When Alejandro Bedoya came to the Philadelphia Union in 2016, he wanted to help the club raise their ambitions.
To that point, the Union had only reached the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs once and hadn’t finished higher than eighth in the Supporters' Shield table during the regular season.
“I was up for the challenge to get more respect for the club because I don't think in the years past anybody's talked about the Union as a good, fun team to watch,” Bedoya said in a conference call with reporters. “I think we certainly are that now.”
Indeed, they've definitely taken steps under new ownership and a new technical director, winning their first-ever playoff game a year ago over the New York Red Bulls in the first round. Once underdogs, the Union are now considered by many as one of the league's frontrunners, and have open aspirations to win the MLS is Back Tournament.
After securing seven of nine points in the group stage, Philadelphia now face a difficult challenge in the New England Revolution Saturday (10:30 pm ET | ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, TSN, TVA Sports) in the Round of 16.
“New England had a really good team last year and Bruce [Arena] has really improved it,” Union coach Jim Curtin said. “They’ve added some big pieces with [Gustavo] Bou coming on, with [Adam] Buska, so they’ve added some really talented attacking pieces. The roster is a very strong one and they’ve played well in this competition. … It makes for a great matchup. Two teams that attack and defend really well.”
While the Revs have some injury concerns and will be without influential midfielders Luis Caicedo and Carles Gil, the Union enter the knockout round close to fully fit. Of those working back from ailments, Curtin expects Andrew Wooten to be available for 20-25 minutes, Sergio Santos has been extended slowly, from 45 minutes to 60 minutes and Michee Ngalina is fully fit.
That should be a boost for a team still searching for consistency in the attacking third.
“We’ve done some really good things, you’ve seen some great couterattacks, some good stuff playing out of the back,” Bedoya said. “But just final ball, the final movements in and around the box have been kind of lacking.”
Said Curtin: “The one thing we've lacked is that consistency. I want to see us do it for 30 minutes spurts rather than these 8-10 minute spurts where we look like ourselves. We haven't been able to sustain that long enough and that's why I say it's a good thing that we haven't played our best 90 minutes yet. We've had patches of really good soccer and really great goals, but they're too few and far between, and we want that consistency and more sustained pressure on teams.”
