Union punish NYCFC mistakes in 5-1 win

For the third straight game, the Philadelphia Union wasted little time getting on the scoreboard but unlike on Saturday against Inter Miami they kept adding to their early lead, capitalizing on several miscues to punish New York City FC on the baseball diamond they call home and pick up three valuable points in their late season playoff push.

In a game between teams heading in opposite directions, the Union showed the keys to their ascendency early with Tai Baribo sneaking a flicked shot past Matt Freese in the 15th minute off a corner kick clearance headed back into the mixer by Olivier Mbaizo and Mikael Uhre taking advantage of a poor touch from Thiago Martins to score 10 minutes later. Freese, who already wasn’t having his best night against his former team, mishandled a routine header from Baribo that ended up falling to the feet of Daniel Gazdag for one of the easier of his 15 goals for the season.

Adding insult to injury for Freese and company, the third goal came minutes after Keaton Parks missed a golden opportunity to cut the lead in half when he was all alone on goal and hit a shot right at Andrew Rick. Parks would later ping the left post in a 1v1 chance with the 18-year-old keeper, who was effective throughout the contest making his sixth start.

Down 3-0, NYC had to take risks going forward to try and chip away at the deficit and was quite successful at the chance creation side of things but luckily for the Union not so good at putting those chances away.

Just before halftime the hosts did reverse those fortunes and grab a late goal on a sublime finish from Alonso Martinez. But try as they did in the second half, the Martinez goal would be their only strike on the night. Instead it was the visitors fighting for a playoff berth padding their lead. Their fourth came on a thundering header from Jakob Glesnes off a Kai Wagner corner kick. The assist was Wagner’s 50th over his Union career, tying Sebastien Le Toux for the club record.

While NYC continued to flail, Jesus Bueno rounded out the scoring, hitting a rocketed shot past Freese off a pass in tight space from Quinn Sullivan.

NYC finished the night with a 26-12 advantage in shots, 9-7 advantage on shots on goal, 607-337 advantage in passes and 3.1-2.4 advantage in xG but despite a lot of noise extended their winless streak in league play to eight games. Their last league win was way back on July 3 and it showed in a game that was good news both for the Union’s playoff hopes and the likelihood that more than one playoff game will be played on Yankee Stadium’s unfit-for-soccer field.

The win was the Union’s fifth on the road this season and moved them into 9th place but they’ll need to bring their road form home the next two games against DC United and Atlanta United to stay in playoff position. They’ll host DC United on Sunday and Atlanta the following Saturday.