Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
With chaos in the East, its top team rues a missed opportunity
CHESTER » It was essentially left unsaid Tuesday night, in part because the Union had squandered the moral high ground from which to say it.
The 2- 0 defeat to the New England Revolution in the first round of the MLS Cup playoffs stung for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them was that the Union, who went 9- 0- 0 at Subaru Park by being the team that Jim Curtin and Ernst Tanner envisioned all year, were nowhere to be found.
Implicit in all the laments that drew on the past was one that pointed to a future that wouldn’t be: In a crazy 2020, which the Union had navigated better than any other MLS team, they wound up wasting a golden opportunity for so much more.
About an hour before the topseeded Union met their feckless end, No. 2 seed Toronto bowed meekly out of the tournament in Hartford. As if the East weren’t open enough, the exit of the team that has played for the MLS Cup three times in four seasons threw open the doors even wider.
A motley crew remains in the East. There’s the Revolution, deserving winners against the Union but still just 10- 8- 8 in all competitions this season. Their next opponent is Orlando City, which will miss its starting goalie and a starting defender for Sunday’s conference semifinal, after the chaos that was their opening- round shootout win over New York City FC.
On the other side of the Eastern draw stands No. 3 Columbus, missing six players due to COVID- 19, and seventh seed Nashville, with an MLS Cup- winning manager in Gary Smith but still an expansion side.
The West, hardly a murderers’ row all year, lost MLS Is Back champions Portland in the first round. The top seed is Sporting Kansas City, which the Union hammered in Orlando, 3- 1. It posits the overwhelming favorite as Seattle, but had the Union gotten there, a one- off game in Chester for the title would’ve given them a puncher’s chance.
All that, though, went out the window
with the Union tripping at the first hurdle.
“For me, I’m probably still going to think what could’ve been,” captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “We had home field advantage throughout and we threw it away. We had a great chance this season. To me, yeah, tomorrow is going to be a new day, but for me, it’s a hard pill to swallow.”
The Union’s ascendancy, in winning the Supporters’ Shield and qualifying for CONCACAF Champions League, doesn’t have a finite window. The whole point of the way the Union want to build, with smart signings and an ever- bubbling supply of youth academy products, seeks to minimize that once- in- a- blue- moon alchemy.
But Tuesday spelled the end of the journey for Brenden Aaronson, whose record- setting transfer to Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg came with the proviso that he stay in MLS for the rest of the season to chase silverware. It may be the end of the line for others, too, with European interest swirling around defenders Mark McKenzie and Kai Wagner.
Other talents, through the wellspring that is YSC Academy or Tanner’s global scouting network, will replace them when the time comes. But the finality of elimination was jarring,
not just in ending a championship chase but spelling the end for a group that bonded during the MLS Is Back bubble and a shared pursuit of social justice causes off the field, a team that genuinely enjoyed being together.
“I’m extremely proud of the group even though it wasn’t our result tonight,” Aaronson said. “I think it was an unbelievable season with a lot of ups and of course this down, but I can’t talk enough about how special this group is and being able to go to work every day and have a smile on my face. It was definitely a great group. I’m going to miss them a lot and it’s tough, but I’m so proud of the team.”
Through the tears Aaronson held back, through the choice words Bedoya refrained from, through McKenzie’s lingering on the pitch postgame to soak in the final moments of the season, the regret stemmed not just from what happened Tuesday. It also spoke of what could’ve been and won’t be.
“We came up short of that ultimate goal, which is MLS Cup,” Curtin said. “It only ends good for one team, in terms of MLS Cup, only one team is happy. Unfortunately for us, it’s not going to be us this year.”