Chester, PA – On a perfect August Saturday night at Subaru Park, the Philadelphia Union looked poised to claim all three points against Toronto FC after an early strike from Indiana Vassilev. But despite a strong start and several chances to extend their lead, the Union were forced to settle for a 1–1 draw after a late stoppage-time equalizer from the visitors. The match also marked the debut of newly acquired forward Milan Iloski, as head coach Bradley Carnell continues to fine-tune for the playoff push.
Bradley Carnell’s starting eleven for the evening was pretty much his tried-and-true lineup when everyone is healthy. Tai Baribo and Bruno Damiani started up top, with Quinn Sullivan and Indiana Vassilev as the attacking midfielders. Danley Jean Jacques and Jesús Bueno started in place of Jovan Lukic, who began the match on the bench. The back line featured Kai Wagner, Olwethu Makhanya, Jakob Glesnes, and Nathan Harriel, with Andre Blake in goal rounding out the eleven.
On the bench, newly acquired forward Milan Iloski began the evening alongside Mikael Uhre, Frankie Westfield, Alejandro Bedoya, Cavan Sullivan, Olivier Mbaizo, Jeremy Rafanello, and Andrew Rick. The aforementioned Lukic completed the group heading into the match with Toronto FC.
The Philadelphia Union struck first in the 4th minute in a beautiful sequence capped off by Indiana Vassilev’s third goal of the season. The play started with Olwethu Makhanya playing the ball out from the back, followed by a quick sequence of one-touch passing from Philadelphia. That movement led to Tai Baribo switching the ball over to Vassilev, who found himself wide open in a 1v1 with Toronto FC goalkeeper Luka Gavran. The midfielder stayed composed and finished past the keeper to put Philadelphia up 1–0 just four minutes in. For Baribo, it was his third assist on the season.
As Carnell had stated earlier in the week, Toronto proved difficult to break down and was very quick to counter. Outside of the early goal, Toronto countered at will, with Ola Brynhildsen proving to be a menace on the ball. However, Makhanya and the Union defense came up with timely stops to keep the visitors at bay.
In the 29th minute, Jakob Glesnes picked up a yellow card on his first foul of the match, which will force him to miss the next game due to yellow-card accumulation. One would expect Jakob to play the full 90 minutes this coming Wednesday perhaps due to now missing Saturday’s match at the New York Red Bulls. Look for either Nate Harriel, Frankie Westfield, or even Jovan Lukic who played the position during the Columbus Crew match on the road to fill that role.
When asked about should the Union go out and get another center back during this current transfer window, Carnell only mentioned that the window was still open anything is still possible.
Toronto began to grow into the match as the first half wore on. By halftime, Philadelphia was being outshot 3–2, with each team having one shot on target—the difference being that Philadelphia made theirs count.
“We started the game really well, said Bradley Carnell, and rewarded ourselves with the early goal, and then yeah, became a bit of a sluggish night, a little bit disconnected at times. And yeah, a little bit of, we had to grind through to get through this game.”
The Union thought they had doubled their lead when, off a set-piece delivery, Bruno Damiani mistimed his header. Gavran failed to handle the ball cleanly, and it spilled free to Tai Baribo, who headed it home for what seemed like a 2–0 lead. However, after a VAR check by head official Tori Penso, it was ruled that Baribo was in an offside position when the initial ball was played.
“Still waiting for the clarification on that [in regards to the decision to overturn the goal]. I’ve looked at it a couple of times, still not sure. And then that just sways the momentum of the game. It just kills our, yeah, it just kills something in us.”
Both Baribo and Damiani were then subbed off for newly acquired forward Milan Iloski and Mikael Uhre in the 67th minute. Iloski played the remainder of the match and had his first shot in the blue and gold, which was blocked by the defense, otherwise it probably would have ended up on target. However, for the most part, you can still see that he is figuring out his new teammates, which is not to say he played poor at all—just needs time to build chemistry. You see why the Union are very high on him as well, with his runs and putting himself in good positions in the attack areas.
However, then the emotions started to hit the game as a scuffle broke out after Makhanya accidentally struck Gavran in the groin following a corner kick. The play had already been whistled dead for a foul, but it appeared Makhanya did not hear the whistle, which led to some heated words between both sides as Deandre Kerr pushed Makhanya to the grown and both teams had to be separated.
“I feel we should, you know, try and stay as—and I know it’s a game of emotions—as machine-like as possible,” Carnell reflected. “You know, without, there’s all the shoving, pushing on set pieces. Then there’s all the time delaying, and then it’s this one, and that’s that one. So, you know, just, I think, trying to stay out of the emotional context of the game, which is never easy, and then we have the high of scoring the second goal, and then the disappointment of it not being allowed for what reason whatsoever we’re still waiting on that.”
Jovan Lukic, Cavan Sullivan, and Alejandro Bedoya would round out the home side’s final substitutions as both teams found opportunities late in the second half. Toronto’s best chance came when Andre Blake made a great save, with the rebound falling back into the box—only for Nathan Harriel to clear it away to keep Philadelphia’s lead intact. Moments later, Gavran returned the favor with a save of his own.
However, with 10 minutes of stoppage time, the lead was not meant to last. One minute in, Toronto’s Deandre Kerr slipped in behind the Union back line and slotted home the equalizer, leveling the match at 1–1, which is how it would end.
On conceded the late goal Carnell would add:
“I think everybody’s disappointed. You know, a clean sheet would have been nice. We’ve been looking for that next clean sheet, and it’s just unfortunate. We play the 90 minutes through with the clean sheet and just concede late on. The guys are disappointed enough, you know. So we don’t take it personally. We just have to take it on the chin and move on to the next one.”
Philadelphia has now conceded 8 goals during the 76-90+ minute time frame and while they have scored 13 during that time, there are games against Columbus, Inter Miami, and Nashville amongst others that seem to come back to bite this club as it makes a push to the playoffs. The good news is they will not have to stew too long over it.
The Philadelphia Union return this Wednesday, August 13th, at 7:30 p.m. for their makeup match from July in the 2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinals against the New York Red Bulls. The match will be available on Paramount+ for those who cannot make it to Subaru Park.
“We want to win here. We want to win big,” said Union midfielder Indiana Vassilev. “We want to, you know… we’re confident here. We win a lot of games here. I think it’s also within us. We feel for a certain pride playing here. We want to produce for ourselves, but we also produce for the fans. People pay money to come watch us. Guys are tough, forces tough, positive resembles the game. Move on, heads held high and go on the next one”
Main article photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Union.
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