Photo courtesy of @PhilaUnion on X
PRESS RELEASE BY THE PHILADELPHIA UNION
CHESTER, Pa. (May 10, 2025) – The Philadelphia Union earned a point in its 2-2 draw against Columbus Crew SC at Subaru Park on Saturday night. In the first half, forward Tai Baribo opened the scoring in the 45th minute. In the second half, Columbus’ Max Arfsten scored the equalizer in the 61st minute. In the 64th minute, Homegrown defender Frankie Westfield scored his first career goal. Columbus’ Sean Zawadski scored the equalizer in the 93rd minute.
The Union will continue its homestand against the LA Galaxy on Wednesday, May 14 (7:30 p.m. ET/ Apple TV).
Philadelphia Union 2 – Columbus Crew SC 2
Subaru Park (Chester, PA)
Saturday, May 10, 2025
TODAY’S MATCH INFO
Referee: Malik Badawi
Assistant Referees: Jose Da Silva, Eric Weisbrod
Fourth Official: John Matto
VAR: Sorin Stoica
AVAR: Fabio Tovar
Weather: 70 degrees and clear.
GOALS/ASSISTS
PHI – Tai Baribo (Q. Sullivan, Rick) 45’
CLB – Max Arfsten (Chambost, Farsi) 61’
PHI – Frankie Westfield (Baribo, Jean Jacques) 64’
CLB – Sean Zawadzki (Rossi, Chambost) 90+3’
DISCIPLINARY SUMMARY
CLB – Yevhen Cheberko (caution) 55’
CLB – Malte Amundsen (caution) 84’
Lineups
Philadelphia Union: Andrew Rick; Kai Wagner, Nathan Harriel, Jakob Glesnes, Frankie Westfield; Quinn Sullivan (Chris Donovan 79’), Danley Jean Jacques (Jesus Bueno 78’), Jovan Lukic ( Jeremy Rafanello 89’), Indiana Vassilev; Tai Baribo (Olwethu Makhanya 69’), Bruno Damiani (Mikael Uhre 69’).
Substitutes not used: Oliver Semmle, Nick Pariano, Alejandro Bedoya, Cavan Sullivan.
Columbus Crew SC: Patrick Schulte; Yevhen Cheberko (Malte Amundsen 60’), Sean Zawadzki, Steven Moreira, Mohamed Farsi; Aziel Jackson (Jacen Russell-Rowe 60’) , Dylan Chambost, Darlington Nagbe (Lassi Lappalainen 90’), Max Arfsten (Amar Sejdic 89’); Daniel Gazdag (Ibrahim Aliyu 78’), Diego Rossi.
Substitutes not used: Nicholas Hagen, Cesar Ruvalcaba, Taha Habroune, Derrick Jones.
PSP’s Three Points
- Northeast Philly’s finest – Frankie Westfield tallied his first goal for the Union first team with a blast to put the Union ahead 2-1 in the 64th minute. Holmesburg’s Quinn Sullivan registered the primary assist on Tai Baribo’s opener, on a beautiful outside of the right boot ball into the Israeli’s feet.
- Carnell’s adjustments- The manager opted to go to three at the back by subbing in Olwethu Makhanya for Tai Baribo up 2-1 in the 69th minute. While the change added more compact defensive shape, the Union conceded a late chance on a set piece, giving away points in an area where they could have walked away with the full purse.
- Strong result – Still, Philly took the better part of Columbus – looking very much the better team for 90+ minutes. An impressive result for a team that is performing above their expected rate so far.
They did have some late chances to put the game away. Donovan squared the ball to Uhre in front of the net for what should have been a tap in but he scuffed it. A minute or so later Columbus scored off the corner. The team played well and worked hard getting the better of a top team for a majority of the game, shame to give up the late one.
Carnell blew this one, treating it like a run of the mill match against DC Utd. In what universe are rafanello and bueno better than danley and lukic? You are playing the best team in the conference, don’t sub for the sake of subbing. Stupid! The team played well enough to steal a victory, but carnell pissed it away. 2 points here, 2 points there, are usually the difference between a key home playoff or a road playoff. The next match is home mid-week against a truly horrible LA team. THAT’S the time to rotate and sub, not tonight. Not good enough bradley.
I agree. He over thought that decision and made the wrong call. I cannot see the attraction to Donovan, he brings nothing to the scoring table…
With a 2-1 lead you don’t need someone to bring something to the scoring table as much as you need someone to help shut the other team down. A fresh Donovan can do that by pressuring the other team’s defenders when they are trying to setup their offense better than a tired Sullivan can.
Well since they tied Andy, I submit they did need another goal and Donovan is not the answer
Well Andy, it seems they did need another goal since they tied.
No, they needed to not give up the second goal, much more likely than scoring the third themselves. Plus, as pointed out below, Donovan did fine at delivery the assist that Uhre couldn’t finish.
He brought a pass to Uhre that should have at least tested the goalie.
Spot on….taking out both holding mids while protecting a one goal lead against one of the best teams in MLS makes zero sense. Unless their were injury issues, there is no way you make those moves.
In the short-term view, a la Philly legend Larry Bona of the Phillies, you are absolutely right.
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In a longer term developmental view, how do you teach Rafanello and Bueno to handle end=of=game pressure against the elite? By playing them in those situations.
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It is most unfortunate that Zawadcky got away. The defender who was trailing him as he scored was Kai Wagner. Since I do not fully understand the combination of zone and man principles that the union use to defend corners, particularly in the area of the back post, I am not willing to say it was Wagner’s fault. If defending the back post uses man-for-man principles, then it may have been. But I do not know how the defense on corners is organized.
I don’t mind the subs, particularly as we are in a string of lots of games in a short amount of time. My question is with shifting the formation to a defensive block. It seemed like the union had all the momentum following the second goal, as soon as they shifted the shape They lost all momentum.
The Sullivan and Danley subs were confusing because they did not play on Wednesday. If anyone was going 90 minutes, I’d have thought it was those two.
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Man or zone, Zawadcky was the only Crew player on the back post, Wagner just got beat to the ball.
I think the subs were justifiable. The issue is the enormous run of games we have scheduled for the whole month of May, not just this week.
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What was more interesting to me is that after those subs, and the switch to a 5-3-2, the Union completely stopped pressing. They just let Columbus have the ball the whole time and were content to defend. With a team that talented, it’s always a risk.
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It is aggravating to lose out on those 2 points, but they played well, and if you replayed that game the result would likely be in our favor. Sometimes soccer be like that.
I was blaming Uhre myself on the way out. But another supporter pointed out Donovan had a 1 v. 1 with the goalkeeper and decided to pass back to Uhre who had defenders in front of him. I don’t groan when I see Uhre starting or coming into the game. I understand Donovan is a pesky pressing presence. But Carnell’s system really seems to require four threats at forward. Come on, Tanner, help us out!!!
Really blame tonight? The fans who started chanting “Go back to Ohio” with 2-3 minutes left on the clock!!! Don’t count those chickens before they hatch. Team could have cheers to increase the focus…not a victory chant before the game is out of reach.
Exactly what I was thinking when they started chanting.
Yup. Bad karma.
Definitely worrying that they have given up stoppage time goals off corner kicks in back-to-back league games. Considering how good they had been defending set pieces (probably the strongest aspect of the defense last year) we don’t want to see them slip like that.
Jack Elliott is gone.
Huh? They beat Montreal last week 2-1, and DC 3-0 the week prior….
They gave up a stoppage time goal off a corner in the first half against Montreal and a stoppage time goal off a corner in the second half against Columbus.
Listened on the radio. They sounded like they were the better team. I did see the Uhre sitter. Man just open the left hip and redirect it. Even at this level those competencies are not compulsory for some players… i had no problem with Donovan slotting that pass. It was a sitter.
+1 That was our take sitting in line with the pass.
I’ll continue to defend Uhre because of his work rate, and I believe (maybe foolishly) that the goals will start falling again. But man…that was the game. At this level, you HAVE to put that one away.
First off, great teams in Europe don’t just defensively sub. to hold a 1 goal lead. They go out and try to score 2 more. This reminded me of Curtin. Second, how about cutting Donovan some slack here? The kid isn’t a starter, or anything. He comes in games, runs his a** off defensively, was part of that awesome build up vs. Montreal last week and perfectly delivered to Uhre this week.
He’s also cheap. Why not focus your attention on the 2 HIGH priced Forwards that aren’t delivering…only one of which even has hold up play. Thank God for Baribo and Donovan!
apparently you never watched Mourinho coach. He might not have invented parking the bus with a one goal lead, but he did win the CL doing it.
For folks smarter than me: Did Carnell slightly change the pressing tactics in this game? It seemed like we had a higher back line and we were condensing things closer to the center line, with the forwards waiting to press until Columbus progressed up to mid-field or so. This seemed to keep Columbus from trying to break the press with passes over it as Nashville and other teams had done. Is that true? Or is Columbus just more of a short pass/connectivity kind of team and making those long press-breaking passes is not their cup of tea? Whatever the case, it seemed like our defense was playing more in control in this game — besides the brain farts that led to the two goals.
Yes, and good eye. They were primarily trying to make anyone but Nagbe receive the ball out of the back, essentially double-teaming him in front and being 5-10 yards higher behind him.
I definitely saw the double team on Nagbe to prevent him from receiving the first pass from the back line, like face guarding the point guard in basketball to force another player to bring the ball up and run the offense. (Father of a one time point guard here).
When Blake and Wagner start this team is undefeated …. just sayin
I’m pretty sure a healthy Rick is a better choice than Blake is when he’s not healthy enough to be on the bench.
Anyone else see that stat that Rick is now the youngest goalkeeper in MLS to record an assist? (Was happy they gave him the hockey assist for the pass to Quinn on the first goal.)
A hard-fought match with plenty of drama right to the final whistle. Great to see Tai Baribo and Homegrown talent Frankie Westfield making an impact—especially Westfield’s first career goal, which is a milestone worth celebrating. While conceding late is always tough, earning a point against a strong Columbus side shows resilience. Looking forward to seeing how the Union respond against LA Galaxy on Wednesday.
You could make a case that Westfield was at mostly at fault for the Crew first goal. Yes he was marking a man, but if he’d seen the man behind him, he could have asked Glesnes (who was just guarding an area) for help and slid back to the back post.
That said, it was great that rather than hanging his head, he doubled his effort and fixed the mistake by scoring a goal himself.
He’s young, but at least his mistakes are active efforts verses just “switching off” like Mbaizo is prone to.
My thought on the Uhre miss is that he put himself into Donovan’s place and thought “I’d shoot there” and was looking for a rebound not a pass.
He’s a DP player and should be demanding the ball. Wagner getting out muscled in the last minute as be was ball watching is the reason he’s not in Europe.
CB pairing between Glesnes and Harriel is a treat to watch! I am guessing that Harriel doesn’t want to play CB all the time, but he truly compensates for Glesnes lack of speed and his heading abilities and positioning has been incredible! It allows Glesnes to do what he does best–play tight and intercept balls. I give Carnell credit for going to a 3 back set. It was obvious watching that Columbus was overloading the back side and Westfield couldn’t cover 2-3 players. I don’t think we have given Carnell enough credit for changing formations and for using multiple players, even if they are not the ideal ones. The long play versus short term results. I have no problems with Donovan. His pass to Uhre was better than taking a shot at the goalkeeper who is in perfect position. Uhre extends the defense but does need to work on his finishing skills even when he is tired.