PBP: 2025 Eastern Conference Semifinals: Union vs. New York City FC, November 23, 2025 p/d/p

NYCFC will be without Alonso Martinez due to a knee injury he picked up while on international duty with Costa Rica.

 

Haiti and Jamaica both have big games coming up this week so best of luck to Andre and Danley. Cavan should be well rested for the game as the U17 run is over.

 

Due to an unfortunate nagging case of pneumonia and my drs advice I wont be going to the game. I have 2 tickets + parking available and I am trying to move them here before posting them on stub hub in hopes some union fans get them. I am asking what I paid, $203 total paypaled. I will eat the fees if you don't feel comfortable with friends and family. Please DM me for details if interested.

 

Winning is good tonic - hope you get better quickly.

 

Do I race down after work to attend??? Get done at 6ish, have to commute down from Conshy/Plymouth Meeting........

 

Just not our night. Done in by our own academy product.

Still one hell of a season. They got way farther than most people thought they would. January will be here soon, and preseason will be starting before we know it. As will the calls for the owners to spend more, Can't wait!

 

In one-and-done scenarios, that’s when it really helps to have individuals who can influence the game above the rest. The collective can achieve a lot in the long-term, but in those moments when everything is on the line you need some players who can create a moment of brilliance. I think it’s one of the reasons why this team has yet to win an MLS Cup despite amassing a lot of wins over the last half decade. Similar issues have sprout up in their Champions Cup appearances. The tournament format does not really lend itself to success with how the team is constructed.

 

Tough one but it's hard to feel too down on a season where we turned over half the starting lineup and were still able to get some silver even if it was just the salad plate. I imagine we will have some more turnover so I guess in terms of personnel decisions we are going to see if it really was the person or the system.

 

Like Evander and Denkey?

 

Not that I don't wish we would spend some more money here and there but I wonder what fans of teams that do spend a bit bitch about when they don't win anything? I am too lazy to venture into other teams forums to find out tho.

 

Some Atlanta fans just bitch about the Union and how our owner holds the league back........

For all of the money that FCC has spent since joining MLS, the Union have one more piece of hardware and more wins/points. They spent on Denkey and Evander specifically for games like the one on Sunday and they were invisible. I get that a moment of brilliance can win your team the odd game. I've been watching sports for over 40 years now (GD I'm getting old), and more often than not the players that step up in the biggest moments aren't the stars. Sure Curry, MJ, Messi have their moments. There are far more Robert Horry's, Craig Counsel's, Joe Girardi's, Jim Leyritz's, David Tyree's stepping up in the biggest moments.

It takes a good/great team to win championships/honors. Individual brilliance is only going to get you so far.

As fans we don't have patience, we want to win now. Taking a step back and looking at the past 8-10 years of the Union you can see that they have been building slowly. What they have is sustainable. IMO the next step is being fearless when it comes to player decisions. Hindsight is 20/20. Whether it's Ernst tanner or the next guy, they need to be more ruthless. Hindsight says that instead of trading Matt Freese, tradin/transfering club legend Andre Blake would have been the better move long term (based on current information). Just as an example.

The academy is producing a ton of talent. The players who don't necessarily fit the Union's playing style are being dols within the league and thriving as well. They have the means to build quality depth in house, and starters too. They just need to keep finding those players on the open market that improve the team, and the competition within the team for spots.

I hope they retain Bedoya in a FO position, perhaps as an assistant Sporting Director (similar to Albright's role when he was here). Or perhaps he works with Tim McDermott to help with getting the team a greater presence in the area.

 

I agree with both of these, and in fact with most of what you just said. But I’m not going back down from the argument of that a playoff structure requires slightly different attributes than what a full season requires. It’s not just in soccer, the Phillies are a prime example of this.

A team can be well built for the long-term without necessarily being ideally constructed for the high stakes short-term. Playoffs are flaky; they are about moments and capitalizing on them.

Two things can be true at once. You cannot win without a team fully committed together and working in tandem, and it’s also hard to win without anyone stepping up in the most important moments. Many of the teams that win MLS Cup possess both. Of course you can lose in the playoffs with a marquee midfielder or striker—there’s no guarantee. But the fact remains that the Union also continue to lose with their approach to first team construction, even when winning the Supports Shield.

If MLS were set up with a single table and no playoff structure, then I'd be content with how the Union build the first team. But, a playoff/tournament format has very temporal dynamics that are not exactly the same as the regular season. I’m suggesting it might behoove them to have an openness to tweaking their approach, not an overhaul (they don’t need to replicate what LAFC does). Because what they have been doing since the team’s inception has not yet brought them an MLS Cup. Feel free to think I’m an impatient and unlearned fan, but I don’t view what I’m saying as anything unreasonable.