Fear of penalty kicks put a charge into Glesnes’ game-winning goal
CHESTER » Jakob Glesnes has contributed in so many areas for the Union in 2021 that when confronted with an aspect he was unsure about, he had to take action.
Glesnes had scored outrageous goals from distance, but the Union center back had never in his professional life attempted a penalty kick. The prospect of a shootout against the New York Red Bulls Saturday left him unusually apprehensive. So as the clock ticked past 120 minutes …
“I saw the ball was coming out,” Glesnes said, “and I was thinking from the start, OK I have to end this.”
Glesnes produced a goal of otherworldly class, his volley outside the box dipping in as the latest goal in MLS history in the 123rd minute, guiding the Union to a 1-0 win over the Red Bulls in the first round of the MLS Cup Playoffs.
For a train wreck of a game, it took a masterpiece to win it.
“An incredible moment from an incredible player,” Jim Curtin said.
“Jakob, what a moment, what a player, what a guy,” Andre Blake said. “I’m just happy for him.”
The Union’s win will return the Eastern Conference’s second seed to Subaru Park next Sunday, to take on the winner of Sunday’s game between Nashville and Orlando City. Kickoff will either be at 3 or 5:30 p.m. It’s the Union’s second win in eight playoff games, both against the Red Bulls, both at Subaru Park.
Glesnes’ finish was sheer audacity. The Union had a late set piece, one of a litany of them in a game that descended into tedium at the hands of Red Bulls’ borderline anti-soccer pressing. The Union retained possession after the initial delivery, Jose Martinez sending the ball back into the box.
Red Bulls defender Andrew Gutman headed it away, but only as far as Glesnes, who chested it down, waited for the bounce and unleashed a magisterial volley that tucked almost onto the joint where the back corner of the net meets the ground.
That set off an explosion of joy from the 18,623 fans in attendance.
“I couldn’t understand how I scored that goal, but I just saw around me all the people that were so happy,” Glesnes said. “I didn’t know what I should do when I was celebrating, so I was just running around like a clown, I was so happy.”
“I blacked out as soon as the ball hit the back of the net,” Curtin said. “I think I ran the fastest I’ve ran in probably 10 years, which is embarrassing, so I apologize to the league. I might have been on the field for a little bit there. But the moment, I hope that they understand that the moment is one that’s good for the league. But we all lost our minds there.”
The goal is, hopefully, all that will be remembered. Its brilliance could not contrast more sharply from the spirited but hideous
game that led to it. That mostly owed to the seventh-seeded Red Bulls, who streaked into the playoffs content to let a game descend into a rock fight and feast on whatever scraps that might leave.
The Union dominated play, more than doubling Red Bulls on expected goals (2.0 to 0.9), if the 13-11 and 3-1 margins in shots and shots on target, respectively, don’t quite illustrate that. Yet Red Bulls’ strategy came within seconds of getting them to the crapshoot of PKs.
It didn’t help that the Union squandered so many quality chances. The worst of regulation came in the 82nd minute, when sub Sergio Santos squared to Kacper Przybylko only for the striker to punt it over the bar. Red Bulls defender Tom Edwards made an inch-perfect lunge to take the ball away from Santos two minutes later when Przybylko played him in.
The Red Bulls had the better chances of the first extra session, with Andre Blake stopping Patryk Klimala in the 95th on a hard and low shot after the Polish striker beat the offside trip.
Santos had the whole goal to aim at in the 107th minute when Cory Burke set him up. Santos instead aimed directly at the midsection of Carlos Coronel. Burke took his turn in the 117th, somehow firing wide on a ball that fell to him eight yards from goal. In between, Kyle Duncan created a yard of space at right wingback and fizzled a low daisy-clipper that nudged the outside of the far post.
The Union delivered a pregame surprise, with both Jamiro Monteiro and Olivier Mbaizo out due to health and safety protocols. The players returned midweek from international duty for Cape Verde and Cameroon, respectively. Curtin rather tersely waved away questions about the duo, citing privacy.
Mbaizo’s absence in particular stung, with Curtin having started the right back in the same back four on 32 occasions in all competitions. But Alvas Powell stepped in ably, and Paxten Aaronson did a 60-minute shift in Monteiro’s place.
Coronel made the only save of the first half, splaying out to get in the way of a Powell blast. The Red Bulls committed 22 fouls in a game that occasionally looked more like trench warfare than soccer.
“The game was ugly,” Curtin said. “The surface is a little bumpy, so it was tough to string together passes. You saw a lot of turnovers, mistakes, second balls, fighting, head balls, clearances, collisions. It was chaos.”
The war of words before the game was just as heated, with the Union players fired up by some declarations made in the media by New York coach Gerhard Struber. Curtin’s riposte afterward was stinging, made more so by having Glesnes’ goal to back him.
“Here in Philadelphia, we like to do our talking on the field, not before the games,” Curtin said. “… Full credit to the players. I think they were highly motivated. I think they put a lot into the game.”