Underdog role suits Union in playoff tilt with Toronto
CHESTER, PA. >> Among the chic touches on the exposed brick in the weight room of the new Power Training Complex is a board showing the weekly MLS standings.
Sunday afternoon, in the afterglow of a disappointing regular season finale at Talen Energy Stadium, the tiles listing the placement of MLS’ 20 teams were removed. And by the time the Philadelphia Union returned to work Monday morning, only one name remained: Toronto FC.
The Union and Toronto have combined to play 17 seasons of major league soccer. Each will make its second-ever playoff appearance in 2016, a tournament that will carry outsized weight as a referendum on the season it has assembled. One will collect a franchise-first postseason win.
So it’s only fitting that the teams will collide at BMO Field Wednesday night (7:30 p.m., ESPN2) in an Eastern Conference wild card game. Carrying two of the least distinguished histories in the league, something has to give. And with the seeming advantages of star power, home field and payroll slanting toward Toronto, Union manager Jim Curtin hopes that something has the home team buckling under the weight of expectations.
“I’d say the pressure is on them,” Curtin said Monday. “They’re the home team… My guys should be loose, nothing to lose. We’re going on the road, on a quick turnaround, both teams are on short rest.”
The Union, the sixth seed in the East returning to the postseason for the first time since 2011, is looking for a clean break from a disastrous finish to the regular season that has seen them winless since Aug. 27, a stretch of seven games (0-52). One of the draws came at BMO Field, a 1-1 stalemate Sept. 24 in which the Union dominated the first half but cashed in on just one goal.
Curtin has leaned on that result for guidance this week for a task that he calls “difficult but not impossible.” Along with the customary platitudes — of a new season, of the past being the past, of anything can happen — Curtin points to that draw as motivation that the Union can earn a result in hostile environs.
That game was drastically different from Wednesday’s: The Union’s Tranquillo Barnetta was missing, allowing Alejandro Bedoya his first and only appearance as the No. 10 in a Union shirt, while Toronto was missing Italian dynamo and 2015 MLS MVP Sebastian Giovinco. Both Barnetta and Giovinco are expected to take part Wednesday.
“It’s encouraging that we played so well there last time,” defender Keegan Rosenberry said. “We feel good about the way we played, the chances we created and the amount of chances we gave up. We have confidence going into there. You can talk about the form that we’re in, but it’s a season of runs. It’s so long, it ebbs and flows. Wednesday is the perfect time to right the ship.”
History isn’t on the Union’s side: Since the inception of the one-game wild card round in 2011, only two of 12 away teams have advanced. The last was Houston in 2012.
The Union have struggled away from home with just three wins in 17 road games in 2016, but Toronto’s home form has been anything but spotless. Toronto’s seasonending win over Chicago, 3-2, Sunday snapped a four-game home winless streak and a five-game winless run overall. They won only eight times in 17 games at BMO this year.
“This is the show now,” Chris Pontius said. “So put aside everything that’s happened in the regular season. It’s a different animal. It’s a different beast. Something that I’m excited, I’m pumped up about it. The guys are upset about the loss, but that’s got to be pushed aside real quick because it’s win or go home on Wednesday. And we’re looking to win and go on.”