Photo: Paul Rudderow
Well, guess it was fun while it lasted right? A week ago, Philadelphia earned a 3-1 victory over ever-consistent FC Dallas. A pretty good all around team effort gave hope that they would follow up that performance with a similar one against Montreal. While the first half wasn’t bad, the Union faltered late and ended up on the wrong side of a 3-0 scoreline.
Player Ratings
John McCarthy — 6
The lopsided score doesn’t tell the entire story about McCarthy’s performance. He once again showed good instincts by coming to claim loose balls in the penalty box early and make a couple of big stops in both halves. He did commit the foul that lead to a Montreal penalty though and gave up another goal just before the final whistle.
Ray Gaddis — 5
Gaddis had an average game both offensively and defensively. He had the unenviable task of marking Ignacio Piatti all game, and it reflected in his performance. He made the safe simple passes as usual but could have been a bit better with his service in the attacking third.
Jack Elliott — 4
Both Joshua Yaro and Elliott had less than spectacular performances, but Elliott had the worse of the two. He had multiple bad giveaways in both halves and made some poor challenges that put him out of position. The standard he’s set for himself with previous games was certainly not met tonight.
Joshua Yaro — 5
Yaro was the better of the two center halves and had a mostly quiet but solid game. He was much more careful than Elliott with possession and used his speed to put out any potential fires at the back.
Gilano Wijnaldum — 5
The defense in general had a quiet evening, and Wijnaldum is no different. Dominic Oduro kept him busy all night. Thus he never really got involved offensively. He also missed an opportunity in the second half by hitting the post from inside the penalty box.
Haris Medunjanin — 6
Medunjanin put in a solid shift in midfield. He found himself on the ball plenty (maybe even a bit too much) and almost always picked the right pass. Another solid performance that fans should be getting accustomed to.
Alejandro Bedoya — 5
Continuing with the current theme, Bedoya had a solid but unspectacular performance. His passing was good, but he didn’t get on the ball enough, especially in the attacking third. In a game where the Union were lacking in creativity, it might have been worth taking more risks further up the field.
Chris Pontius — 4
The wide midfielder was invisible for large portions of the game. Again, with a dangerous winger to deal with, Pontius needed to be a bit more defensive. Still, he has to be more active and was one of the biggest disappointments on the night.
Ilsinho — 4
After his sparkling effort last week, Ilsinho reverted back to his old frustrating ways. He’d show his usual flashes of brilliance, only to lose possession while trying to take on two defenders at once. He’s proven himself to be an inconsistent player during his Union career. Tonight was just one of the bad nights.
Fafa Picault — 4
Picault, much like Pontius, had a very quiet night in wide midfield. He didn’t get many touches, and when he did, didn’t do much to give the Montreal defense anything to think about. His saving grace is getting one of the two shots on target the Union mustered up on the night.
C.J. Sapong — 6
Sapong also had a fairly uneventful night, mainly due to his teammates. He didn’t get much service, but he did what he could to occupy the opposition center halves and press the backline. The way the Union run their system, Sapong will have many nights like this.
Substitutes
Marcus Epps (66′ for Pontius) — 5
Epps came on for Pontius and only performed marginally better. He was inaccurate with his passing, and never really found his footing offensively.
Roland Albery (74′ Ilsinho) — 3
Alberg didn’t do much during his time on the pitch. He needed to assert himself more and try to get on the ball in the opponent’s half more, especially as an offensive minded sub. It was only a 16-minute cameo, but it’s fair to expect a bit more urgency.
Jay Simpson (84′ Elliott) — N/A
Simpson came on in an effort to provide some late game dramatics. He barely got a foot on the ball, and made little impact during his time on the pitch.
Geiger Counter
Rubiel Vazquez- 7
Not many gripes with the officiating this game. Vazquez, much like the Union players, had a fairly quiet game, which for an official is a good thing.
Player of the game
Blerim Dzemali
The midfielder tormented the Union defense all night long, capping his performance with two goals.
Editor’s note, honorable mention: Samuel Piette may be the under-the-radar signing of the year. In his first outing for Montreal, the Canadian international midfielder was fantastic at dictating the pace of the game on both sides of the ball.
Meh.
+1
I’m not say I know where to deduct, but some of these ratings seem high considering the outcome.
Across the board. Would -2 everyone, with the possible exceptions of the fullbacks, who I would -1.
Gaddis was allowed tons of space in the attacking half. Montreal simply didn’t think he was a threat and didn’t even bother to mark him.
Same thing with CJ. The book is out on this team. We are predictable and easy to defend. And Curtin is doing nothing to change that.
EDIT: Not exactly the same thing with CJ, I meant the book is also out on CJ and teams know exactly howt o play hm.
Yeah, but when the book is “tie up your two CBs and foul like crazy” that’s not horrible, provided the rest of the team plays off him. When they do, you get a result like Dallas. And when they don’t you get a situation where a change in formation is called for. Except our coach doesn’t believe that’s an option.
Sure, the problem is that “provided the rest of the team plays off him” happens SO MUCH LESS OFTEN THAN NOT HOLY GOD so at this point it’s a goddamn joke that Curtin is still trotting out the same broken system for 3 years.
Who is to blame?! The coach! He is responsible to get the most out of the players and get them to play like they did against Dallas.
These ratings are way too high considering that the Special Olympics team that played after the game last week looked better than the Union Saturday night. Time after time the Union had poor first touches that went right to Montreal or else tried to thread a needle too fine and turn the ball over with a questionable pass.
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It seemed like the Union figured that since they beat Dallas then it was their right to beat Montreal without bothering to put in the effort. The epitome of that was about 5 minutes in when Montreal took a free kick backwards and missed on the pass. CJ did a great job running the ball down but the few Union players who ran towards goal seemed to be trying to mark Montreal defenders. So CJ was stuck taking a bad angle shot rather than having an open man to pass to.
That first sentence is offensive and unnecessary.
OK. How about if I had said that a random bunch of kids would have looked better than the Union did Saturday night? I mentioned the Special Olympics team because we stayed and watched them the previous week and enjoyed cheering both teams on.
I’m not sure I can give the defense 2 4s and 2 5s (and the goalie a 6) in a game where they gave up 3 goals. While I don’t think McCarthy played poorly, I’d say all four of them should be lowered by at least one point.
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I didn’t have an issue with Curtin taking out a defender and putting on Simpson. But… A) It should’ve happened sooner; and B) Elliott was the last of the four I would have considered taking out. My preference would’ve been Gaddis coming out, and leaving Elliott as the center of the remaining trio.
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It’s absolutely maddening how this team can look so damn good against somebody like Dallas and then look so shitty against somebody like Montreal. Ugh!
Ray should definitely be lower, but I can see where the defense wasn’t as poor as the scoreline would indicate. The cross on the first goal took a perfect deflection off of Yaro and dropped right at Dzemali’s feet. After that, they went to 3 at the back and had little-to-no support from Bedoya or Medunjanin.
I’m sorry, but I’m not seeing the same game that everyone else is. I wasn’t at all impressed with either Bedoya’s or Medunjanin’s performances Saturday. All of their nice side-to-side passing reminded me of the offensive glory days of Brian Carroll and Keon Daniel. I was waiting for either one of them to step up and take control of the game. I know the players around them need to put in a better effort to get open and create space, but there were more than a few times that most or all of our front 4 were pulled to one half of the field and Medunjanin decided to switch the field where we had absolutely no one available. Also, neither of them were tracking the open midfielder on Montreal’s first goal. In fact, look any highlights where Montreal has the ball and they seem completely oblivious to the fact that the backline is outnumbered.
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And Ray needs to sit now. He’s a purely defensive fullback who is getting smoked too many times to justify his position in the starting lineup. I’m sure Rosenberry’s defensive shortcomings were protected when he was paired with Le Toux and Herbers working their asses off, but if Ray isn’t getting the job done defensively, we might as well try to get some bit of offense out of our RB spot.
Our coaching is a joke that makes our already mediocre and subpar players worse and I see no end in sight. We suck I guess you just have to deal with that huh
You did…watch the game…right?
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This rating feels like confirmation bias. I like Haris so he gets a 6, despite his loping jog back on the goal.
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Bedoya was solid despite the Impact running wild between in the space between him, Gaddis and the wing.
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CJ is a 6 in a night with one weak shot on goal.
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We see this game very differently.