LAKE MARY, Fla. — Eight weeks of preseason work has come and gone, and now it's finally time for the season to kick off.
The Orlando Pride open their 2026 NWSL season on Sunday at Inter&Co Stadium, hosting the Seattle Reign in what Head Coach Seb Hines and his group are treating as the culmination of everything they've built since January. After a 2025 campaign that ended one goal short of back-to-back trips to the NWSL Championship, the Pride are hungry, focused and by all accounts, ready.
"It's all preparation for this home opener," Hines said following training earlier this week at Orlando Health Training Ground at Sylvan Lake Park. "With our fans here supporting us, it's going to be a great opportunity for us to put everything in place, to go out there and perform. We're really excited. We're ready to get going, and hopefully we have a really good season."
The long preseason, which started all the way back in January, gave the coaching staff valuable time to integrate the six new players joining the established group of players remaining from past years. Adding to that, the time allowed them to focus on the small things without having to rush specific principles that are core to the way the team functions. For Hines, the message throughout camp has been consistent: don't change what works.
"Integrating [the new players] and not changing much of who we are," he said. "Over the course of the last two, three years, we've been really good. We've obviously set new standards, new expectations, and we have to live up to that now. We want to be a team that is fighting for championships, fighting for Shields, and we're going to have to stick together throughout the whole season."
Veteran defender Rafaelle, who enters her fourth year with the Pride, echoed that sense of readiness, adding that the group's environment has been a major factor in getting everyone, veterans and newcomers alike, up to speed.
"The chemistry is the main thing for us," she said. "Even with the young players, we were so welcoming, and they just, from the first day, felt comfortable playing with us. The environment here is so healthy, and we just embrace everybody who comes in to help us."
Midfielder Ally Lemos, coming off a season where she played in the most matches of any Pride player in 2025, felt like this preseason was exactly what the team needed to get themselves ready for 2026.
"I would say the definition of productive," she said. "It was very influential and honestly key for us to come together as a group. We just got all of our internationals back, so that'll really be key for us, build off of what we did last season and continue to build those connections."
Building off last season is the driving force behind everything this group is doing. The Pride came heartbreakingly close to reaching the NWSL Championship in 2025, eliminated in the final moments of their semifinal against Gotham FC. Much like the team did off the heels of the 2023 season heading into their historic 2024 campaign, they've channeled that pain into fuel.
"It was hard for us to go through that last-minute goal," Rafaelle said. "But we just talked about how we can give so much more. We know we didn't have a very consistent season throughout the year, but we made the playoffs, and we played so well in them. We were just a little bit away from making the final. So this year, we're going to start on the front foot and just try to get three points every game and make it as far as we can go."
"We're hungry, we're ready, and we just want to be here," Lemos added. "We want to get the wins and perform at our best, and I think you can really see that in training."
Sunday's opponent is one the Pride know well. Over the team's final few matches last year, Orlando and the Seattle Reign faced each other twice, once in the final game of the regular season and then again a week later in the opening round of the NWSL Playoffs. Now, they get to face off for the third time in, technically, their last four games played. Though with this matchup, a whole offseason is between them, making preparation for Sunday all the more difficult for the coaching staff.
"It's always unique. What is the team going to look like on opening day? Who knows?" Hines said. "I think there's a lot of focus on ourselves. It's very cliché, but we are the home team. We've been working extremely hard to stick to our identity, adapt a few things with our style of play, and hopefully it all comes into place on Sunday."
"I know we all know that if we play our game and the way we want to play it, we shouldn't have any problems," Lemos added. "We should be good."
Kickoff on Sunday is set for 4 p.m. ET at Inter&Co Stadium and streaming live on Victory+.
Odds and Ends:
- Defender Barbra Banda is expected to be available for selection after returning from international duty, though Hines noted the club will assess where she is coming back from following the injury that ended her 2025 season prematurely.
- Hines added that Marta is slightly behind the rest of the group in her preseason progression, though he added that the 40-year-old remains fully motivated and the Club is being careful to manage her workload appropriately heading into the season.
