photo: Earl Gardner
Alejandro Bedoya and Cory Burke both scored on through balls from Borek Dockal and Fafa Picault added a stoppage time penalty kick as the Union ran out 3-1 winners over 10 man Houston. The match was Philadelphia’s second consecutive road victory after defeating Chicago two weeks ago.
The turning point in the match came in the 59th minute when Tomas Martinez was harshly sent off for appearing to stomp on the foot of Auston Trusty. With the Union up a man, they were able to find the winner through Burke before Picault added gloss to the scoreline late.
Houston continued to be dangerous even after going down a man and a few top notch saves from Andre Blake kept the score level and then preserved the lead after Burke’s goal.
Player ratings
Andre Blake – 7
Hard to blame him much on the Houston goal. Made a number of strong saves to preserve the Union lead in the second half.
Keegan Rosenberry – 7
Decent night for Rosenberry. His passing seemed a bit off but came through with six interceptions and five recoveries on the night.
Mark McKenzie – 6
Trusty and McKenzie are probably both 7s without the mixup on the Houston goal. McKenzie steps first, Trusty doesn’t stay home, and boom, Houston is in and it’s 1-0. McKenzie did ever so well to break up Houston attacking 2 v 1 on the break late in the first half.
Auston Trusty – 6
See above. Outside the mistake, another solid performance from the rookie center back. His passing didn’t look as sharp as in past matches, but another strong defensive outing in the middle of the defense.
Ray Gaddis – 6
Average night for the left back. After getting beat once pretty badly in the first half by Alberth Elis, he was solid with his one on one defending. Not too many forays forward, but did well a few times to break up field and advance play.
Haris Medunjanin – 6
Better night passing from the Bosnian but still a few poor giveaways in the wrong areas of the field. Nice cut back pass to Dockal in the build to Bedoya’s goal. Two key passes on the evening. Looked tired in the Texas heat, and could have been sacrificed for Creavalle after the Union had claimed the lead.
Alejandro Bedoya – 8
Lovely dink to score the equalizer. Another strong effort from the Union captain where he covered a ton of ground with tireless running and linked play well.
Borek Dockal – 8
Great pass in behind for Bedoya to score. Great pass in behind for Burke to score. Two assists on the evening give him nine on the season. Don’t discount that recovery run to throw off the Houston counterattack early in the second half either.
Fafa Picault – 7
Well taken penalty. Confident and unstoppable. More of the what we’ve seen the last few weeks from the winger: strong running, a mixed bag of crosses, one big final third mistake where he should have passed to Burke, but also a moment of quality to stroke home the penalty to secure the points.
David Accam – 2
Completed just nine passes and had no successful dribbles. That goal in Chicago doesn’t seem to be the moment his season turned around, just a blip in an otherwise dismal year.
Cory Burke – 6
Continues to score goals. An otherwise forgettable evening for the striker had him finish 8/10 passing with only 18 touches, but his final touch was his most important, tapping in the game winning goal.
Substitutes
C.J. Sapong – 6
A bit better from Sapong coming in to play on the wing for 10 minutes before switching up top with Burke’s departure. Drew two fouls and completed all of his 10 passes.
Fabian Herbers – 7
Looked lively, got beat up a bit, wasted some time, made a great run with the ball and won a penalty. Good 20 minutes from a man we haven’t seen much of recently.
Warren Creavalle – n/a
Entered late to sure things up in the midfield.
Geiger Counter:
Joseph Dickeron – 4
You can argue it, and I can probably see your point, but that’s not a red card for me for Martinez. It’s an ugly foul that can be very dangerous, but I’m not sure there’s intent to do it and I think he’s anticipating the ball getting to him. Penalty is the right call for me for a lazy, late game tackle. Allowed too much both ways, including allowing players to surround him and argue (Houston particularly) as well as allowing too much time wasting from both sides.
Player of the Game – Borek Dockal
Two assists on the evening with two really well-weighted passes. The Union play-maker now has nine on the season, tied with Sebastian Giovinco for 4th in the league.
The counterargument on the red is that intent doesn’t really matter. My comparison is the one that Derrick Jones got last year against NJPC. That one didn’t have intent either, but both were somewhat reckless. So, if one is a red, the other should be too.
.
Ratings on the whole were reasonable, especially showing Accam playing in a different game than the rest of the team.
That’s funny…it sounds like you expect MLS officiating to be consistent.
I always like to think the ref might have more information than us. He might have heard something, or seen this as an escalating series of problems. I am probably wrong, but it makes me feel better about it.
I wondered if he heard something, or saw something chippy earlier.
I was trying to remember if Accam had a composed or purposeful touch in this match, and you confirmed for me that the answer was no. I’m not sure what’s left for him to do to get his mojo back…
Leave the Union.
At $1.25 million, Accam is just stealing money at this point. Edging into Jay Simpson territory.
Edging into? Or more than twice as far ahead both monetarily and chronologically, so how you weight the two together I have no idea.
Too high on Gaddis (just stood around on o with no movement at all even when we were up a man), Medunjanin (1 really good pass to set up the Bedoya goal does not do enough to counteract is multiple had giveaway and complete lack of defensive anything), and Piccult (really needs to start scoring or assisting because just getting into dangerous spots isn’t enough).
Was Blake’s distribution a bit off? I missed the first half, but it didn’t seam great at times.