Union clinch playoff berth with a 4-1 win over Atlanta

The Union clinched a playoff berth before the end of August with another emphatic win, 4-1 over Atlanta United at Subaru Park on Wednesday night. And thanks to Houston’s upset of Los Angeles FC a few hours later, the Union and LAFC are now tied on points atop the Supporters’ Shield race. (LAFC has, though, a game in hand and two more total wins -- the first standings tiebreaker.)

Julián Carranza, Mikael Uhre, Dániel Gazdag and Nathan Harriel scored the Union’s goals, with Andrew Gutman tying the game for a spell of the first half after Carranza’s tally.

Here are some observations on the game.

It was his 14th goal of the season, and it was as pretty a shot from atop an 18-yard box as you’ll see: seared low into the far corner of the net.

Give Mikael Uhre some credit for his assist, too. He kept the ball away from three defenders surrounding him before spotting Carranza and passing out of the traffic.

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He had to wait a little while to get it, as it was just his second goal in his last six games. But Uhre finally scored his 10th goal of the year, smashing in a shot that came to him off a corner kick in first-half stoppage time.

The shot had some help from a deflection off an Atlanta player’s hand, but it was going in the net anyway. Now the Union have three double-digit scorers in a regular season for the first time in team history.

It’s been almost 25 years since legendary Italian striker Christian Vieri added an all-time phrase to soccer’s lexicon: “Goals are like children. They are all beautiful.”

Gazdag’s finish wasn’t the prettiest, but the record books won’t remember that. They will instead note that this was the game where he scored his 17th goal of the year, breaking the team’s regular-season record and tying the mark for goals across all competitions.

This was Andre Blake’s 200th career MLS regular-season game, making the stalwart goalkeeper only the second Union player to reach the mark solely with the team. There was a nice pregame ceremony in which manager Jim Curtin gave Blake a commemorative jersey.

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But the Union did not give Blake a present he might have preferred more, a 13th shutout of the season that would have set a team single-season record. Andrew Gutman’s diving header off a rebound in the 25th minute ended a 261-minute shutout streak

For the record-keepers out there, Ray Gaddis was the first Union player to reach the milestone. And to be truly official about it, this was not Blake’s 200th career Union game overall. It was his 224th across all competitions.

» READ MORE: Dániel Gazdag might not be the Union’s most valuable player, but he is the most outstanding

On the eve of Europe’s transfer deadline, Kai Wagner put in another quietly strong outing: 59 touches, four chances created, six recoveries, one clearance, and one interception. Wagner is the Union’s top chance-creator this year, and it isn’t close: 72 to Gazdag’s 39, Bedoya’s 37, then the rest of the squad.

Wagner still isn’t going anywhere before Thursday’s European transfer deadline, unless there’s a shockingly big offer in the final hours. Yet any worried Union fans should know that Leeds United need a striker far more than a left back right now.

So sit back and enjoy the TV soap opera that will unfold in the final hours before the deadline, which is at 6 p.m. ET. The top-notch coverage by England’s Sky Sports News will be available in the U.S. on NBC’s Peacock streaming platform, thanks to Comcast’s ownership of both networks. It will run for seven hours, starting at noon.

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