Union takes care of depleted Revolution
Move into eighth place in East
With injuries, international defections and a late suspension depleting the visiting New England Revolution, Sunday presented not so much a “mustwin” affair as a “can’t-lose” game for the Union.
The response to that imperative couldn’t have begun much quicker.
CJ Sapong started the Union off with a penaltykick goal in the fourth minute on an iffy Benjamin Angoua handball, then Ilsinho and Roland Alberg chipped in second-half goals in a 3-0 clubbing of the Revs.
The win moves the Union (6-7-4, 22 points) over the Revs and into eighth place in the East, three points behind sixth-place Red Bulls.
The penalty was tinged with controversy, not over whether Angoua handled a Sapong cross, which he certainly did. But where his arm was at the time of ball contact, with the defender sliding diagonally across the far edge of the box, was in question. Referee Chris Penso swiftly pointed to the spot, and after protests by the Revs, Sapong went high and down the middle with his penalty.
The goal is his ninth of the season, tying a careerhigh (2015 with the Union, 2012 with Sporting Kansas City). He’s 3-for-3 on penalty kicks.
The second tally was even more decisive out of the halftime break. Haris Medunjanin played a crossfield ball that Fafa Picault controlled on the right wing and popped over a defender. Ilsinho ran onto the pass in the channel and lashed a volley high and over goalie Cody Cropper, a sumptuous finish from a tight angle for his second goal of the season.
Despite the early concession and a decidedly secondchoice defense, the Revs (58-5, 20 points) owned 58.9 percent of the possession in the first half. But without Kelyn Rowe and Juan Agudelo (on international duty with the U.S.) and certified Union-killer Diego Fagundez (suspended), they were shooting blanks.
Andre Blake charged off his line in the 13th minute to snuff a Kei Kamara chance after a smart 1-2 with Teal Bunbury, who had picked Medunjanin’s pocked in midfield. (It looked a lot like the save Cropper had made on Picault four minutes earlier, one of several fruitless breakaways for the speedy forward).
Je-Vaughn Watson rattled the post in the 50th minute off a free kick near the corner, taking advantage of sloppiness in the Union backline. Though Oguchi Onyewu weathered a scary moment in the first half when he took a ball by Kamara at close range to his chest and Jack Elliott made way late with a leg injury, the backline shut out the Revs for a third straight outing, a streak of 324 minutes in MLS since their last concession to the Revs dating to 2015. It’s the Union’s seventh clean sheet this season.
The Union shifted the balance in the second half, exposing the largest absence for the Revs, center back Antonio Delamea, who recovered from his concussion only sufficiently to make the bench. Ilsinho’s goal was the initial payoff, and Alberg added to the margin with his first touch, leaning back to laser a shot home from 35 yards out for a stunning strike. Medunjanin picked up the helper, his seventh of the season.
The Union could’ve added on with three missed chances in successive minutes — Medunjanin fizzling a 69th-minute free kick wide, Picault firing a golden chance in the 70th minute wide of the post, and Ilsinho spectacularly missing a wide-open chance provided by Sapong. But they had more than enough to best the hobbling Revs.