Harrison, NJ- All good things must come to an end, and unfortunately for the Philadelphia Union, their unbeaten streak of 16 matches against the New York Red Bulls ended Saturday evening at Sports Illustrated Stadium as they fell 1-0. It was just 72 hours since the Union’s 3-2 comeback victory over the Red Bulls on Wednesday that saw the Union advance in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
Head coach Bradley Carnell had mentioned that there would be a bit of rotation in the starting eleven prior to the match. Indiana Vassilev was sidelined with a concussion and Jakob Glesnes was on yellow card suspension after the card he picked up during the Toronto FC match.
Overall, there were seven different rotations that Carnell elected to go with in the starting the eleven. Olivier Mbaizo got the start at right back, Nathan Harriel at centerback for the suspended Glesnes, and Jesus Bueno was in place of Danley Jean Jacques. Up top, Chris Donovan and Alejandro Bedoya got the start along with Milan IIoski getting his first start of his Union career with Mikael Uhre.
With the new set up in the press box this season at Sports Illustrated Stadium, the Sons of Ben supporters for Philadelphia were right next to the media, and as the match started up, the chants and cheers were loud and colorful to say the least.
Neither team really created opportunities of any consequence for the first 15 minutes or so. Red Bull would probably have the best chances in the first 20 minutes off two Emil Forsberg free kicks, the first which rattled dangerously in the box before being cleared out of the box. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting had a wonderful header chance later in a sequence to which Andre Blake made the initial save, however, it was apparent that either his hamstring or knee started acting up again, and the Jamican goalkeeper would have to be subbed out for homegrown Andrew Rick, who would come into the game in the 28th minute.
In the 38rd minute, Sergio Ngoma would break away on net, putting pressure on the back line. However, as had done already a few times in the in the half, Nathan Harriel came in with a great interception on the play to keep things even through the first 40. Mikael Uhre would close the first half with a shot attempt that he could not quite get settled to get a true touch on it as the shot would go wide of the net, ending the half with Philadelphia only having four shots with zero on target.
However, for rotating seven players, they as a whole did not play poorly in my opinion- they just could not finish their creating chances. In way, it mirrored the Union II match from the night before against Chicago Fire II.
Bruno Damiani would be the only halftime sub. As both clubs started the second half, each side would go down the field to create an opportunity where each side’s goalkeeper would make a routine save on.
Philadelphia would spend the next few moments of the match trying to get a few shots on target. While they did manage to get shots off, none were on target through 60 minutes played, which led Carnell to go to the bench to bring on Quinn Sullivan for Bedoya and Tai Baribo for Uhre.
Philadelphia thought for a moment that they would have an opportunity for take the lead when a foul inside the box would lead to a Bruno Damiani penalty kick. However, goalkeeper Carlos Coronel made a great save diving to his left for his first penalty save of the season and igniting the Red Bulls supporters, changing the momentum of the match in some ways.
Red Bulls went ahead as they did on Wednesday night, when Dylan Nealis would beat Andrew Rick to put the home side up 1-0 in the 74th minute. It would cause Bradley Carnell to go to the bench and bring Danley Jean Jacques in for Jesus Bueno.
Philadelphia would try to answer in the in 84th minute as Lukic would find Quinn Sullivan down the left flank allowing the midfielder to cross it into the box as the cross found the foot of Kai Wagner, whose shot just missed what would end up being Philadelphia’s best opportunity of the evening.
Philadelphia had one last chance to equalize the match with a free kick, and even had Rick pushed up into the fray and getting a header in, however after a few dangerous bounces here and there, the ball would sail over the goal post and with it so would the Union’s 16-match unbeaten streak against Red Bulls.
After the match, Carnell commented that it was a game of momentum, and up until the saved penalty, they were riding that. The save by Coronel ignited the Red Bulls and their fans, with the goal by them coming four minutes later.
Andrew Rick, who faced Red Bulls II on Monday in Union II’s 2-0 loss, commented on that momentum shift as well, saying “I feel like whenever someone makes a penalty save, it’s always a momentum shift. Credit to Carlos [Coronel], it was a great save. But I think I need to do a better job helping pick the team back up after that. It’s a difficult moment for all of us who want to go ahead and win, but when that happened, you know, I think too many heads dropped and we need we need people there to take them back up.”
Rick, for his part, did a solid job once he came into the match. He did not have much of a chance to warm up. On any updates on Blake, Carnell shared postgame, “He’s busy with the doctors right now. There’s something grabbing at the back of his leg. I think you somewhere on the hamstring, foot maybe. I don’t think it’s too bad from my gut feeling. Let’s just wait and see.”
“I thought Rick was composed,” Carnell commented. “He comes in. He takes it within his stride and these are good moments for him, not knowing when to come in unexpectedly and now he has to be at a high alert straight away. So it’s not easy to come into these type of environments. He did fine. I mean we didn’t give up much, we give up the goal basically on the one shot. I don’t think they recorded too many shots throughout the evening, so just a pity that the game ends the way it did.”
Rick even got in a header on the Union’s last ditch effort to score an equalizer in the dying moments of the match—a situation that was new for him.
“Yeah, I mean, they’re telling me to go forward; I’ve never been in that situation too much before,” he shared. “I’m going forward, so first instinct is to go forward to score. Once I get kind of in the area with the guys, like, I know we have some sort of set play going on, and stay out of it and kind of be like a second runner almost. And I see the ball go up, and the guy I’m marking was shorter. At that point, I was trying to head it in the air, trying to have someone not too close to Coronel or not too forward from the goal and just lift it up so that somebody could come and try and attack it. But, yeah, it’s definitely not something I’m used to doing.”
A positive of the match was Nathan Harriel filling in admirably at center back in place of Jakob Glesnes—something he has had to do from time to time. He has played at left and right outside back, and even as a midfielder, showing great versatility.
“Yeah, there’s Nate the teammate, and Nate the player on the field and off the field,” Carnell said of Harriel. “So, Nate is a prime example of what a pro should be like every single day and how he applies himself in training weeks and then he gets rewarded with national team call-ups and so on. So, you know, we can play him on the right, the left, the center. So, we’ve used him at right 10 and and I’ve spoken about his quality. He’s all over the field. So, we love having Nate around the group and we love it when he’s on the field. He makes big plays for us as do so many other guys and yeah, we just have to now refocus and and reset and go again in a must-win game next week.”
Harriel, for his part, was more focused on the team than how his performance was, and was visibly frustrated at the loss.
“I mean, I don’t care about how I individually did. Against Red Bull, that is the first loss in five and a half years, so at end of the day, I just really don’t care. We lost the game. That’s the most important thing. I never want to lose, I want to stay in first place, get Supporters’ Shield, MLS Cup. So, yeah, I’m really pissed off about you know, just losing this game.”
The loss was certainly a blow to the team who had been in first place to begin the evening, but fell to second after FC Cincinnati won their match later in the evening to pull one point ahead of Philadelphia.
“I mean, it stings a lot,” Rick remarked on the loss. “We’re trying to achieve something special this year and we all believe in each other, and Bradley came in and said afterwards like, we got to keep going, you know? It’s hard. Like, it stings, but you got to pick yourself up and go for the next one, and next week at home is a game that we want to win, you know? And it stings, but yeah, it always hurts to lose to rival.”
The Union return home next Saturday when they face the Chicago Fire at 7:30pm live from Subaru Park for Fiesta Hispana theme night. If you cannot make it down to Chester to see the match live it will be available to Apple TV+ as part of the MLS Season Pass.
Jillian Almoney contributed to this article.
Main article photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Union
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