The Butterfly Effect: one of the foundational concepts of chaos theory. It suggests that small changes in a complex system can have wild and unpredictable outcomes over time. 

On Saturday, the Union found out that even over short periods, the Butterfly Effect is profound. 

One game, many stories

The Union’s 7-0 drubbing at the hands of Vancouver on Saturday was the team’s worst loss in history. Analysis notwithstanding, the current of culpability blows through the stories of several players. 

The most obvious is Alejandro Bedoya.

The team’s captain, emotional leader, and talisman was given the thankless assignment of marking a player twice his speed and half his age – all while playing out of position on a speedy turf field. Time and again Vancouver exploited Bedoya and time and again he could do nothing about it. Bedoya’s name will be etched next to Sebastian Le Toux’s in the Ring of Honor soon as he is unequivocally a club legend. However, if his playing career ends at the last kick of this season, the evidence for closing that book will come directly from this match.

One bad night – even though the only spark was his savvy attacking movement – and a whole season gets laid bare.

As far as exits go, Olivier Mbaizo isn’t far behind his longtime teammate.

Though Mbaizo has been stateside for the better part of a decade (and the story of his club prior to the Union is its own impossibility) his game often feels as incomplete as it was the day he arrived. With a cup semifinal awaiting the Boys just a few days afterward Saturday’s abomination, Mbaizo was an unused substitute, left as the team’s 4th choice right back on the bench in favor of an out of position and overmatched teammate.

Sometimes the wind howls. Sometimes the silence is the deafening thing. 

Jesus Bueno’s time seems to be all but up in Chester.

When he arrived, a countryman-turned-teammate of then-burgeoning club legend Jose Martinez, expectations might have been that he’d take El Brujo’s place in formation and, inevitably, lore. Instead, he’s been mired in the second or third tier of players in Chester since Day 1. Worse, he seems to shrink when the games demand his best – just this year he cost his team points in Houston in a close match (a handball penalty is the obvious focus, but just as meaningful was his stealing of the ball off the head of Tai Baribo as time wore down and the Union grew into things) and was abysmal in Vancouver. His conceded penalty was foolish, but he routinely lost possession with extra touches and made all-or-nothing challenges miles from his goal, at least one of which turned directly into a Vancouver counter and tally. 

The wind that swept him onto this team will simply keep blowing. His boat isn’t moored here and in hindsight never really was. 

Bradley Carnell is part of this story too, of course: the man at the helm, the one who set this whole ship a-sail when he replaced yet another club legend, the one who already has a breathtaking, top of the table finish to his resume as well as a backbreaking fall from grace on it too, the one ultimately responsible for the choices Saturday night.

He rightfully opted for a second-choice group for Saturday’s clash, not just because the Cup holds its own promise, but because no one wins on the road in MLS and fewer than no one wins three times zones away. That rationality still holds, but its application all but evaporated into the cool, Canadian air shortly after kickoff. The Union looked not only destined to lose, but also looked out of sorts, overmatched, and without a thought going forward or in protecting their goal.

In a season like they’ve had, what will such a gale force make of a blowout like this one? Will they suffer again Tuesday night, but in a bad way? Or will they turn the corner again, using the setback as its one fuel?

In his defense, Carnell didn’t quite have his first choice second group on Saturday – events were set in motion before he could intervene.

The choices we make

Enter: Olwethu Makhanya. 

With sparks flying in Cincinnati two weeks ago, Makhanya was both ember and air current. Warm from the stakes of the match and further stoked by the moment, a gust – in the form of a rush of blood to the head – found Makhanya seeing red, his second hot-headed early exit of the season. And yet, when the storm was over the breeze that day blew in the Union’s favor; they fought fire with fire and came out forged atop the table.

On Saturday, that unattended flame forced an otherwise soaring coach’s hand. The result: players out of position, backups to the backups seeing meaningful moments, and a miserable match for the history books. 

One decision was the flapping of a butterfly’s wings. What followed blew a hole in the team’s otherwise pristine season.

The Union remain atop the table, are playing tonight for a cup semifinal, and have every knot of their wind-worn destiny in their hands. When summer breeze gives way to falling leaves, how will the story of this team be written – and how much of that story will be because of what happened on Saturday – and two Saturdays before?