Union looking to avoid five losses in a row, which would be a club first
With the Union's loss last weekend to Montréal, that marked four consecutive losses in a row, something that hadn't happened to this team since 2015.
The Union are set to take on Chicago Fire (4-10-6, 18 pts) on Wednesday night as both clubs are chasing all three points with both clubs out of a playoff position.
The Fire loss 2-1 to Seattle Sounders over the weekend, as Albert Rusnák converted a late penalty kick in the 93rd minute after Mauricio Pineda fouled Jordan Morris inside the penalty area.
With that loss to Seattle, Chicago are currently on a two game losing streak, while the Union are on a four game losing streak themselves, tying the most consecutive losses in a row in club history, which was set twice in 2010 and 2015.
Despite what their record might indicate, the Fire have been playing much better soccer the last six games with a record of 2-2-2. The big switch for the Fire during this stretch was switching to a three-centerback-system compared to running just two like they’ve done majority of the season. During these six games the Fire have only given up multiple goals twice (Four against Orlando, and most recently two against Seattle), compared to the seven times they’ve done it playing in a back four. Hugo Cuypers, who was the clubs record DP signing this winter has started to find his form, scoring four goals and assisting one in his last six games. Previously, he had three goals in his last 14 appearances.
The Union have played against their fair share of teams this season that have deployed a three-centerback-system and have often struggled, going 1-3-3 in those seven matches.
“If you analyze our Montreal game in the first half, we did a really good job with our two blocks of four, and our wide midfielders did a really good job of still staying high and making them defend us a little bit and having their wingbacks at least be thinking about us going forward,” said Jim Curtin. “As the second half started to creep by, you started to see us almost look like a back six, which is just a recipe for trouble. You saw Jack McGlynn almost in the same line as Kai [Wagner] out towards his left with Ruan, which is not a matchup we want. So again, we looked at it in the film, we showed different ideas of staying true to that, to your position and not dropping into a real defensive posture. We were never able to get out in the second half. Part of that, you give credit to the opponent too, but that would be the biggest takeaway when you're dealing with those wingbacks. Sometimes making them defend you is the best way to defend them, being brave and going forward.”
Injury updates
The Union had a 2-1 lead going into halftime against Montréal over the weekend, but when it came down to relying on the bench and trying to see out the game in the second half, they couldn’t. Andre Blake (knee) and Alejandro Bedoya (quad) both returned to training this week, but neither player is quite ready to rejoin the group. Mikael Uhre is still out with his adductor strain, but Jim Curtin is hopefully he’ll be back in “another week or two”. And Tai Baribo continues to have back spasms, in which he suffered in warmups against Montréal on Saturday. If Baribo isn’t able to go against Chicago, now you run into a massive problem where you only have one fit striker in Chris Donovan. If Jim is committed to continuing playing a flat 442, we’ve seen Quinn Sullivan play up front multiple times this season, and Dániel Gazdag has also played up front for the Union in the past, so they have options to pair with Donovan, but neither one of those players are natural strikers.
“We'll put a group on the field that I still think can give teams some problems with our attacking,” said Jim Curtin. “We've found ways, even in this really tough stretch, to score enough goals; that hasn't been our problem. I still go back to the way we concede is just far too easy.”
Jim’s not wrong, that the team are scoring plenty of goals. They’ve scored 14 goals in their last 10 games (1-6-3), but they’ve also conceded 19 goals. And during this run, they’ve conceded multiple goals in the same game seven times, including two games of four goals given up against Cincinnati and Montréal. And for those curious, in the Union’s first 10 games of the season (3-2-5), they gave up multiple goals in the same game six times, with four of those games ending in draws. Early on in the season it was a lot of games of the Union conceding first (7 games), and they’ve seemed to have corrected that during these last 10 games (4 games conceding first). But the issue now is, the Union can’t find that second goal to give them a two goal lead when they need it, and in not doing so, it allows teams right back into the game (think Inter Miami and both Montréal games).
Series History (MLS Play ONLY)
The Union currently lead the series 14-10-9, while they have a record of 5-4-8 in Chicago, with their last win coming on May 8, 2021 in a game that Cory Burke and Jakob Glesnes scored in to give the Union the 2-0 win. When these two teams met at the beginning of the season at Subaru Park they played to a trilling 2-2 draw with Dániel Gazdag scoring the tying goal in the 93rd minute, after former Union player, Fabian Herbers looked to have stolen all three points for Chicago in the 82nd minute with his goal to give the Fire the 2-1 lead.
There are seven current Union players with goals against Chicago: Dániel Gazdag (3), Quinn Sullivan, Alejandro Bedoya, Jakob Glesnes, Mikael Uhre, Jack Elliott, and Kai Wagner (1). For Chicago, they have eight current players with goals against the Union: Chris Mueller (3), Brian Gutierrez, Fabian Herbers, Federico Navarro, Tom Barlow, Andrew Gutman, Maren Haile-Selassie, and Mauricio Pineda (1).
Player availability Report:
Philadelphia Union
Alejandro Bedoya - Quad (Out)
Andre Blake - Knee (Out)
Jóse Mártinez - International Duty (Out)
Isaiah LeFlore - Knee (Out)
Mikael Uhre - Adductor (Out)
Markus Anderson - Hip (Questionable)
Tai Baribo - Back (Questionable)
Chicago Fire
Chase Gasper - Leg (Out)
Andrew Gutman - Leg (Out)
Federico Navarro - Leg (Out)
Tobias Salquist - Leg (Out)
Xherdan Shaqiri - International Duty (Out)
Carlos Terán - Leg (Out)
Where to watch
MLS Season Pass on Apple TV with kickoff set for 8:30pm est, July 3rd
Video credit: Philadelphia Union