CHESTER – Away from Chester in 2024, the Philadelphia Union have looked like the playoff team it believes itself to be.
Home games seemed to be another matter, one that left manager Jim Curtin reminding his team all week that it’s not about how they started the season, but how they finish it.
It doesn’t hurt that lately, his team’s attacking corps has done a lot of finishing.
Daniel Gazdag bagged a brace, Mikael Uhre scored for the fourth straight game and the Union ripped apart the team directly below it in the standings, D.C. United, for a 4-0 win that puts them back above the playoff line.
The Union (9-12-9, 36 points) started the weekend in ninth place and will end it there, but they’ve closed the gap to eighth-place Toronto, on whom they have a game in hand. Toronto owns the first tiebreaker of total wins (11), despite the Union’s goal differential being 27 better. The Union are five points behind seventh-place New York City with four games to play.
It’s the Union’s fifth win in seven league games (5-2-0). The Union are eighth in road points with 20 but next-to-last with 16 at home. They can solidify their Chester progress against 11th-place Atlanta United on Saturday.
The Union have ridden an inversion of the usual order of MLS: They struggled through the summer, mainly at home, mainly against inferior teams. With seven of their last nine against teams in playoff positions, including trips to both New York teams and Miami, they’ve righted the ship.
“Our schedule has been very, very tough down the stretch,” Curtin said. “I think our last 10 games, it’s quite a gauntlet, and it’s the top teams. But our group usually does best against the top teams. We’re in this position because we were bad against the teams that are struggling. The bottom teams, we haven’t punished.”
Starting fast has been a cornerstone of success away from home, one of many aspects the club hoped to graft onto home field. Though D.C. United had a handful of early chances and Curtin wasn’t pleased with his team’s start, the Union cashed in the two best opportunities of the early going.
Both were generated from the right flank.
In the 12th minute, Quinn Sullivan drove through two defenders and got to the end line. He waited for the play to develop, and when two center backs gravitated toward Tai Baribo at the near post, Sullivan pushed a pass hard and low across the face of goal for an Uhre tap-in, his 10th goal of the season. Uhre joins Gazdag as the only two Union players to have ever scored at least nine goals in three straight seasons.
Gazdag doubled the lead in the 16th minute. Again it was the right flank, this time Nathan Harriel getting forward. Harriel couldn’t find Baribo with his cutback, but Gazdag got to the loose ball in the box to rifle home a shot that goalie Alex Bono only waved at. The Union were specifically targeting the position vacated by suspended left center back Lucas Bartlett, which forced a personnel change by D.C. at halftime.
The Union didn’t let up after halftime and made it three in the 51st. Sullivan again danced around a defender near the edge of the box. His cross cut out the defense and found Baribo, who cushioned a header into the yawning cage.
“He’s doing an amazing job,” Gazdag said of Baribo. “He stepped in instead of Julian (Carranza) very well. He took his place in the team and he is scoring an incredible amount of goals, so he helps us a lot.”
For Sullivan, it’s the 10th league assist of the season. That’s just the 12th such season in club history, and he’s the first Homegrown player to have 10 goals or assists in a single season.
Baribo turned provider in the 69th when he picked off a loose back pass. He and Gazdag were sent in alone on a center back, Baribo slipping to Gazdag for his 17th goal of the season. For Baribo, it’s now 16 goals and three assists in 18 games since becoming a starter.
It’s the second consecutive game in which all three members of the Union’s front three scored.
“Sometimes soccer is very simple,” Curtin said. “When they’re very close together, we score goals, whether it’s off other teams’ mistakes. But you can see in the film — and New York City was a great example — all three of those guys could almost hold hands when the ball hit the back of the net in every instance. So that’s something that we work with them. We preach to them.”
Andre Blake returned to action after missing two games with a hamstring injury. He made five saves, including a superb flying denial of a Mateusz Klich effort in the 11th minute. He pawed away Christian Benteke’s bid to end the shutout in the 81st. Benteke, the MLS scoring leader, had two shots on target for an xG of just 0.1.
The club is 5-2-1 in all competitions this season in games where Blake plays at least a half.
NOTES >> Uhre’s four-game goal-scoring streak in league play is one shy of Gazdag’s club record from Aug. 20-Sept. 10, 2022. … Cavan Sullivan subbed on in the 86th minute for his second league appearance. He registered his first shot on goal, assisted by Quinn, that Bono just tipped over in stoppage time. Sullivan turns 15 on Saturday. … Kai Wagner was subbed out in the 71st, as a precaution for some hamstring tightness and also because he is one yellow card away from a suspension.
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