First off. A win is a win. And a road win is better still.

HOWEVER…

Once the Union nabbed the early lead in last night’s season opening clash they spent 85 minutes hiding from the game and were completely overrun by a Houston team who were, quite frankly, bad.

No Mwanga?!?!

Nowak was going to throw us a curveball. That’s what he does. In this instance, leaving Danny Mwanga on the bench was an absolute travesty.

Last year Mwanga handsomely repaid the Union for taking him with the first pick in the draft by scoring goals, winning games and building excellent chemistry with Sebastian Le Toux. Short of showing up to preseason camp 20 lbs overweight or tying Nowak’s shoelaces together during a press conference (which would have been totally worth it!) there is NO WAY that you deprive this player of a position in the starting XI as the Union begin their second season. From last year’s side there are only three player’s who covered themselves in enough glory to have earned definite starting berths for this season, Sebastian Le Toux (duh), Danny Califf (2010 captain) and Mwanga.

Of course, we didn’t see any of the team play in the preseason, but we must assume that Carlos Ruiz was in such seductive form that he had simply forced the coach’s hand. Clearly not the case for anyone who watched the match and saw a slow, lumbering forward tripping over the ball and diving time and again in an obvious and embarrassing fashion.

When Mwanga came on, he immediately went to work with Le Toux, almost poking a pass through a defender’s legs into the Frenchman’s path and later providing a cushioned touch that required an excellent defensive intervention from Houston to keep the lead at one.

If the Union start with two forwards, they MUST be Le Toux and Mwanga.

Glory Men

I, admittedly, was initially skeptical of the Faryd Mondragon signing. Given his age and the manner in which he was cut loose from his German side, I was unconvinced that he was the man to right the ship here in Philadelphia. A day after the Union recorded a clean sheet on the road during the first match of the season, I am left to happily eat some crow. While he did not make any superb, acrobatic, or even mundane saves in Houston, Mondragon was a model of consistency and strength from the back. He made no mistakes, claimed every ball with confidence and organized the defense around him.

Speaking of that defense, both centerbacks earned their keep last night. In his MLS debut, Carlos Valdes lived up to the lofty expectations set by the Union coaching staff. Calm and composed under threat, Valdes played a strong positional game and came to the rescue on many occasions, treating fans to an unexpected plethora of foot speed.

Despite being relieved of his captaining duties, Danny Califf still looked an assured leader. While he will make the headlines for scoring the match-winning goal, his defensive qualities shone through as he tracked Jason Garey and Will Bruin, stepping up on multiple occasions to block shots and stifle attacking play.

What on earth happened to our midfield?

When Europe’s major international clubs deploy two holding midfielders, they do so to support a creative central midfielder and, usually, two speedy wingers.  Saturday’s edition of the Union saw Brian Carroll and Stefani Miglioranzi holding deep, with Justin Mapp on the left, and Kyle Nakazawa on the right.

Maybe.

It is hard to say because A) the Union could not get or keep the ball at any point of this match, and B) no one stayed in a particular position long enough to follow them. While you could call this “formation” amoeboid at best, on the pitch it was an absolute shambles. Migs and Carroll spent the entire evening less than ten yards in front of the defense, dropping WAY too far off of Houston’s playmakers and allowing the game to be dictated to them.

Once Philadelphia finally won the ball, the chemistry and understanding were so utterly poor that no more than two passes could be completed in a row.

Preparation

The Union were not prepared to start the season. Chemistry is one thing, but heavy touches and poor positioning take it to another level. If you asked Brian Carroll what his role was when the Union gained possession and he answered anything other than, “Run forward a bit, assume the worst and return to a defensive posture,” he would be lying to you.

Houston did not exert excessive pressure on the Union’s midfield, but watching the match you cannot rule out the possibility that a team of annoying ghosts was harassing the Philly players into rash and visionless decisions. The width was supposed to come from Mapp and Williams. Houston’s push up the Union’s right kept Williams’ pinned back, and as a result the ball never made it out to the right wing. The few times the ball did cross the field, it landed on the foot of Ruiz, who seemed wholly unaware that the guys wearing similar shirts were of the friendly, pass-receiving variety.

There was no comfort level with the ball from any Union player until Mwanga entered the fray. Rarely has a team with a lead acted so convincingly like they were behind by three. Only Mapp seemed to want the ball at his feet, and he just seemed to think that dribbling away possession was a more efficient route than passing it away.

The Union’s shortcomings can be seen clearest by the dearth of late game opportunities. With strikers as fast and talented as Mwanga and Le Toux, it only takes one smart pass to get them off to the races against a team pushing forward for a goal. Only one ball in the final thirty minutes fits this bill, and it forced an amazing scrambled clearance from Houston.

We criticize because we care

The real reason these issues are so acute is that they are the same issues from last season.

Fixing the mental mistakes is a big step forward. The mental fatigue that so often plagued the Union late in games last year was absent on Saturday, and that was the difference between a 1-0 away win and a tie.

Well, that and Oduro’s atrocious finishing.

But there was no evidence last night that Philadelphia is any different from the team that rode Le Toux’s otherworldly form to as many points as the Frenchman could earn. Grinding it out with your center midfielders so offensively uninvolved that they might as well be on a foosball pole will only get you so far in a deep Eastern Conference.

Maybe this is only Nowak’s plan for away matches. Maybe this was just like The Big Fat Secret Greek Preseason, a strange idea designed to disguise the team’s true talents from future opposition. Maybe Mondragon is such a calming, charismatic leader that the team didn’t want to get too far away from him by venturing upfield. No matter the reason for the tactics employed in game one: The Union have a lot of growing to do before they can stake a claim as a playoff contender.