Our takeaways from the Union’s 10th point in their opening four games.
Ale Bedoya is here to stay
34-year-old Alejandro Bedoya scored his second goal of the season on Saturday, which proved the be the game-winning score. Despite consistent questions about his age and fitness over the years, Bedoya continues to prove that he’s still a quality MLS player, even outside of the captain’s armband.
Bedoya is ready to keep going for as long as he can. And by the looks of it, that may be longer than expected. When asked about the goal after the match, Bedoya seemed ready to prove any doubters wrong.
“They don’t know about the work I put in,” he said. “I don’t care what people say. Even people in my own club sometimes doubt me. It’s been like that for throughout my career for, I’ve always been kind of second-guessed or underrated. I’m just going to keep doing my thing.”
Where is Michael Uhre?
Julian Carranza didn’t have his best game against New York City, but the more glaring hole in the Union’s offense came from Sergio Santos. Aside from a goal that was posthumously called offsides, Santos didn’t create much for the Union.
It’s not for lack of chances, Santos saw the ball more than 30 times against New York. All the same, he isn’t creating much on the scoring end throughout the season. Through the first four games, he has one assist and no goals, despite three starts. His xG total is just 0.7.
Mikael Uhre’s health cannot come soon enough for the Union attack. More of Santos up top may speed up the Union’s attack at times, but slow down their goal chances.
Staying in form over the break
It’s still early in the season, but it’s not too early to start thinking about a falloff coming out of the international break. While it didn’t really hurt their playoff positioning, the Union had a rough stretch coming out of the first international break in 2021. It’s important that they don’t recreate that in 2022.
All the same, the Union may look stronger in April. Mikael Uhre will (presumably) get more minutes. Daniel Gazdag, among the eight call-ups, usually looks good coming out of international play with Hungary. There’s no reason to worry about the form of any others, the international break won’t hinder any, and will help a few others (looking at you, homegrowns with the USYNT U-20 side).
Take a breather Union fans. For our USMNT fans, stop stressing over the Union and start crying over the state of American soccer. Philadelphia soccer will be right here when you come back.