Photo Courtesy of Philadelphia Union
New England Revolution hosted the Philadelphia Union on rainy Saturday night at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA hoping to capture a victory what was the first in a stretch where six of their next eight matches would be at home. However, that was not to be as the Union got a well-deserved victory as Philadelphia defeated the Revolution 3 to 0.
The match would feature an early red card; two goals from the amazing Dániel Gazdag; no goals conceded by the Philadelphia Union defense; and, most importantly, a win!!!
Jim Curtin made two changes from the Starting XI who lost to NYCFC 2 to 1 on Wednesday night. Seasoned veterans Alejandro Bedoya and José Martínez started in the midfield replacing Jack McGlynn and Quinn Sullivan. Bedoya started on the right side of the midfield. Leon Flach moved from defensive midfield position where he started on Wednesday night out to the left side of the Union midfield diamond. Martínez started at his traditional Number Six role anchoring the Union midfield in front of the Union defense.
The first big moment of the match came in the 14th minute when New England quickly found themselves down to ten men as Ryan Spaulding was shown a Red Card for a foul committed against Mikkel Uhre. Uhre had a step on Spaulding as he broke towards the New England net. Spaulding pulled Uhre to the turf just inside the Union attacking half and was rightly shown a Red Card by Referee Filip Dujic. VAR quickly confirmed the call on the field.
The Union were forced to make an early substitution in the match’s 28th minute. José Martínez suffered an injury when he was fouled. He was replaced by Jack McGlynn. After the match Union coach Jim Curtin stated that the injury to Martinez was a pectoral injury which caused the Union technical staff enough concern to remove him from the match.
Philadelphia opened the scoring in the 38th minute on a goal by Julián Carranza. The Union intercepted a punt from New England goalkeeper Aljaz Ivacic. The ball was moved up the left wing to Jack McGlynn who crossed a dangerous ball into the New England penalty area. Julián Carranza shed his mark and headed the ball into the turf and beyond the reach of Ivacic.
The first half, which Jim Curtin was not impressed with, ended with Philadelphia having the statistical advantage in shots (8 to 4), shots on goal (5 to 3), and possession (61% to 39%).
New England Revolution came out firing in the second half as Giacomo Vrioni missed an attempt in the opening minute of the second half. However, Philadelphia would be first on the scoresheet and go up 2 to 0. Dániel Gazdag scored a goal in the match’s 47th minute. A cross into the New England penalty-area found a streaking Mikkel Uhre. Uhre was able to connect with the pass, but his header rattled the upright. The deflection went directly to Gazdag who maintained his composure, settled the ball, and then shot it from about six yards out into the New England net.
Dániel Gazdag wasn’t finished scoring on the evening. He would add his second of the night in the match’s 80th minute. Quinn Sullivan got things started with a hard shot that was saved by a diving Aljaz Ivacic. The rebound came to Gazdag at the top of the six-yard box. Again, the Hungarian kept his composure, took a touch, and slotted a left footed shot into the left corner of the net.
Semmle would make a huge save off the foot of Xavier Arreaga in the dying moments of the game to preserve the clean sheet.
The Union ended the match with a more dominant second half. Overall, they finished the match leading in possession (59% to 41%), shots (20 to 8), and shots on goal (9 to 3).
Three Points
- Finally!!! – The Philadelphia Union picked up their first victory in over a month. Their last win also came on the road as they defeated Nashville 2 to 1 on April 6th.
- Undefeated Away from the Soob!!! –The Union are undefeated away from Subaru Park. They improved their road record tonight to 3-4-0. They will look to build on this away win with another road challenge. This time against Charlotte FC on Saturday, May 25th.
- Clean Sheet!!! – The first clean sheet since March 30th when the Union defeated Minnesota United 2 to 0. This is the second shutout for the Union this season.
Lineups
New England Revolution
Aljaz Ivacic, Henry Kessler, Xavier Arreaga, Ryan Spaulding, Nick Lima (Andrew Farrell – 83’), Carles Gil, Mark-Anthony Kaye (Ian Harkes – 63’), Matt Polster (Noel Buck – 83’), Giacomo Vrioni, Dylan Borrero (DeJuan Jones –50’), Esmir Bajraktarevic (Emmanuel Boateng – 63’)
Unused subs: Bobby Wood, Dave Romney, Henrich Ravas, Jonathan Mensah
Philadelphia Union
Oliver Semmle, Jack Elliott, Jakob Glesnes, Kai Wagner, Nathan Harriel (Olivier Mbaizo – 67’), José Martínez (Jack McGlynn –- 28’), Dániel Gazdag (Jeremy Rafanello – 89’), Leon Flach, Alejandro Bedoya, Julián Carranza (Thai Baribo – 89’), Mikkel Uhre (Quinn Sullivan – 67’)
Unused subs: Olwethu Makhanya, Jesús Bueno, Andrew Rick, Chris Donovan
Scoring Summary
PHI: Julián Carranza — 38’
PHI: Dániel Gazdag — 47′
PHI: Dániel Gazdag — 80′
Discipline Summary
NE Ryan Spaulding — Red card (14′ — foul)
NE: Henry Kessler — Yellow card (17′ — foul)
PHI: Nathan Harriel — Yellow card (30′ — foul)
NE: Giacomo Vrioni – Yellow card (66’ – foul)
NE: Xavier Arreaga – Yellow card (85’ – foul)
The result speaks for itself. We even mercilessly capitalized on the extra man advantage for once. Hopefully this turns the page on team performance.
True dat!
We needed this one.
Great report!
McGlynn! He is like a slower version of Justin Mapp who actually can pass beautifully! Fantastic player.
Doop!
Credit to Curtin that once the Union were up by 2, McGlynn started taking the free kicks and corner kicks so Wagner could stay back to prevent counterattacks rather than the other way around.
Hope Martinez is ok, but the injury and sub of McGlynn changed the match. Union had done nothing with the man advantage until then because there were no attacking players in midfield. Leon Flach doesn’t drive forward and make that pass to Carranza.
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If a match up 2-0 and a man at the end of 3 matches in 8 days on turf against a bad team isn’t the correct time to give your third and/or fourth strikers on the depth chart a 20′ run, when is? Sullivan should have been for Bedoya, not Uhre at 70′ you give Baribo or Donovan a chance to build some confidence.
I’m going to disagree with your sub strategy somewhat. I do agree that I was expecting Sullivan for Bedoya, but I don’t think you want to use all of your subs at that point. A window had already been burned with the Martinez injury and given the weather conditions, I’d want to leave my other windows for as long as possible in case of injury. Let’s say you bring in Baribo and Rafanolo around 70 minutes and Glesnes or Elliott (or Semmle) slip on the turf and injure themselves and there are no subs left? Now you’ve given up your man advantage and are short a defender. If they were playing midweek coming up, that might change, but given that they don’t play until next Saturday, I prefer the safety line.
Curtin did use that window at 70′ though, and subbed off a striker as one of the two he made. Make the like for like at RB, Sullivan for Bedoya, and Baribo or Donvan for Uhre. You still have a sub and window available for emergency you describe, which is a valid point.
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Sullivan for Uhre shows he is the 3rd striker on the depth chart, meaning Bedoya will play way too many minutes, Sullivan will play out of position and the team is finished if/when Carranza is sold in the summer.
I really noticed the impact of the McGlynn entry too. With NE at 10 men it worked out well, but he sure doesn’t have the positional discipline and recovery speed of Flach. McGlynn and Sullivan are fun to watch going forward but there is probably a connection between the number of minutes they’ve played and the goals conceded this year. Especially when compounded by the flat play from Glesnes and Elliot so far this year.
I am with you on the subs. Would have liked to see Baribo get more than 2 minutes. And we need to get game minutes for Bueno. We will need our bench during the season, I’d like to see more minutes spread around the bench. Rotation and Load management are important for soccer too. We played it safe to secure the 3 points, which is what really matter. Oh, well.
Well we know they can beat the worst in the division now. That’s a start. A good win, maybe the start of the uphill climb. Hoping for more goodness…
just watched the highlights from Union website. outstanding goals. That last great save by semmle was unnecessary as the dude was offside on the header to him. Even if it went in it wouldn’t have counted (if the refs did their job).
a bit late to comments. I was balancing a 74 year olds desire to watch his .700 baseball team with my desire to watch Union both streamed off of my phone. Sometimes you gotta acquiesce.
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Jack and Julian sitting in a tree….
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Lovely link up. Lovely pounding of a poor team down to 10 men. Got healthy Saturday. Let see if we can build.
Shouldn’t that be Daniel and Julian sitting in a tree given the record they set Saturday? (Most games where both of a pair of teammates score – 16.)
But will the two flamingoes break that record this season?
16 – McGlynn’s number
With a game in hand on all but CLB, we’re 6 points out of 3rd place.
It’s been a bad stretch. This doesn’t feel like the team we have watched for 2 years. But things change quickly in this league. Don’t be surprised to see a couple of wins, and the Union sitting in the top 4 by the end of June.
Yes, the Miami and CIN games will be tough. But 2 against Montreal and a home game against Charlotte could be helpful.
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This is clearly a rose-colored-glasses perspective on the state of the club, but coming into summer, I’m going to tell myself they are just warming up now. (Let me have this!)
You’re spot on. They have given points away for a month or so – which is the same story fans have had to endure for years. What happens when the weather warms up? They climb the table, little by little, until they’re close to the top. Rinse and repeat.
It’s also an interesting juxtaposition that along with their worst ever home stand they’ve yet to lose on the road.