{"id":120373,"date":"2026-02-22T07:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/120373\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T07:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:59:09","slug":"tai-baribo-burns-philadelphia-union-in-dc-united-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/120373\/","title":{"rendered":"Tai Baribo burns Philadelphia Union in DC United debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a difference a year makes.<\/p>\n

This time last season, Tai Baribo<\/a> was lacing up his boots to lead the Philadelphia Union<\/a> to an opening day 4-2 win<\/a> over Orlando City<\/a>, a game in which the Israeli international striker netted a brace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On MLS is Back weekend, Baribo faced his now-former teammates and was the hero for his new club in D.C. United<\/a>\u2019s 1-0 upset victory<\/a> over the reigning Supporters\u2019 Shield winners.<\/p>\n

Now a Designated Player, Baribo looked determined to prove D.C. were right in spending $4.6 million<\/a> to acquire him from the Union ahead of the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He did just that in the 23rd minute, sending a classy finish past Andre Blake<\/a>\u00a0following a lightning-quick counterattack to give the Black-and-Red their first win of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“As a striker, you have to be decisive,” said head coach Ren\u00e9 Weiler postgame. “He scored the goal, it was the decisive goal, so he did his job.<\/p>\n

“It’s uncomfortable to play against him. So, it helps us a lot.”<\/p>\n

Saturday’s performance was trademark Baribo, Philly’s leading scorer last season with 19 goals (all competitions). In total, he produced 35g\/6a in 67 appearances for the Union.\u00a0<\/p>\n

D.C. are hoping their surprise Matchday 1 result is the start of a revival in the nation\u2019s capital, after a disappointing 2025 saw them finish last in the league with just 26 points and five wins.<\/p>\n

After Baribo’s promising debut, there’s reason to believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What a difference a year makes. This time last season, Tai Baribo was lacing up his boots to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33939,54888,11896,54889,69,71,70,10226,11939],"class_list":["post-120373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-d-c-united","tag-dcvsphi-02-21-2026","tag-match-reaction","tag-mls-is-back","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-sendtonews","tag-tai-baribo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}