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Union Technically Going on Three Months Now Without an MLS Loss
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Okay, so the headline is kind of cheap because of the World Cup break, but the Union haven’t lost a league game since May 24th, when they shipped six goals to Inter Miami.
They’re 4-0-2 since, and collected a road point with a 1-1 draw in Austin on Saturday night:
This certainly looks like a training ground routine to me. It’s one thing to play the short corner to tighten up the delivery angle, and force some defensive movement, but Nathan Harriel is the Union’s best header of the ball outside of Neil Pierre, and his starting position is outside of the 18. He slowly drifts to the back post, unmarked, and he’s clear to knock the ball back across the grain for Cavan Sullivan to finish.
They did give up a crappy goal on the other end, a rare bit of uncertainty from Andre Blake on an Austin corner, but the unofficial rule is that road draws are good and home draws are bad. They should have beaten Miami on Wednesday in Chester and probably should have lost in Texas on Saturday. Christian Ramirez blew a sitter near the end and Austin had the better of the chances in what amounted to a pretty entertaining game.
As it stands, the U are three points out of a playoff spot. They’ve taken 14 of 18 points since the World Cup break. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that you’ve got four points separating the seven teams at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. This isn’t like the Phillies chasing the Braves, with the woeful Mets bringing up the rear. The Union are three points off the playoff line but also one point above the basement, which is occupied by Columbus. So they don’t have much margin for error because of the pre-World Cup hole that was dug quite deep.
They’re a striker away from being a pretty good team. If they had Julian Carranza up there with Milan Iloski, and 1-2 more depth pieces, they’d be a threat to go on a legitimate run. We’ll see. Two of the next three are at home and the road game is at Red Bull.
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