Union takeaways: The win in Nashville was full of luck and of Jack Elliott

Here are our takeaways from the Union’s surprising 2-0 win at Nashville SC on Wednesday, a result that spared the team’s first three-game losing streak in the regular season in six years.

Jack Elliott. Union manager Jim Curtin tried to avoid saying this too bluntly while Andre Blake was away, but it wasn’t hard to figure out: the best way to keep Joe Bendik from getting scored on was to stop the ball from getting to him in the first place.

That wasn’t supposed to involve putting a force field around whichever net Bendik was standing in at GEODIS Park. The Union got a season’s worth of good luck from all those shocking Nashville misses. But they knew they had to put in a big defensive shift, and they did.

Elliott led the way, registering nine clearances (five headed and two off the goal line), three interceptions, two blocks, two tackles, one defensive recovery, and four duels won out of six contested. He also completed 23 of 26 passes, including 6 of 8 long balls.

As a team, the Union totaled 49 recoveries, 30 clearances, 10 interceptions, and seven blocks.

» READ MORE: Dániel Gazdag’s goals and a wild amount of luck give the Union a 2-0 win at Nashville

5: The number of Union shots on target, compared to three for Nashville. The Union’s total included Dániel Gazdag’s two penalty goals — which surprisingly won him MLS’s Player of the Matchday award — but did not include Quinn Sullivan’s blast off the post in the ninth minute. (Officially, shots off the post don’t count as on target, even if the eye test says otherwise.)

Remarkably, that total is bigger than Nashville’s. Though the home team outshot the Union 18-9 overall, it officially put just three shots on frame.

2.16: Nashville’s expected goals sum from those 18 shots. The Union blocked four of them. Bendik officially had zero saves, though he made a few good catches of loose balls and crosses.

» READ MORE: Backup goalkeeper Joe Bendik was at the center of the Union’s losing streak

“There’s no such thing as luck. … You earn everything in this game.”

— Union manager Jim Curtin when asked if he’d like to admit how lucky his team was.

“Of course we got a little lucky. We had some breaks for sure. But you need that. In the other games, everything went wrong, you know. I think if you work hard, you know, those breaks start to even out, and I think our group, through the last several years, doesn’t get beat in consecutive games too often. And I’m glad we guarded against that third loss, and we can keep that streak going. Because that is not easy in this league.”

— Curtin telling the truth in reflecting on his team stopping its losing streak.

» READ MORE: Union manager Jim Curtin’s new contract is finally official

Mexico 3, Jamaica 0. If you figured on a U.S.-Jamaica Gold Cup final, you got neither. Wednesday’s semifinals started with Panama beating the U.S. in a penalty kick shootout after a 1-1 tie. Then Mexico ran Jamaica over, scoring twice early and the third in the closing minutes.

That means Andre Blake and Damion Lowe will be back with the Union on Saturdayfor New York City FC’s latest visit to Subaru Park (7:30 p.m., Apple TV, paywalled). Blake will obviously start, and don’t be surprised if Lowe does, too. Curtin hinted at it pretty strongly.

As for the U.S. loss, any Union fans rooting for the Americans to win this Gold Cup knew from the start that the team had a B-squad at best, a bunch of MLS guys and a few foreign-based players looking to prove they deserve time with the A-squad. Panama sent its best group, looked quite good in the group stage, and looked really good blasting Qatar, 4-0, in the quarters.

» READ MORE: Panama upsets U.S. 5-4 on penalty kicks after 1-1 tie to reach Concacaf Gold Cup final

Los Canaleros looked good again this time, and let’s see what kind of test they give El Tri in the final. U.S. fans, meanwhile, can look forward to seeing the players who really matter get back together in the fall. After friendlies in September and October, including a big one vs. Germany on Oct. 14, the Americans enter the next Concacaf Nations League campaign in November.

Those games will also serve as qualifying for next year’s Copa América that will be played in the United States. (Because the U.S. is an invited host of South America’s continental championship, it has to qualify.)

This continent’s championship has long been undervalued, and it has been diminished further by schedule quirks forcing it into the same years as the Nations League final four. It shouldn’t happen again after this year, which will help. But for now, those November games matter more than these in July.

» READ MORE: Five takeaways on the USMNT’s Concacaf Nations League final win over Canada

After Saturday, MLS will pause its regular season for the Leagues Cup tournament against Mexico’s Liga MX. The Union open their group stage against Mexico’s Tijuana on July 22 at 8 p.m. Unfortunately, that’s at the same time as the Chelsea-Brighton English Premier League exhibition at Lincoln Financial Field.

But while the exhibition will get a bigger crowd, the Union will get a bigger TV audience. Their game is a national broadcast on FS1 and Univision, while Chelsea-Brighton is streaming-only via Peacock.

» READ MORE: The Union’s Leagues Cup schedule has a lot of home-field advantage