Inconsistent Union downs reigning MLS Cup champs
CHESTER » If you want to sum up the Union’s perplexing season, look no further than the mercurial inhabitants of the No. 10 role.
Sunday, with the sun shining on that position, the game-changing potential with which the front office conceived the roster this season was evident.
Ilsinho set up Marcus Epps’ opening goal, then sub Roland Alberg fired home the clincher in the 88th minute as the Union downed reigning MLS Cup holders Seattle, 2-0.
The win forestalls the Union’s elimination from playoff contention and keeps the Sounders, who entered in fourth in the West, from clinching a playoff berth. The Union (10-13-9, 39 points) are one of four teams tied on 39 points. They trail the sixth-placed Red Bulls by four points, though struggling New York has a game in hand. The Union would need to sweep their last two games and get help — from the Red Bulls and via struggles elsewhere among the Eastern contenders — to have their miniscule odds come to fruition.
Sunday’s result, a relatively comfortable performance, was possible thanks to the midfield spark.
Ilsinho, who missed the last two games with an Achilles injury, rewarded Epps in the 28th minute for a move the rookie started via an interchange with Alejandro Bedoya up the right touchline. Epps filtered the ball centrally, where Haris Medunjanin paused a beat on the ball and picked out Ilsinho in the left channel to swerve a ball back across the grain to Epps on the right wing.
Epps took a touch, then blasted it to the short side to evade goalie Stefan Frei for his second career goal in his sixth start.
“The staff and coaches told me for this game, change the sides all the time,” Ilsinho said. “So if I got the ball on the left side, I was looking for the other side. I think the first goal, the ball came from Haris, and I saw (Epps) and I changed the side and he’s free and he scored. I just tried to do what they said and today it worked.”
“The defense was collecting and they were doing pretty well blocking my crosses and shots during the game,” Epps said. “So I saw space near-post, and I thought it would be better to be composed and sneak it in near post. … I saw (Frei) looking at me when I was looking far post, and I figured I’d try to go into the space at near-post.”
Epps’ performance included the element of surprise, to him at least, with the winger originally announced on the bench. But an abdominal injury cropped up for Chris Pontius in warmups.
On short notice, Epps, responded.
“It was definitely a surprise,” Epps said. “I did not know Chris was not going to be ready, but coach trains us to be ready at any moment, and as soon as I got the news, I just tried to focus in and make sure I’m ready to help the team as soon as the game started.”
Ilsinho made way in the 70th minute for Alberg, who did what he usually does — drifted through the game, then popped up in one moment on a play that appeared at first designed to have he and Medunjanin rag the ball near the corner flag and waste time.
Instead, the Dutchman emerged from the corner, took a few touches into the box and ripped a shot that Frei flailed at but couldn’t prevent from screaming into the side netting.
Medunjanin was credited with assists on both goals, giving him 10 for the year. He’s the fifth Union player to tally double-digit assists, joining Cristian Maidana in 2014 and 2015 and Sebastien Le Toux in 2010 and 2013.
Andre Blake took care of the rest. Following a quiet first half where the Union thoroughly dominated the Sounders (12-911, 47 points), the Jamaican was called into action five times after the break. His best effort came in the 62nd minute, when he leapt to deny a laser from sub Clint Dempsey from the top of the box. He produced a similarly outstanding denial of Will Bruin in the 81st on a shot from distance.
It’s Blake’s ninth shutout of the season. He’s tied with two others for third in MLS in that category, trailing league leader Frei (11).
The Union face a week off thanks to the international break, with four players — Medunjanin, Blake, Bedoya and Warren Creavalle — to be called away. They enter the hiatus with momentum and a sense that their playoff chase, while by no means likely, is at least not mathematically impossible.
“You want to win every time you step foot on the field,” manager Jim Curtin said. “They are pro athletes so that’s how they will treat it. We’re not mathematically eliminated. We have to win two soccer games in a row, which isn’t impossible. A certain rival has to lose three games in a row, which isn’t impossible either.
“We’re most focused on our performance, getting better as a group evaluating things for not only this year and beyond.”