CHESTER, Pa. — The Philadelphia Union were one of the league’s best teams through the first three months of the season by winning games at home and being stingy on defense.
At the moment, they’re struggling on both fronts.
After allowing just 16 goals over their first 14 games of the season, the Union have now given up 19 over their last eight following Sunday’s 2-1 loss to Real Salt Lake at Talen Energy Stadium.
“Part of it is that Real Salt Lake’s a good team and created some problems for us,” Union head coach Jim Curtin said. “But we have played in probably too many end-to-end games now. We’re built to be a team that is organized — our lines are tight from the back four to the midfield to the front line, and everyone has to be on the same page. If we start playing individual and trying things on our own defensively, it doesn’t go well. We need to go back to not giving up goals.”
The Union are still 7-2-3 at home but have only won once in their building in their last four outings, a stretch that includes their only two home losses.
Also in the past month, the Union suffered their worst loss of the season — a 5-1 road loss against the Montreal Impact last week — and were knocked out of the US Open Cup in part to a defensive breakdown on a New England Revolution free kick.
And they’ve now given up two goals or more six times in their last eight games — all since box-to-box midfielder Vincent Nogueira’s sudden departure.
What’s happened exactly?
“We can’t really put a finger on it right now,” center back Ken Tribbett said. “If we could, we’d obviously go back to keeping clean sheets and limiting their chances. It’s a team effort. It starts from our attack to our defenders. We just have to put in the work and maybe get a few bounces.”
Tribbett said the team’s backline “wasn’t too bad” on Sunday, making sure to credit RSL for scoring “two very good goals.” It’s a sentiment Curtin and many of the players agreed with — but that didn’t make another loss any easier to swallow.
And it did increase the urgency to get back on track when they hit the road Saturday to take on D.C. United, the only team they’ve beaten over the past month.
“Every season, you’re going to run into a roller coaster of emotions,” said Union winger Chris Pontius, a former D.C. United player. “You try to let the highs get too high or the lows get too low. We’ve lost a few games now. We’re in a bit of a hole, so now we have to go down to D.C. to get a result. No one is panicking in that locker room, at all.”
