Union’s elimination can come with consolation

Most of the Philadelphia Union players were scattered across the country on a weekend off or away on international duty overseas when the club’s playoff hopes officially died Saturday.

That occurred 100 miles to the north, as the New York Red Bulls topped Vancouver, 3-0, to seal the sixth and final playoff berth in MLS’s Eastern Conference with two weeks of the season left. The Red Bulls, on 46 points, are untouchably ahead of the Union and three other teams stuck on 39, which consigns the Union (10-13-9) to a sixth playoff-free season in eight years.

Consolations are few and far between in a season that, after last year’s (probably ahead-of-schedule) playoff berth, can only be read as a disappointment. The Union cannot set the franchise record for losses in a season, which was once a question. Strangely, wins in consecutive games — at playoffbound Chicago, then at home in the finale to Orlando — can tie the franchise mark for single-season victories.

Regardless of what happens, the Union for the seventh straight season will finish with between 10 and 12 wins over a 34game schedule, a mindnumbing level of mediocrity. With a win and a draw in the next two games, the Union would actually finish with their third-most productive season ever, even surpassing last year’s playoff season.

And to think that the 2017 edition, one that featured separate sixand eight-game winless streaks, could reach those “heights” is a condemnation of how low the historical standard has become.