NEW YORK — An early concession, an own goal, a disagreement at the end of the first half and a freefall from fourth to sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
That was the latest bizarre and disappointing concoction the Philadelphia Union mustered in their regular-season finale, a 3-1 loss to New York City FC.
Similar to the start they had during the U.S. Open Cup final in Houston, the Union were caught off guard and were outplayed in the opening minutes. The inability to match NYCFC’s intensity out of the gates put Jim Curtin’s men behind the eight ball and solidified their playoff fate in the first 10 minutes.
“We just didn’t match their intensity,” Union captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “It wasn’t good enough.”
Maxime Chanot’s first goal of the season, which came off a corner kick in the eighth minute and Auston Trusty’s own goal two minutes later created a mountain the Union aren’t designed to climb back up.
For the second straight week with a playoff spot on the line, the Union simply didn’t play their best, and in an Eastern Conference where they are outmatched by most rosters, they need to be at their best to have a chance of winning. The disjointed look of the Union in the first half eventually cost them a third time, as David Villa netted the final tally of the contest in the 34th minute.
Cory Burke, who scored the club’s lone strike in the 14th minute, was chosen as the scapegoat for the first-half struggles. He was lifted from the field following a heated discussion with Borek Dockal going into the locker room.
“The yellow card is a factor. Also things will stay in the locker room,” Curtin said. “There were some disagreements on the field. I’m sure you saw that between him and Borek. We wanted more of a response from Cory at halftime in the talk, and some of the responsibilities with [NYCFC’s Alexander] Callens and not letting him advance the ball and dribble 40 yards into our team.
“I know he scored a great goal, which is good for us, but at the same time, we’re only going to have success if everybody’s on the same page and everybody is pulling in the same direction. I can understand there’s going to be heated arguments and discussions. We’ll learn from this, and, again, we made the change at halftime, made some adjustments. Is it the right one? Is it the wrong one? You guys can decide that. At the same time, we made a change and that’s what we went with.”
Curtin didn’t fully appreciate the passion displayed by Burke, which led to his benching, but Bedoya went to bat for the Jamaican forward a bit.
“Emotions are high,” Bedoya said. “The intensity gets turned up now with the playoffs on the line. This game we knew was very important. We wanted to finish third, but it wasn’t meant to be. It’s part of the game. Guys get into it, emotions are high, intensity gets ramped up — so I don’t see an issue with that. It’s just a matter of when the ball gets played again to be able to focus and concentrate and get doing your job.”
Bedoya was quick to note the second half was much better from the Union, as they surged forward and even switched out of their 4-2-3-1 into a 3-5-2 to try and pull back a result.
The lone significant second-half chance came on a saved penalty kick from Fafa Picault, but even that was met with the trademark dysfunction of the night.
“Those are discussions that are had on the field,” Bedoya said. “Borek told me that Fafa wanted it and he scored his previous two or three. If somebody says I want to take it and I feel confident about it, you let him take it. Who is to say if Borek took it, he would’ve scored. It’s unfortunate. Fafa has scored his penalties before. It was a decent save, to be fair to [goalkeeper] Sean [Johnson].”
“I hadn’t missed yet,” Picault said. “I scored three of them. I thought it was very well shot. He jumped early. Maybe I should’ve gone the other way when I saw him jump, but I was confident on the angle, and on any other day, that’s in, but he made a great stop. It’s unfortunate, unlucky for me and for the team.”
Although the team will try to spin the second-half performance as a positive heading into the knockout-round clash with NYCFC, the damage was still done in the first 10 minutes, and frankly nothing that occurred in the next 80 minutes made up for the awful start.
The Union still have one more opportunity to salvage a season that turned downward faster than the initial drop of a roller coaster. How they conquer NYCFC on the road remains to be seen, but if a similar performance is produced midweek at Yankee Stadium, the season won’t be viewed as successful in the eyes of the supporters.
https://www.prosoccerusa.com/mls/2018-mls-cup-playoffs-first-round-pairings-set/