PBP: 2018 Eastern Conference Knockout Round: New York City FC (3) v. Union (6) , October 31, 2018 p/d/p

We all know in club and school soccer the coach has to work with what he has...can’t go 3 in the back if you don’t have the skill etc.

At this level the club should have an approach, a way it plays, and then fills slots with appropriate and complementary players.

Instead, it seems they take what they can get each year and then try to make something out of it. The players aren’t complementary, sometimes you’d swear they have never met each other. (Like last night)

Certainly we don’t get more than the sum of the parts, if even that much.

Or, they have chosen a style of “Goodwill matched with homemade” and they are hitting it spot on.

 

TFC was god awful... but at the very least TFC was spending money and trying to figure things out.... we're sitting on our hands and not spending at all.

 

City has lost ONE game all season at home. They've dropped points only FIVE times at home all season. They were a legit Shield contender prior to Herrera going down with an injury for 3 months. This result shouldn't come as a shock.

The way the Union are constructed they have to have every player hitting on all cylinders for them to have a chance. That didn't happen last night.

 

This accurate. It's also bullshit. We shouldn't need to cross our fingers while praying to Jesus and hoping the stars align for a chance to win a game.

 

Nobody was shocked by the loss. The way they played was still shocking, though.

 

Some teams can claim they only play at Yankee stadium 1x and that is why they lost.

Twice in a week and it looked like they learned nothing.

If, on the bus ride home after the first game, Curtain said “ I’ve got it!, Crevealle starts...that’s all we need!” the driver should have stopped the bus.

Not exactly a tactical masterpiece to lose to the same team, by the same score, the same way, two games in a row.

 

that went about as well as I'd expected.

i was thinking about it after the game, and i dunno if i'd really call myself a union fan anymore. What's weird is that I probably appreciated the team on the field more than I have in several years. I love the league, and I watch eveyr union game i can, but...i'm not living and dying with the team like fans normally do. it's tough to when they're just not set up to be anything but the 5th or 6th best team in the east year after year.

when you go to other stadiums to see other teams in mls, it becomes really clear which teams are all-in on being the best versions of themselves and which just don't have it together. It doesn't have to be TFC spending a zillion dollars. Portland, KC, even DC all have an identity and a club culture and a philosophy that players and fans can invest in and believe in. you just don't feel that with the Union. Or at least I don't.

the union are definitely better than New England, though, and they don't play on a joke of a matchbox field...so, there's that?

 

I think this is spot on. The culture I sense around pretty much anything related to the Union first team is half-heartedness. I don’t mean this in terms of player effort, but in club ambition.

 

Depending on LAFC/RSL, it looks like the Union could be the only away team to not win their playoff match.
So that just makes the loss look even better.