Back to the drawing board for the Philadelphia Union

After clawing their way to a win over Atlanta United in a game that very easily could’ve ended up 3-3, the Philadelphia Union returned to the draw column with a disappointing scoreless tie with Nashville SC on Saturday night in their last regular season home game of 2023.

The result was not entirely unexpected.

Nashville is a very organized team and playing on the road in a place where just one team has won this season always meant they were going to take a more conservative approach. They conceded more of the ball and the chances and were content with not creating many of their own.

That of course didn’t make the result any more palatable. The Union fired off 14 shots on the night and nearly half of them (6) were blocked. Jack McGlynn had three of the shots that were blocked, Julian Carranza had a pair and Jose Martinez looked like pre-2023 Martinez with a shot blocked and another skied shot well high of the mark.

“Passing you know sometimes when we should shoot, shooting when we should maybe pass,” head coach Jim Curtin said summarizing things post-game. “We were a little bit off tonight.”

Defensively, Damion Lowe stepped up with a big performance to limit reigning MVP Hany Mukhtar’s chances going forward. The Jamaican international has been especially strong lately in making a case for playing time in the post-season. Curtin compared his performance against Mukhtar – he made a big one v one tackled in the box on him in the first half – to what he did against Julián Quiñones in Champions League.

“He has the speed, the physicality to deal with a player like Mukhtar in space, alone, one v one,” Curtin said. “He did an incredible job, kept him fairly quiet on the day which isn’t easy to do.”

With the win, the Union extended their unbeaten streak to eight and have just the one loss in their last 12 yet there are still question marks about the team as they head into the international break before a Decision Day visit to Foxborough on October 21.

Outside of a magical 9-minute span at the end of the first half on Wednesday, the trio of Daniel Gazdag, Julian Carranza and Mikael Uhre has not been the juggernaut that it was last year. Curtin elected to bring Uhre off the bench in the 57th minute against Nashville, replacing Quinn Sullivan. Israeli striker Tai Baribo wasn’t used for a third straight game, Chris Donovan didn’t see the field for the second straight game.

“With Mikael and Julian and Dani out there that’s 100 goals in the last two years,” Curtin said. “I know everybody loves backup quarterbacks but those are the guys.”

Though it doesn’t quite feel like it, it was only the Union’s eighth draw of the season. Half of those draws, however, have been scoreless draws at home so it makes some sense that the enthusiasm coming out of the Atlanta win may have hit a little bit of a thud after this one. Is a team that doesn’t lose but also can’t seem to remember how to win still a team capable of winning it all?

The answer to that question when talking about MLS Cup is always going to be a yes but the reality that you don’t have to be a world beater to win the league’s biggest prize means little to a fanbase that gets reminded every broadcast by a terrible tire commercial how things went down last November.

As it relates to Nashville and the display we had to endure, it’s important to remember that Nashville now has 39 draws in the last three years. Thirty-nine! A dozen of those have been of the scoreless variety.

“I hope we don’t play Nashville in a three game series because you guys will fall asleep,” Curtin said.