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The Philadelphia Union went into Nashville Saturday night with a plan. It didn’t work until it started working beautifully.
Jim Curtin’s script was to negate. Against a Nashville team with a confounding propensity for draws, a team like the Union uncomfortable dictating the game with the ball, Curtin deployed three center backs to sit and absorb pressure, hoping for counter attacks. If that worked, the Union would have attacking cards to play after halftime.
For 40 minutes, it produced, “kind of a nothing half.” The nothing went out the window when Nashville scored in the 42nd minute, the kind of goal five-man backline is specifically designed to cut out. But two goals after halftime – a quintessential counterattacking strike from Julian Carranza, then a Daniel Gazdag finish on a 90th-minute corner kick – gave the Union a 2-1 win at Geodis Park.
It leaves the Union (3-0-3, 12 points) second in the Eastern Conference and MLS’s last remaining unbeaten.
It also affirms what the Union hoped for as an identity entering the season, not just in terms of resilience but the promise of tactical fluidity.
The Union were four minutes from getting to halftime with job done. For a team adept at playing cup soccer, they approached the first half like a road cup tie: Stalemate early, shrink the game to 45 or so minutes and then push. With Nashville in a matching 3-5-2 and a similar desire to forsake the ball for transition moments, it created blah soccer. But boredom can easily equal a point on the road.
“It’s still something that I think we can go to against a certain opponent,” Curtin said. “The thinking was they play the same formation and we want to mirror them, make it hard against a team that is at home and needs to push the game. The hope was that they would leave a little more space in behind. They played with three really solid, defensive-minded midfielders so they clogged the middle and it was difficult to break them down, so you got kind of a stalemate in the first half.”
For 41 minutes, that worked. In the 42nd, the Union conceded precisely the kind of goal that a three-man backline shouldn’t. Jacob Shaffelburg was allowed to get into a prime assist zone down the left wing and crossed to Sam Surridge, who peeled off the shoulder of Jack Elliott and slipped in front of Damion Lowe to nod home on the doorstep.
Part of why the formation was effective early was in the Union’s muting of Hany Mukhtar. The 2022 MLS MVP was in the pocket of Jose Martinez all day, limited to one shot off target, one key pass and three passes into the final third. The three-center-back look allowed one to shadow Mukhtar at all times in the final third, and Martinez consistently snipped the forward’s supply lines.
“He’s the best player on the field,” Curtin said of Mukhtar. “He’s the player who can win the game by himself. That was the thinking of playing with our three great center backs that we have: Always be releasing to him, so we’re always two center backs back behind him. We did a good job shielding him, too.”
The concession didn’t require a reformulation, despite the deficit and a microscopic xG in the first half. Instead, the Union came out strong in the second, then Curtin made two changes on the hour mark. He withdrew Kai Wagner, who had taken a knock, and swapped Alejandro Bedoya for Jack Elliott, a midfielder for a center back to shift to the 4-4-2.
Two minutes later, the teams were level on a move started because Gazdag and Jack McGlynn, exploiting the newfound man advantage in midfield, jumped Brian Anunga 30 yards from goal and set off a cascade that would be recycled into Martinez’s long ball knocked down by Quinn Sullivan for Carranza to bury at the top of the box.
The Union have been a second-half team this season: They’ve allowed three goals and scored three in first halves but hold a 9-4 edge in the final 45.
They’ve also been great on set pieces. They saw off eight Nashville corner kicks, defending well in front of Oliver Semmle. The German made four saves, deputizing again for Andre Blake, who passed concussion protocol but took a ball to the face in training Friday and didn’t travel as a precaution.
That left Gazdag to win it in the 90th. It’s his second straight week scoring off a corner and his second late, result-sealing goal of the season, with the 90-plus-3 equalizer against Chicago. It’s also Gazdag’s third goal from open play in 2024 after just four in all competitions in 2023, when 18 of his 22 goals came from the penalty spot.
It all sums to what is not just a significant win away from home against an Eastern Conference opponent but one that seems very much in line with who the Union want to be this year.
“They have a ton of heart,” Curtin said. “They’re never out of a game. They’ll play to the final whistle. It’s been instilling in them, from minute 1 to minute 90, anything can happen, and we stick with things. Do we play perfect, beautiful soccer all the time? No. But at the same time, I think we do everything for our fans, for the Philadelphia Union badge, for the city and these guys give everything. That’s kind of ingrained in everything.”
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