Photo: Paul Rudderow
The Union’s 6-1 win over Orlando on Sunday was the biggest win in team history, coming before a crowd that was reported by the club to be a sellout. Other new records include most Union goals scored in a half (4) and in a game (6).
Reports from:
- The Inquirer,
- Delaware County Times,
- The Orlando Sentinel,
- Brotherly Game,
- and, of course, PSP.
C.J. Sapong broke the Union’s single-season scoring record. He finished with 16 on the year, tied for eighth in the league.
Player ratings for Orlando’s players. It’s not pretty.
Orlando goalkeeper Joe Bendik missed the game due to a concussion. He was missed. The Union put seven shots on goal and scored six of them against an Orlando squad playing without several other starters, including Cyle Larin and a couple of back line regulars.
Brotherly Game didn’t wait for the season to end to look ahead to the offseason.
Some season-ending notes for the Union:
- The Union finished the regular season as the only MLS club to miss the playoffs but still record a positive goal differential (+3). Meanwhile, San Jose somehow made the playoffs with a -21 goal differential, and Vancouver placed third in the West with a +1 goal differential.
- The Union finished 19th in the league in average attendance, averaging 16,812 fans per game.
- That’s the lowest attendance figure ever for the Union, a drop from last year’s 17,519 and about 1,000 less than the team’s all-time per-game average. The only teams behind them this year were longtime attendance problems Columbus, Dallas and Chicago.
MLS
The playoff field is set.
A bunch of news from the Toronto-Atlanta game:
- Toronto broke the all-time MLS record for most points in a season with 69.
- Atlanta United broke two more MLS attendance records:
- Single game attendance record: 71,824 at Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Toronto;
- Average attendance for season: 48,200 (surpassing Seattle’s 2015 showing and even the New York Cosmos’ 1978 average of 48,000 in the old NASL)
- Atlanta fans also booed USMNT players Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore whenever they touched the ball in Atlanta’s 2-2 draw with Toronto on Sunday.
- Sebastian Giovinco apparently pounded a beer during the game. (Well, maybe he just sipped it.)
Other playoff news:
- Marco Urena’s stoppage time game-winning goal sent San Jose to the playoffs despite their awful goal differential.
- Meanwhile Dallas missed out despite an overall winning record and a season-ending 5-1 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy, and they could see big changes next year.
The Galaxy are in for a housecleaning too after their disastrous, last place finish.
Bastian Schweinsteiger may not return to Chicago.
A bunch of news on the Columbus Crew:
- Supporters groups around MLS continue to rally behind Columbus Crew fans, calling for the team to remain in Columbus.
- For those not at the Union’s game this weekend, fans chanted “Save the Crew,” and there was a small TiFo in the River End backing this as well.
- Austin is a big gamble for MLS, according to this sharp analysis from FourFourTwo. Considering all the cities that have shown they will support a minor league club — Cincinnati, Sacramento, even San Antonio — it’s certainly an interesting choice for relocation.
- Also, apparently some smart guy predicted the Columbus-to-Austin move months ago.
Local
Game recaps on Bethlehem’s 4-0 playoff loss on Friday, from:
- the Louisville Courier-Journal,
- The Inquirer,
- and PSP.
Harrisburg City Islanders head coach Bill Becher was inducted into the St. Louis Soccer Hall of Fame. He’s in good company.
USL president Jake Edwards talked with the Inquirer about Bethlehem Steel, the future of USL, pro/rel, and more. Good interview.
In the Philly Unity Cup, Sierra Leone knocked off defending champs Ivory Coast to advance in the quarterfinals. They’ll face Jamaica in the semifinals, while the other side of the bracket will see Puerto Rico and Liberia face off.
Around the globe
Three Spain internationals are refusing to play to the team after the controversial firing of a Spain football executive.
Barcelona will reportedly remain in La Liga even if Catalonia secedes from Spain.
More Neymar-Cavani drama for Paris St. Germain.
Huddersfield is thriving under their American coach, David Wagner. (If he’s a U.S. citizen who played for the U.S. national team, then yes, he’s American.)
Highlight of the day
C.J. Sapong’s record-breaking goal.
The record breaker from @BigAfrika88#DOOP https://t.co/srUieNbJaY
— Philadelphia Union (@PhilaUnion) October 22, 2017
Biggest question for me seems to be if they keep Ilsinho next season. I still think they need to spend on a winger. Don’t think Epps is there yet but is a solid backup. Maybe spend some cash on a defender as well. Moneyball isn’t working so far and it doesn’t look like any of the youngsters will be flipped for money which Earnie was good at doing in the past.
No to Ilsinho.
No to everyone we need to ask that question about.
Nothing about htis godforsaken disaster is worth keeping. I DO NOT ant to kick the tires with another year of these not-good-enough players.
Please, clear the payroll and try again please.
We will be getting Herbers back next year. And he may be the meat and potatoes Winger that the Union could use. Ideally in a perfect, less salary constricted world we could have an Ilshino type player on the bench fighting for minutes but we don’t so I wouldn’t take him unless he took a pay cut. But a player of Ilshino skill and pedigree could probably go any number of places in the world and make more or less the same amount of money.
Beyond the back line/keeper, this team should bring back:
(i) Haris
(ii) Bedoya
(iii) CJ
(iv) backups Fafa, DJ, Fontana, and maybe Creavalle.
Time to move on from everyone else.
At the back, we obviously should bring back Marquez, Elliott, and (if we don’t sell him) Blake. Beyond that it is a question of price/roster construction. I can see a case for KR, Gaddis, Wjinaldum, Gooch, Yaro, etc.
There’s a very small list of players that I would actually care if they got rid of this offseason. Obviously a lot of players will return and I’m fine almost any of them staying (depending on the role) but I couldn’t really care which players they are.
If you look at where the rest of the Eastern Conference is right now, you have three super teams willing to spend big to be at the top — Atlanta, Tornto and NYCFC. Chicago is right behind those clubs now. So the Union are already targeting a 5th place finish if the sum of their ambition is spending $1 million on a #10. If Curtin is staying, I think they need to push that spending plan even further to $4 million if they want to even compete for a play-in game at the playoffs. A much better coach will be able to get points with less, but I will be really surprised if the team cuts ties with Curtin. To be honest, I don’t expect the Union tomeet the demands this league is going to put on it to be competitive next season.
Curtin isn’t going anywhere and I doubt Sugarman is going to spend from his money. Yeah, they’ll clear cap room and spend the MLS funny money, but I wouldn’t expect much of anything else.
The MLS more than most sports depends on the perception that in caters to its hardcore fanbase. (probably because it needs them more than the NFL whose casual fan base can sustain it seemingly indefinitely)
So I am eager to see how they manufacture support in the city of Austin beyond a website. It will probably be cheap, tone deaf and obviously corrupt.
So probably hilarious.
These are the things I look forward to now.
San Antonio, packed with the one type of American who loves soccer more than any other — Mexican-Americans — is only an hour away. I’d be very surprised if they couldn’t build a nice fanbase between the Latino community, tech nerds, University professors/students, and the remainder of the general Austin populace.
Has any other MLS team ever done that.
I think Chivas had some initial success but we all saw how that turned out.
And Everton sack Koeman….
Didn’t see it reported anywhere but yesterday’s attendance across the league was 311,136 for all eleven games, an average of 28,285. I’m guessing that has to be single game day record. Seems like such a long time ago that the Union had visions of sharing the stadium with Villanova football and expanding the stadium to 30,000.
Saw it reported here and there via Twitter yesterday. Season also ended with highest avg. across the league for the season.
Crazy that the once powerful western conference’s #1 seed would barely squeak into the playoffs in the East this year.