Philadelphia Union Finishes Mediocre Season with 1-2 Loss to FC Cincinnati

October 19, 2024

Chester, PA

The Philadelphia Union had not yet been eliminated from the MLS playoffs by the start of the game between the Philadelphia Union and Cincinnati on Saturday evening.  When the game began, the team did show some sense of the game’s importance.  By the end of the chippy game, however, that sentiment was gone, and FC Cincinnati  emerged victorious from Subaru Park at 1-2.

The Union’s Quinn Sullivan started the scoring off early, in the second minute of the game. Nate Harriel inbounded the ball on a throw-in to Leon Flach, and Flach in turn passed to Jack McGlynn.  McGlynn constructed a through pass that landed directly on the foot of a cutting Quinn Sullivan.  Take nothing away from McGlynn or Sullivan.  The McGlynn pass was genius and Sullivan’s shot perfectly nipped the lower left corner of the Cincinnati goal.

The Union’s game began to unwind after Daniel Gazdag left the game with an injury in the 15th minute.

At the end of first-half stoppage time, the Philadelphia defense was unable to clear the ball and it deflected onto the feet of Cincinnati’s Yuya Kubo on the left side of the Philadelphia box.  Kubo’s shot to the lower right corner made it just past the outstretched arms of Andre Blake.  The score was even 1-1 at the end of the first half.

The heartbreak of the game was the second-half own-goal by Jakob Glesnes.  Glesnes did not look up before passing to Andre Blake.  The Philadelphia keeper stood to the side of the uprights and Glesnes’s pass went directly into the middle of the goal.  There was nothing Blake could do but watch.

The game ended 1-2, as did the Philadelphia Union’s season.  The season of goalkeeper struggles, home losses, injuries and the transfers of Carranza and Martinez all thankfully past.  The team now can look forward to the new 2025 season.

Photographs of the game appear below:

Philadelphia’s Quinn Sullivan jumping for joy after scoring in the second minute. Philadelphia’s Nate Harriel with the ball. Cincinnati’s Luciano Acosta squeezes between Danley Jean Jacques and Leon Flach. Philadelphia’s Andre Blake handling the ball. Philadelphia’s Kai Wagner stopping Acosta’s forward progress. Kai Wagner juking out Cincinnati’s Pavel Bucha Cincinnati’s Nicholas Gioacchini moving toward the Philadelphia Goal.