New York City FC suffer 1-0 road loss to Philadelphia Union

Courtesy: New York City FC

By Chris Tsakonas

A week after eliminating the cross-town rival New York Red Bulls, New York City suffered a 1-0 road loss to the Philadelphia Union tonight. Mikael Uhre scored the decisive goal for the Union in the 40th minute.

Here are three observations from tonight’s match at Subaru Park.

Union create chances early and often

Although Alonso Martinez nearly opened the scoring inside the opening two minutes, Philadelphia generated the bulk of the early chances in this match with four shots inside the opening 10 minutes. One consistent theme was conceding set pieces, as most of the Union’s chances came off of corner kicks and free kicks.

“We probably gave away too many set pieces, and that’s a big part of their game,” Justin Haak said after the match. “That’s how they play, so they were able to do a good job on that.”
Defensively, New York City did just enough to weather the early storm. In addition to two early saves from Matt Freese, Hannes Wolf got his body in front of a shot from Nathan Harriel in the ninth minute to help keep Philadelphia off the board early.

Uhre capitalizes on New York City giveaway
While most of the Union’s chances in the first half came off set pieces, the breakthrough came from a New York City turnover. In the 40th minute, Perea gave the ball away to Jovan Lukic in midfield. Lukic played a through ball to Mikael Uhre on the right side, and he fired a tight-angle shot past Freese to open the scoring for Philadelphia.

“The biggest chance they created was from a transitional moment when we lost possession in the middle and they scored the goal,” head coach Pascal Jansen said after the match.

New York City struggles to respond
After a slow start to the second half, head coach Pascal Jansen opted to make a double substitution in the 59th minute with Agustin Ojeda and Mitja Ilenic coming on for Alonso Martinez and Tayvon Gray. 

The personnel change ultimately didn’t spark a change for New York City, who struggled to generate quality chances throughout the second half. The first shot of the half wouldn’t come until the 69th minute, when Ojeda got off a shot from the middle that was easily stopped by Andre Blake.

New York City finally ramped up the intensity and created two late chances to equalize. In the 82nd minute, the ball came to Nico Fernandez Mercau in the middle for a header that was deflected by Harriel for a corner. Six minutes later, a through ball down the right side set up an apparent equalizer for Maximo Carrizo - only for it to be disallowed as he was a step offside on his run.

Next Up
After the upcoming international break, New York City will return to Queens for the regular season finale against the Seattle Sounders. Live coverage will get underway at 5:45 P.M., with Glenn Crooks and Matty Lawrence on the call from Citi Field at newyorkcityfc.com/radio.