Team Record: 4-8-2 (3-1-1 at home)
Before I start, I just want to congratulate all of the other writers and broadcasters on this website’s one-year anniversary. It has been a pleasure writing for this blog. I’m particularly looking forward to the Eagles season when I will have more to write about.
As we go into the MLS All-Star break, I thought I’d write about two things. One: Why the Union and the MLS can be more fun to watch than International/European soccer for those who aren’t soccer purists. Two: How the Union is doing and what to expect from the rest of the season.
If I can get any non-soccer fans to read this, I’ll address their complaints first. The number one complaint I hear from people who won’t watch soccer is that the game can (and does) end in a 0-0 tie. I understand their point to some degree as ties are bad enough to watch without adding in a lack of any scoring. Well, while I can’t speak to the entirety of MLS, I can tell you somewhat enthusiastically that if you follow the Union, you won’t wind up seeing many of them. The Union are a very attack-minded team which, while helping offensively, can leave the defense weak and vulnerable. Never more obvious than recently against San Jose when, while the Union was desperately playing for the win rather than the tie, the team’s backfield was nearly deserted on a counter-attack leading to a painful Union loss in extra time. The Union has managed to shut out opponents a grand total of zero times during league matches and have likewise been shut out only three times themselves in fourteen matches. For better or for worse, there is more scoring in Union matches per game than for any other team in Major League Soccer (3.14 goals / game).
The number one complaint I hear from people who don’t really enjoy soccer but still gave it the old-college-try is the absurd frequency and referee tolerance of diving (which is also my number one complaint). I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t happen in the MLS but it doesn’t happen anywhere near as often as we just watched in the World Cup. MLS has an American-player quantity requirement for the league and I believe that Americans don’t tend to play diving-style soccer. We’re too used to watching and playing very physical sports in which showing weakness makes you a target.
MLS is getting better too. It’s not one of the best leagues in the world, certainly, but it is definitely getting better. This can certainly be demonstrated by Kansas City’s win over Manchester United in a friendly, the Union’s win over Celtic FC, and the Union’s narrow 1-0 loss to Manchester United. Sure, certainly, both Celtic and ManU are in preseason shape and they were playing SOME of their younger players, but so were the MLS teams. I’m very curious to see how the MLS All-Stars do against ManU on Wednesday, when the touring team starts rolling out their bigger stars, and the MLS team doesn’t have as much chemistry together.
So you’ve decided to give the league/sport a shot. That’s great, good choice, I’ll catch you up right here! Or you’re a fan already but just want to read my take on the team thus-far. Excellent choice as well. Here’s your primer on the Philadelphia Union nearly half-way through the season.
ASIDE: Ok, so it turns out that I can’t write and watch a Phillies’ game at the same time (nice to see them winning again though, isn’t it?), so while I have my overall breakdown of several topics on the Union, I’ll have to present my player analysis later in the week because I need enough sleep to stop requiring 3 cups of coffee a day at work.
The Uuuuuuunion:
The Philadelphia Union may be 4-8-2, but you would think those win and loss columns are reversed by just watching them play. Particularly during the early games in the season, fans would watch the team play an excellent, win-worthy game collectively and then be disappointed by a couple of stupid individual mistakes that rob them of points in the standings. An alarmingly rapid collection of red cards (often when already down a goal) kept the Union from being able to play 11 men on the field too many times as well as playing their full starting roster for the following game (due to 1-game suspensions after receiving a red card). The team has rebounded, however, and looks sharper than ever. They are currently 9 points (equal to 3 wins) behind the leader (Toronto and Colorado tied) for the fourth and final wildcard (eighth overall) playoff spot but they have played two fewer games. With 16 games remaining in the season they are far from out of reach of this goal, particularly if they continue their upward trend and remain healthy with several key players.
Philadelphia is still quite vulnerable on counterattacks which is delaying the team’s first ever league-match shutout (They defeated Celtic FC, a Scottish soccer juggernaut, 1-0 in a friendly two weeks ago) but they have become particularly dangerous on offense with the rise of rookie and first-overall-draft-pick Danny Mwanga complimenting Alejandro Moreno and All-Star Sebastien Le Toux up top.
It is also very worth knowing that Philadelphia had a very road-heavy schedule in the beginning of their season in order to give more time for PPL Park, Chester’s brand new soccer-specific stadium, to complete building. The team is 3-1-1 at home including a recent, disastrous tie-turned-loss against San Jose in stoppage time as Union defenders pushed up too much on a corner kick in the hopes of getting the win. This home record is very encouraging as the team enters a stretch with more home games than road games.
PPL Park, and Lincoln Financial Field before that, is definitely a big home-field advantage for our boys. Despite having only an 18,000 seat stadium, Philadelphia stills draws the second-most fans per game in the MLS at 22,619 thanks to two games at Lincoln Financial Field which drew a total of roughly 60,000 fans. Even this past week at the Linc as the Union played Manchester United in a friendly, when probably 70% of the fans were dressed in ManU colors, you could easily hear the booming chants of Philadelphia’s rabid fan group, the Sons of Ben (of which I am a proud member). Particularly loud was as the opposing goalkeeper would take his goal-kicks, you could hear on TV clear-as-day the SOB’s chanting “YOU SUCK A__HOLE” which is also a familiar chant at U.S. games.
I have yet to watch a Union game (home or away) on TV without hearing the broadcasters praise the Philadelphia fan base for their enthusiasm for soccer as well as their rather large and active role in bringing a franchise to this city at all. Yes you heard me correctly: SPORTSCASTERS PRAISING PHILADELPHIA FANS. At least in this sport we don’t yet have to hear announcers rant about snowballs at Santa, stadiums with their own judge, or how we don’t show enough gratitude to underperforming sports figures drawing eight-figure salaries.
Team Manager Peter Nowak and Coach/Youth Development Coordinator John Hackworth have done a fantastic job with this squad so far. You can tell that these men have had a tremendous impact on rookie, 19-year-old Danny Mwanga’s growth. Mwanga struggled early in the season with the pace of the professional game but has come to be arguably the favorite in competition for the Rookie of the Year award having scored 6 goals and 2 assists with only six starts (although he played in eleven matches) including a stoppage-time game equalizer and a stoppage-time game winner. They made some right moves GM-style with a great expansion draft, a fantastic SuperDraft (2 additional first round picks acquired), as well as the acquisition of mainstay starters Chris Seitz, Danny Califf, Cristian Arrieta, Fred, Michael Orozco Fiscal, and Roger Torres by means of signings, trades, and borrows (players on loan from other non-MLS teams).
While I plan to do player analysis breakdown in a later article, I couldn’t finish this one without talking about Sebastien Le Toux. The sole representative from the Union at the All-Star game tomorrow has been a sensational surprise. Though a popular Seattle role player, he was left unprotected during the expansion draft and Peter Nowak didn’t hesitate before picking him up. Putting him into his more natural position in the center (instead of the wing as he was in Seattle) combined with extensive playing time has turned the 26-yr-old Frenchmen into an MLS standout. His combined goal and assist total (14) is tied for first in the MLS along with Seattle Sounders’ star Fredy Montero and U.S. World Cup Team/L.A. Galaxy representatives Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle. Although he finished second in all-star fan voting for midfielders, he was not one of the five midfielders chosen for the First XI All-Stars (fan voting only accounts for a quarter of the weight of these selections) but Le Toux made an obvious Coach’s Pick to join the team and possibly even start tomorrow night against Manchester United.
Besides Le Toux’s obvious offensive production with 7 goals and 7 assists, he is the ultimate lead-by-example sports figure. The man runs like no soccer star I’ve ever seen. He runs EVERYWHERE. He can frequently be seen sprinting to chase down a pass-back to the goalkeeper on the 1-in-50 off-chance that the goalie will make a mistake and give up an easy goal. Most fans would consider it fool-hardy to chase down such plays as it wears you down for more important chances but with Le Toux, you’ll notice him moments later all the way back on defense before the opposing offense is organized (putting NBA players everywhere to shame). Nor does he need a sub part-way through the second half as he keeps up his hard-driving tempo through all 90+ minutes. When the team’s most popular and most productive star plays at 120% doing the dirty work as well as the fun work, EVERYONE plays at 120%.
Too often in the soccer world, players are judged by their statistics in a game where objective statistics rarely, if ever, tell you the real story. Strikers (where Le Toux played until Mwanga emerged, then Sebastien moved to attacking Center Midfielder) are often judged and paid almost solely on the number of goals they score regardless of how much they really created the goals. Too often this corrupts players into taking shots when a pass would be better. Not Sebastien. He plays incredibly unselfish soccer. I’ve seen several opportunities this half-season alone in which Sebastien will have a shot with a 90% success rate, but he’ll pass it at the last moment to give his team a 95% chance to score. This was particularly evident to me during the emergence of Danny Mwanga as a goal-scorer. What effect has this had? I may be over-optimistic, but I see all of the other attacking players working a real team game as well. Many of our best offensive players appear to be playing unselfishly as well, including Mwanga who at 19 is very impressionable. All five of who I would consider as the team’s main attackers in Le Toux, Mwanga, Moreno, Fred, and Torres all have at least one assist and except Fred have at least as many assists as goals. Needless to say, Philadelphia is very lucky to have Sebastien Le Toux and he is enormously popular amongst fans as well as teammates.
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