Philadelphia Union meandering toward the finish line

The vibes seem very very off surrounding the Philadelphia Union.

The Union earned a 1-1 draw at home against Western Conference foe FC Dallas on Wednesday. The point moved Philadelphia up to third in the Eastern Conference. Despite it not going down as a loss on the night, fans in attendance and at home were once again left feeling extremely unsatisfied with the result.

Quinn Sullivan gave the fans a reason to cheer in the 25th minute. It was a great goal with a beautiful assist by Kai Wagner. The Union should probably look to re-sign Wagner, I hear it’s nice to have good players like him in the squad. Dallas would equalize 11 minutes later with an equally fantastic strike from Alan Velasco. Dallas would nearly steal a win in the 84th minute, with Paul Arriola’s goal called back due to an onside. A 1-1 draw was probably fair considering the play from both sides.

Tonight’s draw was just another Union performance that will have fans feeling very meh about the club. There have been too many this year. It’s a pretty good way to describe the vibes of the club hitting the home stretch of the MLS regular season: meh. The magic the team showed last year is completely absent, in it’s place is more of a 90-minute grind with the hope for a big moment or two from the squad.

Also noticeably missing from last year is the club’s stellar defensive record. The club has failed to keep a clean sheet in six of their last seven league matches and has already allowed 10 more goals than they did last season. It’s not just that the offense has regressed from its break-neck pace from last year, the defense doesn’t look nearly the same despite returning the same backline. It’s not that they’re atrocious, there are far worse defensive teams in Major League Soccer. They’ve just gone from being by far the best defensive outlet in the league to being just pretty good.

The defense really gets exposed when the offense is failing to score in big moments, always seeming to lack that final effort to pull ahead of their competitors. Nobody expected the Union to replicate their 72-goal production from last season, but it’s just been far too much of a grind on offense this year. Mikael Uhre has not scored a goal in the month of September, and has largely been pedestrian outside of two big games this season. Julian Carranza has largely been the only player Jim Curtin can rely on to score in open play. So when you have games like tonight where he’s out, or if he has an off game, you’re left hoping for a Daniel Gazdag penalty or a Jose Martinez wonderstrike.

Nothing better exemplifies just how meh the Union have been than this recent four-game stretch of draws. All four were winnable for Philadelphia and could have given them a big boost down the stretch. Three of them were at home! Instead they fought to competitive draws instead of finding a way to win. Philadelphia better figure it out over their last four games before the playoffs hit.