FOXBOROUGH, Mass.— Looking to build off the scoreless draw from last weekend and hand New England their first loss at home, the Philadelphia Union took to the now-natural grass pitch at Gillette Stadium. Unfortunately, the scoring woes continued, and the Union were unable to get points on the road after initially leading the game, falling 2-1.
With Japhet Sery Larsen out with injury, Geiner Martinez got his first MLS start at center back with Olwethu Makhanya. Otherwise, Bradley Carnell’s starting lineup was the same as the previous match (Nashville). Andre Blake, the captain, was in goal. Nate Harriel and Frankie Westfield were left and right back, respectively. Danley Jean Jacques and Jovan Lukic were the defensive mids, while Cavan Sullivan and Indiana Vassilev were the attacking mids. Ezekiel Alladoh and Milan Iloski were the striker pair.
The first chance came for New England in the 8th minute when Luca Langoni sent the ball across the front of the goal, but luckily for the Union, no one was there to finish. In the 9th minute, Alladoh sent a great pass to Sullivan, who ran on goal, and should have perhaps taken the shot himself, but chose to cross it in front of the goal. Unfortunately, no teammate was able to send it home.
There was a stoppage in play midway through the first half as Westfield was in some pain after a hard foul was committed against him by Griffin Yow, and had to get treatment. It appeared to be an injury to his hip, and he eventually left the field, leaving the Union down a player for several minutes. Olivier Mbaizo, making his first MLS appearance of the season, came on in the 31st minute. New England took advantage of Westfield’s absence and brought a lot of pressure on that side of the field.
Carnell shared after the match that Westfield was in the hospital getting X-rays and confirmed it was something with his hip, and that he was not sure of Westfield’s status. Carnell was also frustrated, pointing out that there had been about three persistent fouls by Yow on Westfield, and no cards shown. In fact, none the whole game for the Revolution. “We’re the only team that gets shown cards, apparently,” Carnell said.
Lukic received the first yellow of the match after a foul on Carles Gil in the 34th minute. Then, in the 37th minute, Iloski ran on the ball toward goal, but Will Sands deflected it into the goal to put the Union up 1-0 via an own goal. On that play, Iloski’s elbow got injured, leaving him in some considerable pain. Carnell said later that he thought he hyper-extended it a little bit. While he left the field for a bit, he was ultimately able to continue.
As the match went into five minutes of first half stoppage time, Vassilev was shown a yellow card for a foul. The Union took the 1-0 lead to the locker room at the half.
The Union saw some chances early in the second half, including a header by Sullivan and a shot by Alladoh. Sullivan sent a great ball in that Matt Turner deflected out that found Alladoh, who just missed a goal if not for the goal-line clearance by Mamadou Fofana. It was a play that would come back to haunt the Union.
New England right away took the ball the other way, and moments later found the equalizer when Langoni shot the ball to to the right of Blake in the 61st minute. Carnell subbed off Alladoh and Iloski immediately after, bringing on Bruno Damiani and Agustin Anello.
Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Union.
New England seemed rejuvenated and kept bringing pressure on the Union. Carnell went to his bench in the 73rd minute, replacing Sullivan and Vassilev with Alejandro Bedoya and Malik Jakupovic.
Despite their best efforts, the Union conceded the go-ahead goal to New England in the 87th minute via Carles Gil, who the Union up until that point had largely stymied in a long list of their previous meetings. It was checked by VAR for a possible offside, but the goal stood. The Union battled during the five minutes of stoppage time, but were unable to break through the Revolution’s defense and fell 2-1.
Between the injuries, the lack of scoring, and some possible missed calls, the frustrations and pressure only continue to mount. After the match, Carnell was visibly frustrated.
“Obviously, tale of two halves, and, yeah, really disappointed to concede the two goals in the fashion we did after rallying and working so hard. And just the cycle of currently where we are, we have the 2-0 on the tips of our feet, you know, and that changes the complexion of the game. If you take the 2-0 lead there, away from home, I think the outcome becomes totally different. But, you know, currently where we are now, that type of emotional, sort of hit, you know, sets a tone, sets a pattern, and that’s something unfortunately we have to ride with.”
Carnell was clearly confused and irked at some of the calls on the field, and while not wanting to blame the officiating for the loss, he did question some of the calls made:
“And then the lead up to the to the goal, the first [New England] goal, the ref points to a goal kick, and then all of a sudden it’s overturned for a corner, and I’m told on the sideline by the fourth official that VAR recommended corner. I’ve never heard this, so I’m not sure if this is the new rules, or if this is the laws of the game that have changed overnight, and that’s not to blame for the loss tonight, but just not sure how that changes, you know, from having a signal—Tori [Penso] points to the goal kick spot, and then all of a sudden I turn around and I see it’s a corner being played.”
It was another night of missed chances, but one positive was another strong game from Cavan Sullivan. While he may have had a chance to score early on, and did well to create some build up and chances, he was kept off the score sheet. Still, the progress is there. Carnell sees it, and it seemed apparent that Carnell had built the game plan around Sullivan as he had against Nashville.
“I thought Cavan had another very productive game, and I saw him, you know, especially against the ball, I saw a big improvement against the ball as well,” Carnell said. “So, you know, if he carries on that, that’ll be excellent. And then we free up ourselves in the spaces in transition. And I thought we had many good transitional moments tonight that we could have capitalized on.”
Carnell summed it up by saying, “So again, the loss is on us, and Wednesday’s [match in Orlando]… we have to turn around. Feel sorry for the group, but there’s no use in feeling sorry for ourselves, you know. So we have to get over this as a group. Tale of two halves and we move on.”
The Union will play at Orlando City SC on Wednesday, May 13 at 7:30 PM, and the match can be viewed on AppleTV.
Main article photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Union.
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