The Philadelphia Union’s unbeaten streak at home snapped
By Nick Butler
The Philadelphia Union was outclassed by Eastern Conference rival Orlando City SC 2-1 to snap their 24-game unbeaten streak at home. Former goalie of Orlando City SC, Joe Bendik, got the nod last night from Union head coach Jim Curtin with Andre Blake still out due to injury. Orlando challenged Bendik early and was able to get the ball through the defense for two bad breakdowns and Bendik could not come up with the needed saves early to help this team. As the game went on, Bendik came up with big saves, but the team just couldn’t finish in the final third.
Jim Curtin knew what this meant for the fans and had a message for them.
“First and foremost, (I) apologize to our fans. It’s a feeling that we haven’t had in this building in 20 plus games and losing at home is something were never comfortable with, and it feels strange. We need to give credit to Orlando. They put us behind the 8 ball pretty quickly. The harder we tried, the worse it got. When you’re chasing the game down 2, plans start to go out the window. I take responsibility as the coach. I am the leader, so again, I apologize.” Jim Curtin started the press conference off saying last night.
The first ten minutes of a game have become a problem for the Union, and it showed when Ojeda scored the opening goal in 2′ minute of the game. The Union have had slow start, after slow start and it is starting to become an issue. Curtin said when Blake got hurt that it was time for the team to bail him out after all of the times, he has bailed them out. It just hasn’t happened, which is also why the team has just experienced a back-to-back lost for the first time in a long time.
Orlando scored their 2 goals at 2′ and 9′ minute of the first half. The first goal was a bad breakdown by the Union. It was close to being offsides, but VAR confirmed a good goal on a overhead through ball that threaded Ojeda for a one on one with Bendik. The Union seemed to have woken up a bit but began to break down trying to do too much. This leads to players going out of position and trying to play hero.
The Union got one back from former Orlando City SC Lion, Andres Perea. It was a good effort by Perea in the 17′ minute. Perea recovered his own rebound and pounded one into the back of the net to bring the Union within one goal. Unfortunately for the Union, that would be all the finishing they would have for the night.
The rest of the game was just the Union having chances and over committing and over playing themselves in the final third of the pitch. While Orlando City SC’s goalie, Mason Stajduhar, made some masterclass saves in order to keep his team in the lead and on top. While both teams were missing players due to the FIFA International Window, it did make things a little more difficult for the Union. Even so, there are no excuses and the Union need to be much better moving forward!
The Union play at home on Saturday hosting Sporting Kansas City at 7:30pm ET at Subaru Park.