Uhre-Carranza pairing gets first look against Crew
The Union have reached their sixth game of the season before Jim Curtin has had the chance to deploy the forward pairing he sought this offseason. That the club has 13 points before seeing its biggest offseason alteration in action should be a signifier of success.
The Union will send out Mikael Uhre and Julian Carranza as their starting forward tandem Saturday when Columbus visits (6 p.m., PHL17). And Curtin will finally glimpse what the Union risked in an offseason in a bid to go from good to great.
“Mikael is a great player,” Curtin said Thursday at his weekly Zoom conference. “He’s worked so hard in training. I’ll take the blame for maybe pushing him a couple of weeks ago too hard and not pulling him back a little bit because he’s so eager to help the team and such a good character guy that he wants to impress. … He’s earned the right to start.”
The Union (4-0-1, 13 points) have been doing just fine with Uhre making two appearances for 46 total minutes. Cory Burke has two goals. Sergio Santos has been impactful, assisting on the opening goal of last week’s 2-0 win over Charlotte FC. His hamstring strain clears the last obstacle to Uhre joining Carranza.
Santos’ setup marked Carranza’s first goal with the Union, though the Inter Miami loanee has two assists. Uhre had been set back by delays in his visa paperwork coming over from Denmark, then the quad strain Curtin took blame for.
The knocks and the rust have faded. So, as Curtin put it, “the time is now.”
It comes against one of the better East opponents on the young season. Columbus (2-1-2, 8 points) lost for the first time last week, a 1-0 decision against Nashville. Save for a bobble here or there, Curtin believes the Crew could have five wins to start the season.
The Union are much closer to that reality, having won four straight outings and kept clean sheets in the last three. Their 332-minute shutout streak is the fourth-longest in franchise history.
That’ll be tested by the 2020 MLS Cup champion, which missed the playoffs last season. In Lucas Zelarayan, they have one of MLS’ most dynamic playmakers, able to launch from the platform set by midfielder Darlington Nagbe.
Led by Caleb Porter, who’s won MLS Cups in Portland and Columbus, the Crew have a set identity, even if the pieces to execute it didn’t quite come together last year.
“They can really pass the ball,” Curtin said. “They play the right
way. They all move, they all want the ball in tough spaces. They can kind of create overloads on one side. They will be direct when they need to be. They have a really good balance, and they can make teams uncomfortable and they can pass teams to death.”
Saturday will mark the Union’s fourth home game of the season. With six games looming in a busy May, four of them away from home, the goal is to continue accruing
points when the schedule favors it. Even better when it’s against Eastern opposition, as three of the four wins have been.
“I think we’ve started the league very well,” Curtin said. “I’m constantly warning the guys, as hard as we’ve worked to get this momentum and be in good form, in this game, it can leave you very quickly. Putting together good performances, especially at home, is important.”