincinnati a 1-0 half-time lead in that contest, and a victory would have carried the club into the quarter-finals following earlier group wins over Pachuca and U.N.A.M. Instead, the Eastern Conference side fell short and watched their hopes of lifting a trophy slip away.

"I think we had the best scenario possible to go on and qualify for the next round," Evander said. "I think the Leagues Cup could have been a good moment for the club to have a trophy. But it was just [us] throwing things away. We need to be better, we need to have more urgency as a team."

"We need to feel this loss. We need to feel this loss and what it means in front of our fans. I think we had a good opportunity to win the Leagues Cup, and we just threw that away. I think we need to have just more urgency to win these games and show to the fans that we want to win, that we want to win the tournament, and be prepared for these kinds of games from the first to the last second."

Orlando look for positives after early exit

Sunday's opponents Orlando City also exited the Leagues Cup, bowing out in the first round despite a penalty-shootout win over Atletico San Luis in their final group game. Interim boss Martin Perelman, however, insisted there were positives to take from the competition.

"I think it's important for us in terms of minutes for the players," said Perelman. "It was our goal to have the full roster able to compete, and I think today the guys performed. And we faced a good team as well, and it was a tough game. It was a competitive game. Now we're thinking about the next one."

Players to watch

• Orlando City – Eduard Atuesta: Since the return from the World Cup, six MLS players have three or more regular-season assists and two are Orlando players — Atuesta and Justin Ellis. That matches the number of players with three or more assists Orlando had in the whole of 2026 before the break.
• FC Cincinnati – Evander: In Cincinnati's last MLS match, Evander scored and added three assists in a 4-2 win over the San Jose Earthquakes. It was his second MLS game this season with at least three assists and a goal (the other coming against Orlando in May), making him the only player since 2010 with multiple such games in a single season.

Match prediction

Orlando lost 3-2 to the New York Red Bulls in their last MLS outing and have now dropped four MLS matches while scoring multiple goals this season — the most such losses of any MLS team in 2026 and tied for the most in a single MLS season in club history (also 2018).

Meanwhile, Cincinnati have scored 45 goals and allowed 44 across their 18 regular-season matches in 2026, a combined 89 goals that is seven more than any other team has managed through 18 games of an MLS regular season (LA Galaxy, 82 in 1998).

Cincinnati thrashed Orlando 6-2 in May, equalling the largest margin of victory by either side in the history of this fixture, alongside Orlando's 5-1 win in the first meeting in 2019. Those six goals were tied for Cincinnati's most in an MLS match and tied for the most Orlando have ever conceded in one.

OPTA win probability: Orlando City 38.6% | Draw 26.5% | FC Cincinnati 34.9%