Storms shake up Union’s schedule; game pushed back
CHESTER >> After waiting for more than an hour for bands of dangerous storms to pass through the area, the Philadelphia Union postponed its game against Orlando City Saturday night.
The game will be made up Sunday afternoon at 4:30, with the broadcast moved to PHL17. The firstplace Union’s only two dates with the Eastern Conference foe are this week within four days … now five, thanks to the weather.
“I think at the end of the day, the right decision was made and tomorrow at 4:30, we recognize that we have a big game,” manager Jim Curtin said. “We have to take all three points and preach to our guys now, it’s a little bit of a weird situation for sure, one we’ve never gone to, where we’ve literally given the pregame speech, walked out the tunnel and walked back into the room. Now it’s a reset. It’s unique, but at the same time, the guys are professional and we have to defend our home field tomorrow.”
The Union had weathered a lightning delay of 45 minutes in Wednesday night’s win in Orlando, 3-1, a game that featured two red cards to the hosts.
The teams warmed up as normal Saturday but never came out for kickoff, the first delay announced just before 7 o’clock. Orlando City manager James O’Connor made it as far as his seat on the bench but soon had to retreat with the rest of the paying customers in the seating bowl.
“Obviously just a bit disappointing for both teams and for the supporters,” O’Connor said on the team’s local TV broadcast. “We’re here and we’d like to get the game played. I think, obviously, we need to be mindful of the storm, the lightning, it’s obviously very serious.”
One big emphasis for Curtin was getting a continuous 90 minutes. They saw the flipside midweek, when several lightning delays in Colorado meant the Rapids and New England played a chopped-up game that finished around 2 a.m. Eastern. With the lines of storms rolling in, the Union would’ve likely befallen the same fate.
The timing was complicated for both. Orlando City has a home U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal date against New York City FC looming Wednesday. Playing Sunday cuts down their prep time for that game, which, judging by the squad O’Connor brought north, is the priority. Orlando City made nine changes from Wednesday, two of them enforced by red cards to Sacha Kljestan and Robin Jansson. Had the game been moved later in the season, the Union would not have benefited from those red-card absences.
“We want to be serious with the Open Cup, we want to be intentional about having a strong season in that as well,” O’Connor said. “We’ve done well to get to this stage of the competition and we want to make sure that we take the next step. That’s going to be a really difficult game. New York City (is) in great form and we’ll just have to be mindful of that.”
Curtin has a limited number of attacking options. The Union (10-5-5, 35 points) were left thin on the attacking side, with a left ankle sprain for Jamiro Monteiro, incurred on Kljestan’s redcard tackle, keeping the midfielder out. X-rays received back Friday, though, reveal no fracture and just a sprain, though Curtin doesn’t have a timetable for his return.
“To see him today in the training room, I’ll just say some of the exercises he was doing were incredibly positive,” Curtin said. “He was changing direction. He was very dynamic in his movements and the ankle was responding really well.”
Ilsinho (left adductor strain) was due to miss a second straight game. The Brazilian trained Friday and was close to returning, but the extra day won’t likely change his status with the Union reticent to push it. Marco Fabian had been slotted into the announced starting lineup.
Sunday will also the final game that new signing Andrew Wooten has to wait before the summer transfer window opens July 9. As a result, the Union made three changes from Wednesday and named a bench with three fullbacks on it.
Curtin was eager to get the game as close to the originally scheduled date as possible, better with the present scheduling devil he knows than playing roulette with international breaks and trying to shoehorn in a midweek game. His team has shown an ability to recover this season in less than ideal situations, and Sunday is another chance.
“It’s impossible to project competitive-advantage wise who’s going to be available, who’s not going to be available for teams two months from now when you put the game backwards,” Curtin said. “I think they got it right at the end of the day. It’s a two-day break (for Orlando City), which for U.S. Open Cup rules and MLS rules, two days is standard. We literally just played Wednesday so this was going to be on two days’ rest. I think the right thing was to have the game as quickly as possible on Sunday.”