Substitute sharpness makes for ‘razor-thin margins’ as Union fall short at Orlando City, 2-1

The Philadelphia Union brought the right effort and plan to Orlando City on Wednesday night, but the quality and sharpness of the second half substitutes undid the Union in a 2-1 defeat. 

“It was a tough night all around,” summed up Union head coach Jim Curtin after the match. “To go on the road, you need a really, really strong performance and we just did not have that.”

The Union are chasing a playoff spot in the closing weeks of the regular season and entered the day in ninth, tied on points with Toronto, but behind on goal difference, while also owning a game in hand. The Union exited the game in 10th, three points behind eighth place Montreal, who have played the same number of games as the Union, but still tied on points with ninth-place TFC. 

The Union faced, and still face, an uphill battle to close the season after the Wednesday trip to fourth-place Orlando with a Saturday trip to second-place Columbus. After that, just one game remains against third-place Cincinnati.

The Union knew the squad would be under pressure with two tough road trips, and Curtin’s team came in with a defensive and opportunistic game plan to absorb a few punches from Orlando and find chances in space in transition the other way.

The starting XI, close to full strength, survived an early onslaught from Orlando, made it to halftime at 0-0, and even got some chances in the back half of the first 45 minutes.

“I thought Orlando came out fast and for the magnitude of the game, we didn’t match their intensity,” Curtin said. “They could have punished us and it was a gift to get in at 0-0.”

But Orlando’s squad quality and depth took over in the second frame after some expert deployment from Oscar Pareja, in large part due to two assists from substitute forward Luis Muriel with some help from Duncan McGuire as well.

And on the flip side, while Quinn Sullivan made an impact off Curtin’s bench, Nathan Harriel and Sam Adeniran came up agonizingly short in a few key moments. Curtin probably would have taken all of the chances his team got in the second half that, on another night, would have added up to a somewhat deserved 2-2 comeback. 

The final xG finished as 2.64 to 2.27 for the hosts, and in the end, the Union did enough work, but didn’t quite get the equalizer from its closing XI.

“Muriel plays two passes that are next level passes, no question about it,” said Curtin. “The margins are razor-thin this time of the year.”

To start, the Union came out in the preferred 4-4-2 diamond formation, with Danley Jean-Jacques at the base of the midfield in his first league start since August 31. Olivier Mbaizo was at right back and Bedoya was on the right side of the midfield. The rest of the lineup was full strength and as expected. 

Orlando came out in their 4-2-3-1, with Martin Ojeda as the No. 10, Facundo Torres on the right wing, and Ivan Angulo on the left wing, all supporting Ramiro Enrique up top. 

On a humid night in Orlando, Pareja wanted his team to press early and try to batter a goal into the net. His team nearly did with 0.84 xG on a litany of chances in the first 20 minutes. 

The Orlando press aggressively marked the Union back five and killed off any attempts of building out of the back, forcing a bunch of long balls towards Mikael Uhre and Alejandro Bedoya. And without winning any first or second balls, the Union had to stand in their own box and defend an onslaught of rushing attackers.

It was lucky and good scrambling from the Union defense at the same time, as Orlando repeatedly got to their left side and crossed and cut back into dangerous areas. Angulo had the best chance of the bunch and blasted over from around seven yards out on a free shot, while Enrique also skied a point blank header. 

Jean-Jacques was the story of the Union plan before subs changed the game. The Haitian international can be a fine passer with an open option in his line of vision, but has little ability to progress the ball more than sideways or to play out of a press. That led the Union having to go full route one to advance the ball or try to use Kai Wagner and Jack McGlynn when Orlando was backed off.

Defensively, Jean-Jacques is very smart on the ball and forces passers and dribblers in front of him sideways, backwards, or to the least threatening option. He’s an above-average tackler and interceptor. But off-ball and in a larger positional sense, he strays way too far from the center of the field to chase the ball and then too slowly recovers to the middle. 

In the Union system, the base of the diamond is a demanding role. Especially with Bedoya and McGlynn as the shuttlers. But Jean-Jacques was caught out of position too often against a team like Orlando that had multiple creative players looking to access the pocket in front of the center backs. On Wednesday, he should have lived with Orlando possession in those wider half spaces near the fullbacks and shuttlers, and forced players to cross or take on the Union fullbacks.

Physically, Jean-Jacques has all the tools to play the role well, and often had his foot in the right spaces to stop Orlando, but he was notably missing when Orlando got its best chances.

The Union still survived the first half, despite the sit-back-and-mash-long-balls strategy, and had settled into the game somewhat comfortably by the 30th minute. Uhre and Gazdag had the best moments of space when Orlando was caught with a ball over the top, but nothing came from them. 

To start the second half, Pareja introduced Muriel, who had burned the Union in the spring with his first two MLS goals, for Angulo. Muriel, Ojeda and Torres became interchangeable attacking players underneath Enrique and just 12 minutes after halftime, the amount of ball-playing quality and chemistry showed up for Orlando. 

The go-ahead goal was a product of slow defensive transition from McGlynn and Bedoya, an out-of-position Jean-Jacques, a step-slow Mbaizo, and a quick combination between Ojeda, Enrique and Muriel, who sprung Torre for a finish.

Facu Torres buries it perfectly and @OrlandoCitySC takes the lead!

📺 #MLSSeasonPass: https://t.co/wRKwisPjmu pic.twitter.com/HmEBPsWT9Z

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 3, 2024

Muriel is right in the string-pulling pocket, where Jean-Jacques is not. And McGlynn is 10 yards behind the play. That’s not good enough transition defending to give a player like Muriel that much freedom. 

Curtin responded with subs for Harriel and Quinn Sullivan to enter the game for Bedoya and Mbaizo. And Pareja put on McGuire, a field-stretching forward, for Ojeda, for more directness on the counter. 

Orlando immediately sat deep in a low block, and on one of the first counters, Muriel and Enqrique combined 70 yards from goal with another one-two preying on a Union right back – this time Harriel instead of Mbaizo. That gave Muriel room to knife an outside-of-the-foot pass between the center backs to a streaking McGuire. He buried his chance in behind to give Orlando a 2-0 lead after 64 minutes.

The set up, the finish! 😤

Duncan McGuire makes it 2-0 in favor of @OrlandoCitySC! pic.twitter.com/1Nw4UUGHw2

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 3, 2024

The Union found a nice goal of their own in the 72nd minute with Sullivan, who popped up on a cutback from Gazdag that came from a one-two with Uhre off a throw-in. 

It was all around a sharp goal when the Union needed sharpness in the box, and it brought Sullivan to 20 goal contributions on the season. It effectively reset the game state to down one goal for the Union with attacking subs ready to claw back. 

Sam Adeniran came on for Baribo to provide more running and stretching and within six minutes, he was launched behind the Orlando back line with a through ball from Sullivan. And Adeniran just fumbled his sequence of touches enough to prevent a timely square ball to a wide open Uhre, and while Adeniran did get the ball to Uhre, it was late and not at the right height. 

From there, the Union had three point blank headers in the final 15 minutes on corner kicks that all fell to the head of Harriel. The first was headed wide, the easiest, the second went right to Gallese, and the third, in stoppage time, just missed as well.

“The best header of the ball in our team is actually Nathan,” Curtin said. “But timing wise, he just didn’t have the timing on it to get past Gallese.”

Harriel is a defender and not expected to be a match-winner in front of the net. But on a night when he was involved in conceding the second goal to Orlando’s best sub, he had three chances at point-blank range to do his damage on set pieces, a place he is expected to be dangerous. 

“We fought to get back in the game, and had chances to tie the game,” said Curtin. “Free headers, we just couldn’t convert.”

Misses happen, but that was the difference on a night when the xG ended up rather close and the Union almost stole a point. 

Muriel was ruthless in his two moments of space, and is an elite super sub in the league. McGuire also fits that bill. 

The Union got one substitute moment from Sullivan, but Adeniran and Harriel just couldn’t put it together. That’s the gap manifested in player quality and on-field outcomes for a fourth-placed team and a 10th place team. 

The razor-thin margins are crippling in early October despite an overall solid performance, because the Union turned in poor performances in multiple stretches earlier in 2024. 

The team is trying its best to parlay its late playoff-worthy form into an actual spot, but the gauntlet to close the season presents playoff-caliber opponents who feast on exploiting the thinnest of margins. 

“The reality is, we still control our destiny,” concluded Curtin. “I hate where we are but we still have an opportunity to get in.”