Philadelphia Union vs Atlanta United Photo Gallery

It's tough looking back at matches like these. Sometimes you just want to move on, to forget about the failures of the past match and look to the next one. The Philadelphia Union have seven more next ones to try and do what they can to salvage what they can from this season.

Clubs should always seek to improve, be it through the leaps and bounds of player signings or through the incremental progress of being just a bit better than the last game. The 2017 Philadelphia Union have instead regressed. The promise of the 2016 playoffs died that night on that cold field in Toronto – we just didn't realize it at the time.

The upcoming offseason should be at least in part, one of reflection by the club. Look around at all that's gone wrong not only this past season, but in all seasons that have preceded it. Yes, most if not all of the personnel have come after the first season, but they need to remember that we've been here since then – and we'll be here long after them. We bear the scars of those early teams just as we will bear the ones inflicted upon us by every team that plays here.

Learn from the mistakes of your predecessors. Learn from the mistakes you've made. Learn from the mistakes of others. Just improve.