Philadelphia Union 4-1 FC Cincinnati: All Kinds of Things Blowing in Their Faces, Plus a Toronto FC Scouting Report!

The wind was a factor, but not an excuse.

“…I can’t imagine a world where Philadelphia pushes Cincinnati around and back like they did against the Lions. Everything I’ve seen from them tells me Cincy will defend not just higher, but more aggressively than Orlando ever did…”

Few things kick a guy’s ego harder than seeing a confident prediction (from here; scroll way down) blow up in his face in just four days’ time. The Philadelphia Union shoved FC Cincinnati into a fucking locker last Saturday, posting a 4-1 home win that left their fans merrily dooping into the night. By the time the ref blew the final whistle, Philly had made off with their lunch money, best friend and first two girlfriends.

About the Game
Both teams came to battle and both looked game for it – even after the Union forced their first goal around Cincy’s right flank a mere six minutes into the game. Related, if mostly in a vibez/spiritual sense, Kai Wagner’s decision to continue his overlapping run contained the seed narrative for the way the entire game played out. Philadelphia’s players read a bounce before Cincy’s time and time again and saw a play develop two beats ahead: whether it was a sixth sense or the sixth day into some shared Groundhog Day, everything a Union player touched turned into something a little better; they played with their wind at their backs, literally, and somehow in both directions. Another thing I noticed: Philly didn’t press, at least not in a greyhound-after-a-mechanical rabbit way; it was more pushing a 4-2-4 to the top of Cincinnati’s defensive third, daring them to play, then getting after anything that moved like a greyhound getting after a mechanical rabbit. The approach proved beyond effective. Cincy struggled to get the ball to the center-stripe and saw it roll back into their defense more times than the Union’s 14 shots (7 on goal!) suggest. Philadelphia would score two more – one at the 30th minute, which included one of those moments when you appreciated VAR for teaching refs some humility (this was an easy call in real time), the second at the 52nd when Tai Baribo wrapped up his hat trick – without Cincy showing any meaningful signs of life. Cincinnati continued to play as if running knee-deep through mud even after Evander scored A Very Evander Goal (i.e., he did it all, start to finish). I’m told Cincinnati fired seven shots somewhere from inside that void and I’m guessing three of those shots and both of the shots on goal came at the end of Alvas Powell’s run from right back to (near) glory just after the 70th minute (this made the full highlights). If this game has a “what might have been,” it was Kevin Denkey tagging his rebound off Andre Blake’s right post instead of into the goal. If that shot goes in, maybe Philly sweats a little instead of making a feast out of another turnover by way of (the impressively effective) Quinn Sullivan feeding Uruguayan striker Bruno Damiani for their fourth. The game was over before it started and Baribo is, however implausibly, the current 2025 Golden Boot leader.

Philadelphia Union Scouting Report: A Tale of Fatigue, Potential Underperformance & Absences

Union fans, from what I gather and despite everything.

The Philadelphia Union limps into Providence Park this Saturday, mostly likely with a goal of playing for another draw or just not collectively expiring outright at the 64th minute, if not prior. Early as it is in 2024, the Union have got already around. And the experience has not always been pleasant (see, "violently ejected" below).

Some Basics

Were it not for the abandoned match versus the Seattle Sounders a couple weeks back, this would have been the ninth game of Philly’s season. Trips to San Juan de Tibas, Costa Rica and Pachuca, Mexico in the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup (CCC) (and Kansas City and Austin) padded their frequent-flyer miles but all that flying and shitty airplane air takes its toll. For good or ill – here, it depends on whether they value getting a little rest over their self-esteem - Pachuca violently ejected them from the CCC just over a week ago, giving the Union its first full week’s rest since February 20.

Meanwhile, back in MLS’s regular season, Philly have played three games and finished in as many draws, all against teams that barely impress their own fans, aka, Chicago Fire FC at home and Sporting Kansas City and Austin FC away. Because all those games struck me as non-events, I skipped ‘em. As such, last night was my first long look at the Union this season. I didn’t go in blind, mind you: a quick tour through the (mildly authoritarian) Philly subreddit provided some context. To parse the sum of two threads (here's the other thread), the blowout at Pachuca magnified some anxieties – mostly about the defense, if with a dash of pining for Leo Flach* – but a lot of commenters have embraced a long-view/Zen philosophy to their team’s sputtering start.

The Review

I heard rumors (here) about Austin ditching the possession-heavy approach of seasons past and drifting toward more of a transition model. That made the Union’s 2-2 draw at Austin last weekend feel like a good model for how Philly might play the Timbers. With that, lights, camera…replay!

Austin v Philadelphia, in General

The Timbers can go a long way toward making things easier this Saturday night by being clean on the ball – and, to be clear, Austin fucked up with and without pressure from Philly.

Philadelphia Union v FC Cincinnati Preview: Go Forward, Move Ahead, etc.

Scoring against Philly, a visual.

As anyone who finds this preview already knows, FC Cincinnati breaks back into the regular season swing with a trip to Chester,PA/the Philadelphia Union. A tall order, certainly, but the odds of Cincy pinching a point have improved in recent weeks. Let’s start with some facts:

Philadelphia Union
Record/Basics: 6-1-7, 3-0-4 home; 19 gf, 10 ga, +9 goal differential
Last 10: WWWLTTTTWT (4-1-5; 2-0-3 home)
Oppo: @ NYC, v CLT, v CLB, @ TOR, v MTL, @ LAFC, v RBNY, v MIA, @ POR, @ NE

What We Know About Them
They don’t lose, especially at home, but they also stopped beating everyone but the (fucking) Portland Timbers (in fucking Portland) after Match Day 7. Because the Union played two tricky games...and Portland on the road, picking out their latest trends gets tricky. That said, I think they possess when they have to (e.g., at home), but generally don’t give a shit about possession “the concept” and exploit in-game dynamics. Philly has fallen off the pace on goals scored of late, even if the opposition explains it away - those last five are tougher than leather - but they are also flaming-rings-of-hell-hard to score against. People have kicked them for the bender of ties they’re on, but, again, see the opposition and make your own call on what to call that share of the points. Related, and unless I miss my guess, your average Philly fan sees home against FC Cincinnati as a must-win.

Notes on Recent Form
First and foremost, not giving up the Snuggles-soft goals the way the Timbers did will carry Cincy halfway to one point. In the results worth noting, they showed well at LAFC despite giving up two soft goals and, had they not got in their own hustling way, they would have taken all three points at home against the Red Bulls; one more soft goal, two more points wafted into the night air like a silent, unclaimed fart. The Union coughed up an eye-catching number of good looks to New England, but it also looked like it didn’t take more than showing a little interest for the Union to get back into the game. Finally, I was too bored to look into the goal-less home-draw at Miami, but the headline doesn’t scream “league elite,” now does it?

Portland Timbers 0-2 Philadelphia Union: A Meditation on an Attack

Is he angry because he doesn't know where to go?

Someone else fired the Portland Timbers’ first shot on goal - I don’t remember who it was, but also, does it matter? - but Bill Tuiloma got their best one. The fact he fired it well past the 80th minute, may have even been after the 85th, says plenty, but I’m less concerned about the specific identity of the man who fired it than I am by the fact that Timbers can’t seem to generate offense without the ball coming forward at just the right angle and to an attacking player in just the right space. You?

The last 10 minutes of the Timbers' 0-2 home loss to the Philadelphia Union gave a glimpse into an alternate universe where Portland threw caution to the wind for the full 90 minutes and made Philly sweat through every one of them. Or, more likely, the Union drew the obvious conclusion from the Timbers first 20 attempts to break them down after they'd compacted the defense and figured they could ride it out. Maybe it was something the Timbers started to do, maybe it was something Philly stopped doing, and a maddening snitch’s adherence to the rules by referee Allen Chapman aside, both Union goals felt like alarms that went off ten (or five) minutes too late to get to work. It took Portland too long to get going - which, here, means all the way going - while it seemed like the Union could revive their method at will. There was no point during this game…which I joined late due to a wrinkle in a stupidly specific rule in NASCAR, one that bears a grating fucking resemblance to Allen Champman standing gape-mouthed with an index finger cocked to the earbud in his ear like he was trying to see where he hit the right note in a Double-Mint Gum jingle…ahem, when I thought Portland had a credible shot at actually winning it.

I mean, bravo on the goal that Chapman called back against both the letter and spirit of “clear and obvious error” (failing to be a prick on behalf of pricks; Chapman’s an evil wizard), but sure as I see the Timbers damn-near even on shots and one-fourth of average in shots on goal (two; they got two), the attack just plain sucks right now. Shut your ears to the siren song of the Sporting Kansas City sacrifice, ‘twas the dream of the song, etc., yeah, yeah, yeah; for the love of all the over-rehearsed weirdness I’ve watched over the past…I’m going with ten games, which includes the wins over SKC and Vancouver, Portland has completely lost track of how to get to goal. They do better in transition, obviously - that’s why I lead with Tuiloma and his chance - but I’m getting close to calling the formula for stifling the Timbers something perilously close to fool-proof.

Being a mere 20% less obvious might help. How many Timbers attacks enter the critical phase (aka, anything inside the opposition’s defensive third) with a ball into the corner? Even if I admit that me answering “all the time, like every fucking one of them” is a product of watching for something and seeing it to the exclusion of all else, that’s all I see to the point where I think Gio might have branded that useless stab at everything but the dartboard. As much as it stood out tonight (luridly), a standard Timbers attack against a compacted defense tends to look like so: the ball goes into one corner (usually with nothing happening near the goal), and then comes back out to a supporting fullback; the ball goes centrally from there, a couple flirtatious in-and-outs to the top of the 18 and back follow before the ball goes centrally again, from whence it goes to the outside channel with the most open space; after that the receiving player flails the ball at some point either toward or above the middle, and to three guys making the text book runs, one near-post, one centrally, one far post. And so on forever, until nothing at all happens. On most plays when the cross wasn’t on, I saw Timbers players come out of the middle to support the wide player. It happened without any rhyme or reason that I saw. Just people throwing money at charities and hoping it all goes away (not being righteous; I resemble that metaphor).