Photo credit: Paul Rudderow
Philadelphia Union
The Union did it on a rainy night in Ohio.
Local, Cincinnati, and national coverage.
Union products continue to impress with their respective US Youth National Teams, building on the team’s commitment to making National Team-calibur players.
Bethlehem Steel FC managed to come back from an early goal, and Carlos Miguel Coronel saved a PK, but a Pittsburgh goal in the sixtieth minute allowed the Riverhounds to head home with a point. Coverage from Pittsburgh.
Union eSports competitor Cormac “doolsta” Dooley won eMLS Cup this weekend, beating the Galaxy’s Giuseppe “GGGodfather” Guastella.
Both doolsta and GGGodfather, as winners of the Eastern and Western conference respectively, will be representing the USA at the FIFA eNations Cup in London later this month.
MLS
Spanish midfielder Alejandro Pozuelo debuted for Toronto FC and helped the Canadians beat NYCFC 4-0.
The Chicago Fire beat the New York Red Bulls, but only due to a Tim Parker own goal.
A Darwin Quintero PK wasn’t enough as the Revs beat the Loons 2-1.
SKC earned the most brutal scoreline of the weekend, annihilating the Montreal defense to score seven goals.
LAFC tried to match that vicious display, but “only” scored five against San Jose. They’ll have to console themselves with the fact that they kept a clean sheet while doing it.
Atlanta United’s woes continued as they almost drowned and then lost to the Crew.
Don’t let the scoreline fool you. Houston didn’t defeat the Rapids, with two own goals the Rapids did it all themselves.
RSL and FCD both wanted to continue the goal-happy trend of the weekend that they forgot to play defense.
It’d been almost a year since DC United got a road win, but they found one in Orlando.
Sloppy play cost the Timbers the game as the only goals Zlatan could score for the Galaxy were two penalties.
US Soccer
The goal frenzy continued overseas as eight Americans scored abroad this weekend.
Aron Johannsson returned to the bench for Werder Bremen, sitting next to Josh Sargent as the green and whites beat Mainz.
More bad news if you’re a youth club looking for solidarity payments.
World
Harry Kane on the abuse his teammates received in Montenegro.
Sergio Agüero now has as many goals at Man City as Thierry Henry had at Arsenal. And he did it in a lot fewer games.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, if at all.
Some interesting observations on the Opta network map shown by Doyle (https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/03/31/armchair-analyst-all-24-mls-teams-review-week-5-analysis) show that the Union might be figuring their roles and spacing out in this new formation.
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1) There is width: It shows Aaronson and Bedoya are getting wide to provide passing options going forward and help the fullbacks defensively.
2) The ENTIRE left side is playing slightly higher: It doesn’t take any stats to see that Wagner likes to get forward more than Gaddis, but the network maps shows that as a team, they are maintaining spacing – Trusty and Aaronson are higher than their right-sided counterparts as well.
3) Staying connected: The width of the lines (# of passes between those players) shows high connections between some players you would want to see: Bedoya-Fabian, Haris-Fabian, Elliot/Trusty-Haris.
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Other observations for discussion based on comments from the game page:
1) Fafa was important this game. Looking at the network map, you can see he was much more connected to the midfield than Accam. According to WhoScored, Accam had the fewest touches of any Union starter (including Blake) with 25 compared to Fafa’s 45. So while Accam gets the (deserved) credit this game, Fafa was a bigger factor in the Union’s build up play as well as putting in a ton of hard work pressing.
2) Gaddis played well. Again according to WhoScored, he had more passes than Wagner (54 to 49) and had a better pass accuracy (81.5% to 75.5%) likely because Gaddis plays more conservative. Looking at the network map, you can see that Gaddis combined a lot with Bedoya and Elliot. So while he might not be as aggressive getting forward himself compared to Wagner, he played well, just in his own way – which is to play simple and combine with his teammates on the right.
3) Trusty passed well. Much as been said about Elliot’s refined passing game and how Trusty “just lumps it forward”. This game, according to WhoScored, the pair lead the team in passes. Trusty made 72 passes, Elliot made 83 and both completed 81.9%. Interestingly, both also completed a similar amount of long passes at similar accuracy – Trusty was 12 for 20 (60%) and Elliot was 10 for 18 (55.5%).
Good stuff, CPfeif.
Stealing my whole darn match analysis for tomorrow…….
Union have managed a decent start through its first 5 games. Only one team that has also played 5 matches (Columbus) has more points. Take 3 more against Dallas at home and it’s a pretty good start to the season.
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That’s a great factoid on Patrick van Aanholt. I have a lot of affection for Palace and watch them every chance I get. I’ll be rooting for them to put further damage to the campaigns of Spurs and City in the next couple weeks.