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CHESTER — A battle with the first-place team in the Eastern Conference Saturday night began with the Philadelphia Union on the front foot.
It ended with them shorthanded for their next game and stung not to get the full three points.
The Union conceded cheaply twice in the second half and saw Jack Elliott sent off late in a 2-2 draw with FC Cincinnati that felt a lot like a lost.
“When you get a two-goal lead at home, you have to find ways to it out,” manager Jim Curtin said. “That part is disappointing.”
Jose Martinez and Daniel Gazdag had staked the Union to a 2-0 halftime lead. But goals by Aaron Boupendza and Brandon Vazquez in the second half helped the visitors claw back to parity, solidifying their lead atop the Eastern Conference.
The Union came out with needed intensity in a match that featured seven first-half yellow cards, including to five of the six center backs that started the game. Two – Elliott and Yerson Mosquera – wouldn’t see the game’s end. In all, 12 yellow cards were shown by referee Ismail Elfath, the second most in a game in MLS history (13 in a game between FC Dallas and DC United in 2002).
“I’m a little old school and the defender in me would prefer more talking to the players and staying calm, because once everyone starts to get on yellows, you get into suspensions for the next games and different things,” Curtin said. “Sure it was a chippy, highly intense game, a lot of pushing and shoving. But that’s too much. That’s a lot of yellows.”
The opening goal was no less thrilling thanks to Martinez putting his boot so sweetly through a shot from 25 yards after Jack McGlynn rolled it into his path. The Venezuelan’s third goal of this season nestled into the corner of the net, a laser past goalie Roman Celentano.
Celentano was the guilty party in the 35th, clattering over Gazdag on a charge into the box, after Gazdag had released a shot toward an open net that Mosquera was in the process of clearing. Nevertheless, Celentano was shown yellow, Gazdag (after a VAR check) stepped to the spot, and though the goalie guessed correctly, Gazdag’s effort still beat him for his 12th goal of the year. It’s his 10th from the penalty spot, breaking a five-way tie for the all-time MLS record.
Whatever was said at halftime, the visitors responded. It took Boupendza, on for former Union man Sergio Santos, all of four minutes to get on the board, two bad steps by the Union’s 3-man backline leading to Yuya Kubo and Boupendza getting in behind.
The concession means the Union have just one clean sheet in their last 11 MLS matches and three in the last 17 in all competitions.
“We take pride in not conceding goals,” Curtin said. “We set a lot of records defensively and offensively last year. It hasn’t been as easy for us to get clean sheets this year. There’s still things we can improve on defensively, for sure. Keeping zeroes is really, really important for us.”
The Gabonese striker, who flew directly to Philadelphia to meet Cincinnati from international duty, had the ball in the back of the net again two minutes later, but the offside flag spared the Union. Andre Blake charged off his line in the 53rd to make himself big, shouldering away an Obinna Nwobodo effort aimed at the near post.
The equalizer was the result of even more ponderous defending. A nonchalant pursuit by Nathan Harriel of a loose backward pass from Julian Carranza, and Damion Lowe’s failure to get goal side of Vazquez allowed the American striker to poke home the equalizer in the 76th.
“We didn’t come out the way we needed to,” McGlynn said. “We talked about it at halftime, that they were going to come out flying and we needed to be ready for that. Obviously, we weren’t.”
That just left the cards to be sorted. Mosquera’s second, in the 83rd, sent him off. Elliott crashed clumsily into Vazquez in stoppage time to get his first red card in three days shy of five years, ruling him out for Wednesday’s trip to Charlotte.
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