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The Union Lost and the Season is Over
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Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Union’s season came to an end in disappointing fashion. This time they lost 1-0 at home to New York City FC in the Eastern Conference semifinal after putting up 20 shots and failing to score:
That’s former Philadelphia Union goalkeeper Matt Freese making the biggest save of the game against the Union. Go figure. The U were the #1 seed and playing at home against an NYC team missing a couple of key players, and yet they just didn’t have it on Sunday night. They carved out some really good chances but couldn’t finish. They didn’t win enough second balls and the D looked shaky early on. It was a janky and kind of scattered effort with misplaced physicality and just not enough quality from a team that won the Supporters’ Shield and had the best record in the regular season.
If they had won this game it would have been Union vs. Lionel Messi at Subaru Park with a trip to MLS Cup on the line, but alas, it was not to be.
Updating the list of big game Union losses, here’s what we’ve now got:
- 2014 USOC final – lost at home
- 2015 USOC final – lost at home, on penalty kicks
- 2018 USOC final – thumped on the road in Houston
- 2021 Champions League both semifinal legs – lost 4-0 on aggregate to Club America
- 2022 MLS Cup – conceded in the dying moments and then lost on penalties
- 2023 Champions League 2nd leg – smoked 3-0 in LA, took a bad red card
- 2023 Leagues Cup semifinal – trounced at home by Lionel Messi and company
- 2024 Leagues Cup semifinal – lost 3-1 in Columbus
- 2025 USOC semifinal – lost 3-1 in Nashville
- 2025: Eastern Conference semifinal – lost 1-0 at home to NYC FC (as #1 seed with home field throughout playoffs)
Now things get really interesting. Sporting director Ernst Tanner is currently on administrative leave as MLS reopens an investigation into racist, sexist, and homophobic comments he allegedly made over the years. Will his job be spared, or is he out? And does Jay Sugarman go with him, or remain franchise owner? The Union weren’t much of anything until Tanner came to town, and if he’s out, justified or not, it’s a big loss.
More than anything, have they reached their ceiling playing German-style Red Bull Moneyball? This was supposed to be a rebuilding year and they won the Shield, which was incredible, but the recurring thought among experts is that they weren’t a championship team. Those people ended up being right.
Make no mistake, this was an incredible Union season. It ended with both a trophy. Any season with silverware is a great season. Yet it was disappointing in the way it ended, a classic example of the “more than one thing can be true” mantra.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com