Union Spotlight: A world-beating attack

The Philadelphia Union will be playing in the MLS Cup final in less than 24 hours, and a huge proponent of how the match flows falls on the shoulders of Philly’s attack! Their attack lit up MLS in the summer and pushed Philly to a first-place finish in the east. Now, they will need to find ways to put the ball in the back of the net in the championship.

The Union‘s attack has caught up to the rest of the team

5 things to watch ahead of Philadelphia Union vs LAFC in MLS Cup

In the first few years of the Union’s existence, they were not great at any aspect of the game. Fast forward to five years ago and the goalkeeping and defense rose its game and was playing very well, but the attack was poor. Now the attack has caught up to the rest of the team.

Philly has made the playoffs for five straight years, and in the prior four years, they always fell short because their attack couldn’t get the goal(s) that they needed in an elimination match. Now the script has been flipped. Mikael Uhre, Julian Carranza, and Daniel Gazdag has lit a fire under Philadlephia. Now they are an elite team when defending and have a world-beating attack!

47 goals from the front three, 7 from the super-sub

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Philly’s attack has scored almost 80% of the team’s goals in 2022. That comes out to 54 goals, 47 coming from the starters, and seven from their super-sub off the bench. Gazdag had 22, Carranza had 14, Uhre had 13, and Burke had 7. That is a crazy output for four attackers, and now they’ll need to find ways to score a few in Los Angeles in MLS Cup.

In the eastern conference final, Philly got all three of their goals from good plays from three of their four attackers. Carranza and Gazdag showed creative runs on the first two goals, and Burke was a bulldozer for the third in the match. In MLS Cup, Philly will need to keep creating chances as they did in their last match and take the opportunities when they present themselves.

Creating and taking chances will bring MLS Cup to Philly

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Philly’s attack will be the two strikers Uhre and Carranza with Gazdag behind them. They’ll take on an LAFC team that is without their best center back, and their center back that’s third on their depth chart isn’t fully fit. Philly’s attack should have a field day running at guys like Murillo, Chiellini, or Ibeagha.

If Gazdag can be on the ball, and combine with Carranza, while Uhre runs off the shoulder of the second center back, then the Union will have their chances to get in on goal. Philly will need to take those chances when they fall. They have done it all year, and they’ll need to do it in a Cup final. If they can, then it will solidify the Union’s attack as one that can beat the world. It will also likely mean that the Union is hoisting MLS Cup in 2022! We’ll have to wait until tomorrow at 4 pm ET to see if they can take this opportunity.