It’s June 10th and the Philadelphia Union are in 1st place at the top of Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference.

After pulling just two of nine points from a recent three-game home stand, Jim Curtin’s team rebounded by ripping off a pair of 3-2 wins in games where they honestly did not even play that well. That’s the sign of a good team, isn’t it? You find ways to win when you’re not totally clicking, and a lot of that can be credited to 33-year-old Brazilian winger Ilsinho, now in his fourth season with the team.

Ilsinho already held the title of “most skilled Union player of all time,” even before he broke out this year as a super sub and one-man wrecking crew. Saturday night the Union were losing 2-0 at halftime, he entered the game in the 53rd minute, and then went on to bag two goals and an assist in just 37 minutes on the field. It was one of the best individual Union performances I’ve ever seen, definitely right up there with the Roland Alberg and Sebastien Le Toux hat tricks and Freddy Adu’s first half against Red Bull more than six years ago.

Ilsinho is now up to 5 assists and 4 goals in just 551 minutes of play, having started just four games while coming off the bench in the other ten.

As such, we focus on his assists per-90 minutes and goals per-90 minutes, which look something like this:

• A/p90 – 0.82
• G/p90 – 0.65

That A/p90 number is #1 in Major League Soccer among players that have logged at least 500 minutes. Most other assist providers aren’t even close. For context, NYC’s Maxi Moralez is second with a 0.78 and the league-leader in total assists, Carlos Vela, has a 0.63 number. That math looks something like this, after the jump:

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It’s June 4th and your team, your town, your Philadelphia Union are atop the Eastern Conference.

I know, I can’t believe it either, but they’ve been great this year, really fun to watch, a gritty, BLUE COLLAR type of Philly team.

The video and marketing department is also on their game. Here’s a well-done piece of #content promoting this weekend’s Union/Red Bull “rivalry” game, a clip showing some guy beating the shit out of car in Center City as confused folks watch from afar:

🐮🚗🔨

Shout out to @edbassmaster for the assist!

🔥👉 https://t.co/9QhiHFQNkf | #DOOP pic.twitter.com/NZLNDlm5xz

— Philadelphia Union (@PhilaUnion) June 4, 2019

The “guy” is Ed Bassmaster, who I’d never heard of until actually reading the video description, but apparently he’s a Youtube star and Philly native.

On his Wikipedia page, I learned that one of his characters is named “Girard Douche,” which made me laugh out loud. I’d hope that “Girard Douche” stands near the EL at Frankford and Girard and crosses the street at red lights.

Edit:

I watched a few videos and unfortunately “Girard Douche” has nothing to do with Girard Avenue.

It feels like every time the Union start stringing some wins together, they sputter and spin out.

It happened last year, when the club won a franchise-record 15 games, yet blew another U.S. Open Cup Final before crashing out in the opening round of the playoffs. All of the goodwill that squad built up quickly went right into the toilet, which was unfortunate.

The 2019 team is going through one of those stretches right now, having mustered just two of a possible nine points in a three-game home stand against Western Conference opponents. Seattle bunkered and held on for a clean sheet. Portland carved open the U on a pair of counterattacks, and Colorado blocked double-digit shots last night at Talen Energy Stadium in a 1-1 draw.

In that span, Jim Curtin’s team scored two goals on 64 total shots, which is kind of crazy to think about. It’s not for a lack of trying, but they just can’t put the ball in the back of the net right now.

They’re still in second place* in the East, though I’m a points-per-game guy, and the reason I use the asterisk is because the Union’s 1.67 number is better than D.C.’s 1.63. However, there’s now just four points separating second and fifth place, which makes me feel like this little slump is gonna come back to bite them in the ass in a few months time.

Five thoughts, after the jump:

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