CHESTER \u2014 The Philadelphia Union is 0-2 to start the 2026 MLS season. And in the triage of what\u2019s gone wrong, there are levels of concern.<\/p>\n
A rebuilt defense has held up pretty well thus far, despite losing two stalwarts from last year. An attack that has scored 12 goals in two games in the CONCACAF Champions Cup against substandard Trinidadian opposition doesn\u2019t have one from open play in 180 MLS minutes.<\/p>\n
But before those concerns can be broached, there\u2019s an even more elemental one: Finishing a game with all 11 guys on the field.<\/p>\n
For the second time in two games, the Union had a player sent off. Both Ezekiel Alladoh\u2019s straight red against D.C. United in last week\u2019s opener and Olwethu Makhanya\u2019s second yellow card Sunday were for dissent. With a tightening of rules about what you can say on the field aimed at cleaning up the game, players will need to make adjustments. The Union thus far haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome guys need to step up a little bit in terms of their leadership, to step up in terms of their composure, and when we need to have a calming voice and when we need to have a presence in a different way,\u201d coach Bradley Carnell said after a 2-1 loss to New York City FC. \u201cSome of our stuff over the last two weeks, from a disciplinary standpoint, is probably substandard, which leaves us a mountain of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the frustration is we\u2019re just letting ourselves down at the end of the day,\u201d midfielder Indiana Vassilev said. \u201cTwo red cards due to dissent: It\u2019s obviously not a trend we want to keep on setting for ourselves. We\u2019re just shooting ourselves in the foot at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conversation was even more unsparing in the locker room.<\/p>\n
Makhanya\u2019s red card proved pivotal. The Union had trailed since Hannes Wolfe\u2019s goal in the 37th minute. They were denied what they thought to be a penalty in the 69th minute, when Jovan Lukic went down in the box and referee Chris Penso was referred to the monitor to review.<\/p>\n
They got a penalty on a much softer call in the 86th minute, when substitute forward Stas Korzeniowski backed into NYCFC defender Thiago Martins and got the call. Vassilev scored from the spot in the 89th, avoiding a repeat of the 1-nil defeat that ended last season in the MLS Cup playoffs, and the Union fancied a chance to win the game with 10 minutes of stoppage time added.<\/p>\n
But Makhanya was shown a second yellow in the second minute, evidently for doing the VAR hand motion toward Penso on what he thought was the wrong call in awarding NYCFC forward Talles Magno a corner kick. Which, keen observers may note, is not a play within VAR\u2019s purview to adjudicate.<\/p>\n
So when seven minutes later, no one on the Union pressured the cross by Agustin Ojeda on the left edge of the penalty area, and fill-in left back Ben Bender, who is not a left back, was outjumped near the center of the 6-yard box for a header by crashing right back Tayvon Gray, you could point to missing a center back as to why the Union were missing one point from the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror,\u201d said Nate Harriel, who was great at right back. \u201cIt\u2019s two weeks, two red cards, not even from tackles, but just by our mouths at the center referee. It\u2019s not good enough from a culture standpoint. We can\u2019t keep doing this every single week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alladoh last week became just the third Union player sent off on his MLS debut, joining Toni Stahl in the first game in franchise history in 2010 and Corben Bone in 2014. Sunday marked the first time since April 2019 that the Union picked up red cards in consecutive games.<\/p>\n
For Makhanya, who had a breakout season last year and is among the hottest defensive prospects in MLS, that\u2019s now three red cards in 2,324 minutes in the league. While players backed him and emphasized how central he\u2019s been since debuting at the start of last year, Sunday\u2019s effort fell short.<\/p>\n
The Union are a markedly younger team than last year, with many veterans in their late 20s and early 30s jettisoned in the offseason. That isn\u2019t the root of this problem, though, or at least it shouldn\u2019t have been.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a little bit to say about, I guess veterans trying to lead the younger guys,\u201d Vassilev said. \u201cBut I also think there comes a stage where maturity comes into play. We had a red card last week due to the same reasons. And it really should be that one red card and everybody learns from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harriel said the disciplinary lapses may precipitate, \u201cthe hard conversations you need to have\u201d to stop a problem before it exacerbates.<\/p>\n
In capturing the Supporters\u2019 Shield last year, the Union only lost consecutive MLS games once \u2014 at Columbus and at Nashville in late June\/early July \u2014 and only lost consecutive games in all competitions on two occasions: the Vancouver debacle\/Nashville Open Cup semi being the other one in September. None of those involved a game at Subaru Park.<\/p>\n
The Union have a full week to train before hosting San Jose on Saturday, then a gauntlet with Mexican giant Club America in the two-leg CCC Round of 16 tie that starts March 10.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not much time to get things right. The sooner they do, the better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a culture here,\u201d Harriel said. \u201cThe standard\u2019s high. And right now as a group, I think you can see that we\u2019re a little bit below, and that\u2019s something that we don\u2019t want, we don\u2019t want the fans to have here, and we don\u2019t want to continue it like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHESTER \u2014 The Philadelphia Union is 0-2 to start the 2026 MLS season. And in the triage of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6583,9,24,55,54,56,19672,319,9640],"class_list":["post-149664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-mls","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-philadelphia-union","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-dtd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}