Philadelphia Union: Playoff chances are almost gone; Part II of Positional Breakdown

Record: 4-10-4

10 pts back from final wildcard spot (as of August 13^th)

Since my last article, the Union has played two more matches with a 3-1 loss to FC Dallas and a 1-1 draw with Real Salt Lake.

I was only able to watch the highlights for the Dallas match but the game looked fairly ugly thanks to an early, well-deserved red card on backup Union goalkeeper Brad Knighton (in his first MLS start with Philadelphia). Philadelphia struck first with Alejandro Moreno’s first goal of the season but gave up the equalizer on the penalty kick (associated with the red card). They then held FC Dallas off for an impressively long time playing a man down but succumbed to two goals late in the game.

The Real Salt Lake match was much more enjoyable. Playing the defending champs (who many analysts believe are better than last year) is never easy, particularly an expansion team down on their luck who got walloped 3-0 last time these two teams met. Philadelphia desperately needs wins right now instead of ties, but there could have been worse ties than this. The Union scored early with one of the most spectacular one-two plays I’ve ever seen. Sebastien Le Toux did an amazing flick into space within the box and a very composed and confident Danny Mwanga (19 yr old rookie) put it away with ease. Even non-soccer fans should check this out. On a side note, the difference between Mwanga in the beginning of the season and now is striking. Danny already looks like a polished veteran and has a very bright future ahead of him.

Unfortunately, the Union was unable to resist handicapping themselves again as newly signed Philadelphia defender Juan Gonzalez (2^nd start) received a ball awkwardly, fell down without outside contact, and gave up a relatively easy goal to the 2009 champs. The remainder of the first half generally belonged to Salt Lake but the entire second half belonged to Philadelphia. The score remained unchanged, however, and both teams will have to walk away with one point. It really is something with this team: I would have to argue that Philadelphia is one of the top teams in the MLS in creating scoring opportunities but simultaneously is probably the worst team in converting chances into goals.

Philadelphia’s playoff picture looks pretty grim. They are 10 points back (3 wins and 1 tie) from Toronto who is in shape to take the 8^th place seed if the season ended today. To have a realistic shot at the playoffs, the Union probably needs to win 7-9 of their last 12 matches and they can afford to lose no more than 0-3 matches (depending on how many wins). This is a difficult task when considering they have won only 4 games in their first 18 matches, but it isn’t insurmountable. If you’ve watched the games rather than just read the scores, you know that this team could very easily have 10 wins if they simply stopped defeating themselves which is why I maintain that their playoff hopes are plausible. If the team knocks off the amateur mistakes and/or puts away a higher percentage of their scoring chances, they will start cranking out the wins.

Another side note is that Philadelphia needs to figure out what to do on set pieces. Philadelphia had 10 corner kicks against Real Salt Lake and really only threatened to score on one of them.

The team faces Colorado on Saturday. Colorado is currently in 7^th place in the overall standings and is therefore a wildcard rival of the Union. This is a must-win game for the Union if they want to be optimistic about their playoff hopes. In addition to getting the win, a high percentage of goal-per-opportunity conversions and/or the team’s first ever shutout could give the players just the confidence and push they need to get this offensive boulder rolling downhill.

Positional Breakdown Part II: Goalkeepers

When you look at the goals against for the Union, it may be tempting to say that this group and the defenders are what drag Union wins into ties and Union ties into losses but you have to understand the team strategy before making that judgment. Peter Nowak’s strategy is attack, attack, attack. More often than you would think there are only two defenders covering back because the outside fullbacks have instructions to get involved in attacking runs and the best header-players (including defensive anchor Danny Califf) go up on set pieces. The team has still given up more goals than they should, but the stats don’t tell the real story here.

Goalkeepers are tricky to evaluate. In my experience, there aren’t usually many goals scored that you can blame on the keeper. Most of the time, a defender or a midfielder did something that deserves the majority of the blame. However, a goalkeeper who saves everything he should but nothing else is a very sub-par goalie. It is the number of extraordinary saves that takes them to average status and beyond.

Chris Seitz:
Chris has held the starting job from day 1 of the MLS season. He was pretty awful early in the season including a sickening giveaway against D.C. United. In that case, Seitz was oblivious to the close proximity of the D.C. player and during his drop kick had the ball stolen right in front of his feet leading to a horrifying goal which tied the game at 2-2 (Philadelphia ended up winning 3-2 anyway). Team manager Peter Nowak stuck with his man, though, and has been rewarded with much-improved play. Seitz has continually shown improvement and recently made several great saves against Real Salt Lake alone. I think the job is his until he loses it with a slew of bad-performing games, especially after Brad Knighton’s red card in his first Philadelphia MLS start.

Brad Knighton: The team’s backup goalkeeper has ridden the bench most of the season though is entrenched as 2^nd string despite the team having three goalkeepers until recently (the Union's 2010 4^th-round draft pick Brian Perk was recently released, which was probably done as a favor to him so he could get playing time elsewhere. He was picked up by the L.A. Galaxy to play for one of their minor-league affiliates nearby his home). Brad saw some playing time in friendly matches against Celtic FC and Manchester United in which he looked very good. Unfortunately, in his first league-match start with Philadelphia against FC Dallas (presumably to give Seitz a break, not to give Knighton a starting-role-tryout) Knighton fumbled a relatively easy ground ball and then practically tackled the on-rushing forward to keep him from getting the loose ball. This led to an obvious red card ejection for denying a goal-scoring opportunity and a penalty-kick goal. The Union was then forced to replace a position player with Seitz and play down a man for the remainder of the match (which they lost 3-1). Brad is still a top-notch backup keeper, but I’d prefer to see Seitz stay healthy and in the net for the rest of the season.