Carranza and Gazdag lead Union to a 2-0 victory over Minnesota United on Kids Day at Subaru Park

It was Kids Night at Subaru Park on Saturday afternoon as Eric Ramsey’s Minnesota United came to town looking to continue their hot start to the 2024 campaign, but ultimately it was Jim Curtin’s top guns that propelled Union to a 2-0 win over The Loons that keeps Union as one of 3 unbeaten teams left in Major League Soccer to start the season.

Union Starting XI

No surprises from Jim Curtin’s starting lineup on Saturday afternoon. With several key players returning to availability post-international duty, Curtin was able to deploy what he’d likely say is his best XI to face Minnesota United.

It was a 4-4-2 Diamond with Andre Blake in net, accompanied by Kai Wagner, Jack Elliott, Jakob Glesnes, and Nate Harriel in the backline. Jose “El Brujo” Martinez returned to his place at the bottom of the diamond, with Jack McGlynn and Quinn Sullivan as the two shuttlers in the midfield, and a front 3 of Daniel Gazdag, Mikael Uhre, and Julian Carranza manning the attack.

Gazdag approaches Union history with an early goal

The first 10 minutes of the game saw both teams trading sequences of getting high up the pitch in the attack, but neither were able to force threatening looks on net in the early going. Near the 11th minute, a Jack McGlynn turnover in the mid-field sent Minnesota United the other way with numbers in the attack. The ball would be fed into Sang-Bin Jeong in the box, but the South Korean would put his attempt right at Andre Blake.

A few moments later down at the other end of the pitch, Union would win themselves an opportunity to open the scoring from a set-piece. Kai Wagner lined up a corner from Dayne St. Clair’s left-hand side and sent a low-flying cross through the middle of the box.

The delivery of Wagner’s cross evaded each one of Minnesota’s defenders inside the penalty area and somehow found its way to Daniel Gazdag at the back-post. Gazdag stood his ground and kept his defender on his back, chested the ball down, and directed it into an open net to give Union a 1-0 lead in the 16th minute.

The opening goal of the contest would mark the 54th time that Daniel Gazdag has hit the back of the net since becoming a member of the Philadelphia Union, which brings the Hungarian just 2 goals shy of tying club legend Sebastien Le Toux as Union’s all-time leading goal scorer across all competitions.

With slow starts becoming somewhat of a habit so far in the 2024 campaign, surely Head Coach Jim Curtin will have been happy with an early goal from his #10 on Saturday afternoon. Though the early goal relieved pressure on the home side, Union wasted no time getting right back on the front foot in hopes of finding a second goal before the half.

Many times Quinn Sullivan – a revelation to this Union attack this season – managed to skirt his way down Minnesota’s left flank and send threatening crosses through the box but wasn’t able to link up with any of his teammates arriving in the penalty area.

Brickwall Blake keeps Union on top

In the 40th minute of the game, Minnesota would find their best look at the net of the opening half when Robin Lod fed a ball into Teemu Pukki in the box. Pukki collected the ball on the right side of the penalty area with just Andre Blake to beat, but Blake came flying out of his net to cut down Pukki’s shooting angle and stoned the Finnish striker with a kick-save to maintain Union’s lead heading into the halftime break.

Sullivan almost opens 2nd half with a goal-of-the-year candidate

Quinn Sullivan once again was the best player on the field for much of the game against Minnesota and almost added a world-class goal to his 2024 resume early in the 2nd half. A Kai Wagner corner was deflected up in the air and towards the top of the penalty area by a Minnesota defender. The ball came down right in the path of Sullivan who turned his body, awaited the floating ball, and threw a right-footed swinging volley towards Minnesota’s net, but the well-hit attempt rattled off the crossbar and into the crowd.

Oliver Semmle replaces an Injured Andre Blake

Andre Blake went down and required medical attention around the 74th minute of the game, which ultimately resulted in backup Oliver Semmle being called upon once again. Though his status is a bit unclear moving forward, Jim Curtin said in his press conference after the game that Andre Blake had a collision with Jakob Glesnes earlier in the game in a situation where Blake came off his line to punch a ball to safety and doesn’t believe he injury to the Jamaican keeper to be anything too severe.

Loon’s late equalizer was waved off

A great day down at Subaru Park was almost spoiled late in the game by a Minnesota leveler when a ball collected inside the box after a big switch from Joseph Rosales caught Union’s backline out of position, but Tani Oluwaseyi failed to hold his counter-attacking run and the late-equalizer was whipped off the board for being off-side. Union nearly escaped a huge let-down.

Carranza wraps up 1st win of 2024 season at Subaru Park

Just minutes after Minnesota has what they think is an equalizer taken away, it’s Julian Carranza who makes The Loons suffer with an opportunity that’s created in the blink of an eye. Oliver Semmle sent a free-kick far up the pitch which was initially won in the air by a Minnesota defender.

The 2nd ball won by the head of Ale Bedoya sent Julian Carranza behind the defense with an opportunity to claim all 3 points at home and the Argentinian made no mistake, firing the ball on his first touch and beating St. Clair to his right-hand side to seal a 2-0 clean sheet win for the Union. The late-game strike marks Carranza’s 3rd goal in 2 games, a sign that the blue-and-gold striker is returning to his best form.

Kneejerk Reactions

The unbeaten streak to start the 2024 season stays alive, something only 2 other teams have accomplished in this young MLS season – FC Cincinnati (the reigning supporters shield winners), and LA Galaxy. It marks the first win at Subaru Park of the 2024 campaign, and the 2nd win in a row for the Blue and Gold.

The win brings Union to 9 points in the standings, which currently has them sitting in 7th place and 3 points behind the Supporters Shield leaders with a game in hand. This team feels like it’s starting to find its footing post-CCC crash-out, and arguably put together their first 90-minute performance of the season on Saturday night. Things feel like they’re in a much different place than they did following the Pachuca game.
This was a game where a lot of the praise was deserved by players, not on the scoresheet. 20-Year-Old Quinn Sullivan was once again the best player on the field for much of the game on Saturday afternoon, constantly flying down Minnesota’s left side and putting pressure on The Loons’ backline.

Unfortunately for Sullivan, no one was able to get on the end of several inviting crosses he sent into the penalty area. Despite not getting on the scoresheet, Sullivan was voted as the Son’s of Ben Man of the Match. Can you think of the last time a player was voted MotM when 2 other players were the goal scorers? That’s how good Quinn Sullivan has been lately.

Jack Elliott was another name that had a solid performance on Friday after – completing 32 of 41 passes (78%), recording 8 Defensive Actions, 6 Recoveries, 5 duels won, and 100% tackles won rate, he really looked like the former MLS Defender of the Year finalists that we’ve come to love in Philadelphia.

All 3 of the center backs have struggled at times so far this season, but it was a solid performance from Union as a defensive unit. Jim Curtin said that keeping the clean sheet was the most important thing to come out of Saturday’s result, and he’s proud of his team for being flexible tactics-wise.

Speaking of flexibility, we may have a new formation for Jim Curtin to keep in his back pocket – The Flat 4-4-2. Curtin says Union went to a Flat 4-4-2 after Ale Bedoya replaced Mikael Uhre in the 66th minute to try and emulate the hard-to-break-down setup that helped Union to a 3-1 win in Portland, but he admittedly wasn’t too keen on the idea and gave credit to his coaching staff for pushing him to try it.

When Bedoya did come into the game, Curtin threw his long-time captain into the middle of the field so that he could keep Quinn Sullivan cooking down the Loon’s left side. It’s a testament to Ale Bedoya and his willingness to help this team any way he can, and Jim Curtin spent time praising him in his post-game press conference

“Him taking his arm around Rafanello and helping him through that game(in Portland) and all the guys that are in that spot there, is an example of what he’s about – helping a young player, helping the guy next to him, doing whatever the team needs. He was actually a bit sore from that game on the turf and took an extra day or 2 to recover, otherwise he would have played more tonight. But he’s really embraced whatever the team needs”
Head Coach Jim Curtin on Ale Bedoya

It’s a clean sheet for Union – the #1 priority for Jim Curtin and his side and a sign that this defense could be getting back to its best. But they may have to do it without Andre Blake coming next weekend down in Nashville. I got the chance to ask the Union defender about his new backup Oliver Semmle and how the team is starting to feel with the German between the posts behind him:

“Oliver has been stepping up as well. Somebody has to step up and Oliver has come in as a true professional from Day 1. He showed it last weekend when he was getting his chance and he’s shown it before – he was Man of The Match last weekend. But that’s how it is, when someone is out, someone has the chance to step up and show themselves and we need performances like that. We know from training that we have quality players around us, and when they get the chance it’s time to show it on the real stage as well.”
Jakob Glesnes on Oliver Semmle

Looking Ahead

Now that they’ve crashed out of CCC, Union can put their full focus on MLS play and will actually have ample amounts of time to recover, train, plan, and prepare every week – something figures around the team see as a positive (though they’d love to still be alive in the International competition).

Next up for Union is a tough test on the road in an Eastern Conference showdown against Nashville SC. Union will arrive at Geodis Park having never lost in NSC’s new venue and will look to extend their unbeaten streak to 6 games to start the MLS season.

Nashville will play hosts to a momentum-building Union team having lost just 1 game themselves – a 5-0 thumping to LAFC just a week ago – but also have just 1 win in their first 6 games of the campaign. Union will hope to make it 3 straight wins in MLS play down in the Music City next Saturday at 8:30 pm EST, live on Apple TV.