Markus Anderson’s Late Winner Lifts Union to a Magical Victory Over Charlotte FC

On a night when the Union seemingly squandered an impressive performance against Charlotte at home, Markus Anderson sparkled another helping of magic onto the Union’s season with a poetic, raucous, walk-off winner deep into stoppage time.

Anderson cued dramatic celebrations in the 98th minute with a difficult volley, his first career goal in his fourth-ever Union appearance and first of the year. Saturday was a shorthanded effort for the Union, with five new players in the lineup and very fresh faces on the bench, as Andre Blake, Nathan Harriel, Danley Jean-Jacques, Tai Baribo and Mikael Uhre were all unavailable.

And so Anderson’s improbable goal capped off a madhouse night at Subaru Park, when the deputizing Jesus Bueno finished a rampant first half with an spectacular half-volley of his own. Wilfred Zaha nearly stole a point for a rather tame Charlotte side, but the Union’s fighting spirit willed its way to another three points.

The Union improved to 10 matches unbeaten in the league and finished the game with 37 points atop the Supporters Shield’ standings. Charlotte moved to 8-1-9 in ninth place in the East.

With all of the absences, Bradley Carnell rolled out his team in a 4-2-3-1 hybrid with the usual 4-2-2-2, with Olivier Mbaizo at right back alongside three of the starters. Bueno slotted next to Jovan Lukic at the base of the midfield, and the attacking line was Indiana Vassilev, Ben Bender and Alejandro Bedoya behind Bruno Damiani up top. Andrew Rick was in net.

Vassilev had the most freedom on the left side to sneak into the front line off of Damiani to resemble the 4-2-2-2. Without the ball, the Union stayed in their 4-2-4 shape with an incredibly active front closing down Charlotte’s attempts to build out.

Charlotte deployed a 4-3-3 with Ivorian international Wilfred Zaha hanging out on the left wing and Pep Biel at the 10, as the two real sources of danger for the visitors.

The Union’s press and overall defensive work rate smothered Charlotte into little of the ball in the early stages and lots of hoofs towards striker Idan Gorno. Jakob Glesnes and Olwethu Makhanya cleaned up most of the two-on-ones, and Charlotte effectively retreated to a fairly conservative block between its own box and midfield.

The Union had to build up with more short passes and tidy footwork, also influenced by the personnel of Bender, Vassilev and Bedoya, operating without two strikers to make runs behind an already deep line. Combined with Lukic, Wagner, and Bueno, the Union were technically sharp around the field and able to work nifty one-twos and wide releases for shots near the top of the box, and cutbacks on the left side.

Bueno connected on a one-two for the first real warning shot of the night from distance, and even though it skied over, it was clear he had inherited Jean-Jacques’ role to provide support from the base of the midfield with forays forward.

The Union more or less battered Charlotte for the rest of the first half, with a pair of chances around the midpoint. Vassilev had a cutback just blocked and then Bender had a fizzed ball across the face of goal that Damiani couldn’t quite reach.

The same pattern found Damiani around 10 minutes later, but the Uruguayan smashed his point-blank effort off the legs of Charlotte’s keeper David Bingham.

Despite the Union’s dominance, which only forced one decent save out of Rick, it looked like they would have to settle for a 0-0 scoreline at halftime.

But Bueno smashed the door open on a deflected cross with a perfect two touches, rifling a left footed arrow from 25 yards past a thicket of bodies and out of Bingham’s reach.

It wasn’t the Union chance that should have gone in, but it was a fitting reward for the team’s industrious half, and for Bueno’s marauding spirit and willingness to rip from distance after finding himself in that dangerous pocket in front of the Charlotte backline.

After halftime, Carnell swapped Bedoya for Chris Donovan and Mbaizo for Frankie Westfield.

Donovan joined Damiani up top, and the plan was back to the outright 4-2-2-2, with the Union lining up against the ball and playing for transitions thanks to Donovan’s willingness to run hard and in behind.

The Union dared Charlotte to build through the middle and held a strong line of confrontation, winning plenty of turnovers to rush the other direction.

Charlotte forced the Union to run backwards with speculative long balls, and on a night when Bueno glided around the field seemingly faster than everyone, he pulled up on a hard defensive sprint with a tight hamstring in the 50th minute, on a play where Glesnes had to make a last ditch breakup.

Bueno had to exit six minutes later, and after Markus Anderson came in, the Union were pinned back a bit and tasked with holding a compact shape.

The game wildly broke open in the 72nd minute, when Glesnes picked up a loose ball and drove 40 yards upfield, and sliced in a delicious through ball like a pure number 10. Donovan couldn’t finesse his silver-platter effort around a stranded Bingham on a chance that went down as 0.4 xG, and the Union lead remained at one.

Immediately, Charlotte stormed the other way and launched a long ball for a one-on-one Liel Abada chance, but Wagner completed a lengthy defensive stride for a massive block.

Jeremy Rafanello entered for Bender in the 76th minute, and the relative skeleton crew left on the pitch yielded Charlotte equalizer a minute late to Zaha, who had done relatively little all game outside of collecting a yellow card for talking to the referee in the first half.

The former Crystal Palace star slid in a deceptively difficult volley into an empty corner of the net on a long cross from Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty over the entire Union backline.

It was a harsh but fair price to pay for Westfield, who lost his cover for a half second on Zaha. He had the sense to hold his run on the end of the line for a recycled ball. Marshall-Rutty did not aim his cross perfectly, but he managed a smartly shaped delivery that Zaha read faster than everyone else.

The equalizer felt like a gut punch for Union on a night when a depleted squad had done more than its share, with Zaha filling his role as the perfect road villain. But as is the Union’s spirit, the team immediately went right back at Charlotte to find a winner, and chaos ensued in the final minutes.

Both sides stretched into back-and-forth charges, and Westfield eventually paid back his mistake on a key clearance in the 85th minute after Rick had saved a chance from Abada, made manageable by a strong closing sprint from Glesnes.

Cavan Sullivan entered in the 92nd minute and the Union kept probing. Three minutes past the allotted five minutes of stoppage time, Sullivan initiated a right-sided move that resulted in a recycled headed cross from Westfield into the box. Even though Sullivan barely missed the ball on his run, space opened for Anderson just in front of the penalty spot.

Anderson caught the ball cleanly enough with a good screen from his defender to zip the ball just past Bingham for an euphoric winner, celebrated joyously in front of the River End.

Anderson delivered a frankly fantastical finish for the Union, in a season when the Union can’t stop collecting them. Some of that close-game payoff is certainly overdue from last year, but the Union have also karmically made their own luck with a relentless attitude regardless of the situation.