Union Playoff Post: Part Deux

Robertson Stadium - Future home of Union Domination

Most of us do know what happened  on Sunday for the Philadelphia Union. If you don’t, to put it quite simply, the Union outplayed the Dynamo for most of the game and came up short 2-1. In the first playoff game at PPL Park, the field seemed to be tilted in favor of the Union though. The Union outshot their opponents 16 to 11 and 12 of the Union’s shots were on net opposed to the Dynamo’s  5 shots on net. A reason for the lopsided shots may have been the corner kick advantage that the Union also held, 7 to 4. As we have stated on here previously, we are no soccer experts, but here are a couple tidbits to look for on Thursday night in Houston at 8:30 PM EST.

Le Toux looks like less of a girl. Translation? Union are primed for the win.

The first thing is… How do the Union even win in a two game series if they have already lost Game One? Good question, the MLS playoff guidelines decide the winner in three parts. First, if the Union lose or tie, they automatically lose the series no ifs ands or buts about it. The second way is AG or aggregate goal, which simply means that if each team wins a game in the playoffs, but the Dynamo win by one goal and the Union win by 2 goals, the Union would win the series. So, since the Dynamo won the first game 2-1, that gives them a +1 goal differential. If the Union win Thursday night in Houston by a score of 2-0 or 3-1 then the Union would win because they had scored more goals. However, the last outcome would be if the Union won on Thursday by a +1 goal differential. Whether it was 2-1, 3-2, 4-3, or just 1-0, if the Union win by one goal, then we have an aggregate goal tie and must then move onto the tiebreaker. The tiebreaker would mean that at the end of Thursdays game, if all goals are even, there would then be two 15 minutes halves played to determine the winner. It is not a ‘golden goal’ format like in a hockey OT, so the two full 15 minute halves would be played no matter what. If no one scores ibn them, then we would go to the “greatest spectacle in sports”, as some may call it, the shootout. Of course, we all know how shootouts go. Obviously of these three choices, we definitely don’t want the first option, either of the other two is winable for our highly talented side.

The second thing to watch out for is the offensive pace of the Union. The Union did have good ball possession throughout most of the game, but it seemed like in the final third, they forgot what to do with it. They either tried a highly risky, unsuccessful pass into the box or one man tried to do too much with it until it was taken by the opposition. The build up was never enough to get solid scoring chances. Some of the solid chances that came in this game were off of corners. The boys in blue possessed the ball for a good amount of time, but it is time to make smarter passes in the final third and generate good passes into scoring opportunities. One place the Union might be able to get this is from is the veteran, Sebastien Le Toux. He is an electric scorer, but he is also a smart player, look for him to do the little things to help the team succeed tomorrow night. If this can't happen, second half fire plug Roger Torres may be able to come on and spark the boys for a couple late goals anyway.  We need these things to happen or the second game should turn out the exact same way as the first, except this time it will be the end of the season.

The one expectation that we have of this game is that some of the veteran leaders will have everyone in the locker room ready to play. Mondragon, Le Toux, and Califf are not playing in their first important game so they will have some of the lesser experienced Union players poised to play. The boys in blue have to win the possession battle and pick their spots on offense and we can still see the Union, led by Peter Nowak, in the next round of the playoffs.