(D)oops! ... Most promising season fizzles fast in playoff blooper
CHESTER » There’s no blueprint for playing a team six times in a season. Sometimes, when the tactical mysteries have long since evaporated, it’s just about playing for pride.
Tuesday night, for the first time in 2020, the Union inexplicably played with none.
Blitzed from the beginning by New England, disjointed and at times looking disinterested, the Union were a complete no-show, dropping a 2-0 decision and ending the most successful season in club history after 90 playoff minutes.
Goals by Adam Buksa and Tajon Buchanan four minutes apart in the first half sent the Supporters’ Shield winners home on a night where the top two teams in the Eastern Conference were eliminated.
The Union chased the game from the 30th minute on, but 58 percent possession yielded just four of their 15 shot on target, none seriously troubling Matt Turner in goal. The most fight they showed came after the whistles, content to descend into the time-wasting chaos that the Revolution were content to encourage. None of those signs of life materialized until the Union were down two goals, and even then, it was marginal.
“In pro sports, in one-off games, you can get beat,” Jim Curtin said. “This happens all the time, all over the world, teams end up on the wrong end of things. But when you lose, you want it to be having given your best. But tonight, for whatever reason, we weren’t ourselves.”
“That’s the toughest part, coming to terms with, we’ve played really well all year, and the one game where we’re not our sharpest, it kills us,” said midfielder Brenden Aaronson, playing his final game before his offseason transfer to Red Bull Salzburg. “They (New England) finished their chances well, took the chances they had, defended well the entire game. Credit to them, they played a great game. But we weren’t sharp enough, we didn’t do enough. We had to do the things we did all year as a team and we didn’t show that tonight.”
Eighth-seeded New England made one change from its 2-1 win last Friday over No. 9 Montreal in a play-in game. Tuesday was the sixth time the teams have met this season, the Union with a 4-0-1 record. Three of the wins were by one goal, the only decisive win coming in the Union’s last game, the Supporters’ Shieldclinching 2-0 victory on Decision
Day.
Beating a team of proud professionals five times in a year is no mean feat, and the Revs set about proving that. The first blow came from Buksa. Minutes after the Revs had what appeared to be a handball on Jose Martinez in the box waved away even after VAR was consulted, the Revs did earn a free kick from 25 yards out. Carles Gil, who missed the first four meetings between the teams, played a tantalizing ball and Buksa outjumped his man to nod it home, the designated player’s seventh goal of the season.
The conversion of a marginal chance transformed the game, and four minutes later, the advantage doubled. Gil again was the facilitator, playing the ball into the path of Tajon Buchanan, marauding down the right flank and getting the better of Kai Wagner. Buchanan buried a shot into the far-side netting, his third goal of the season and third in two MLS seasons. All have come against the Union.
“It probably shocked us to be down, to be honest, which hasn’t happened a lot this year,” Curtin said. “It probably hit us differently, I think it rattled us a little bit, and the passes we were missing happened more, and they han
dled us tonight. It’s disappointing that we go out without our best effort.”
“An abysmal first-half performance, that’s what’s so disappointing,” captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “... A combination of rustiness from two weeks off and guys reading too many headlines, I suppose.”
Curtin called Gil, who missed the first four meetings between the teams, “the best player on the night.”
Andre Blake, who returned after missing two games with a hand fracture, stood little chance on either. The 2020 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year finished with two saves, bested by the runnerup, Turner in the opposite cage.
The two concessions meant the Union trailed at half for just the fifth time this season. In seven alltime MLS Cup playoff games, the Union have been outscored 10-2 in the first half. It’s only the second time this season that they trailed at halftime.
Curtin unloaded his quiver in the changes department. Ilsinho came on at halftime for Martinez and provided a spark, but it amounted to little. Cory Burke and Jack Elliott followed in quick succession, as did Anthony Fon
tana, with his four goals against the Revs this year. None of it mattered, such was the uncharacteristic inefficiency in a Subaru Park that was, by turns, funereal and livid, a place where the Union were 9-0-0 this season.
The Union’s first two shots on target came from an ineffective Kacper Przybylko, one header right at Turner in the 35th, another similarly easy for Turner off a corner in the 64th. It’s one goal in 12 matches for Przybylko to end the season.
The best chance came in the fifth minute, Jamiro Monteiro popping up a cross from Aaronson. Burke had a shot in the 77th, but it was right at Turner.
It all adds up to as disappointing an ouster – Bedoya used the word “distraught,” and a teary Aaronson showed it – as the Union could possibly have envisioned.
“A disappointing conclusion to a special year for the guys,” Curtin said. “Not our best tonight. Credit to New England, they made us uncomfortable. … Overall as a team, all of us, coaches, players, support staff, we weren’t ourselves tonight. We didn’t get the job done. It’s difficult because in one-off games, you have to be at your sharpest but we weren’t.”