Union lose, 2-0, to New York City FC and lose José Andrés Martínez to ejection

Martínez was sent off for elbowing a New York player in the head, and things unraveled from there.

Valentín Castellanos, left, scored NYCFC's second goal with a nifty rabona finish.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

Updated May 2, 2021, 12:29 a.m. ET

Published May 1, 2021, 9:49 p.m. ET

The Union suffered another unsightly loss at home on Saturday, this time a 2-0 defeat to New York City FC in which José Andrés Martínez was ejected early on.

New York (2-1-0, 6 points) opened the scoring in the fifth minute thanks to Jesús Medina, who took Matt Real’s attention on the right wing while Anton Tinnerholm made an overlapping run. Medina fed Tinnerholm, then was wide open for a return pass after Real followed Jack Elliott toward Tinnerholm. That pass duly came, and the rest was easy.

Real was making his first start at left back for the Union (0-2-1, 1 point) since last Oct. 4 — and just his sixth in the last two years — to give Kai Wagner some well-earned rest.

Things got worse when Martínez was rightly sent off in the 15th minute for a foul on Valentín Castellanos. The contact between the feet was initially deemed worth a yellow card by referee Ismail Elfath, but the video replay booth told Elfath to have another look. When he did, he saw that Martínez swung an elbow down on to Castellanos’ head.

Elfath was at the monitor for only a few seconds before he returned and pulled out his red card. Even the crowd at Subaru Park admitted it was the right decision when the replay was shown on the video board.

Martínez will miss next Saturday’s game at Chicago, plus Tuesday’s Champions League quarterfinal second leg vs. Atlanta United because of yellow card accumulation in that competition. And it won’t be surprising if MLS headquarters benches Martínez for an extra regular-season game or two.

Medina’s goal was the only one of a first half in which the Union were outshot 9-3 and outpassed 321-112.

Fifteen minutes into the second half, Jim Curtin made a triple substitution. Real, Anthony Fontana, and Sergio Santos exited for Wagner, Leon Flach, and Kacper Przybylko. As with Wagner, the other two had been given some rest ahead of Tuesday’s game at Subaru Park.

Their arrivals livened things up, but the next goal came for New York. In the 66th minute, Castellanos jumped on Jakob Glesnes’ attempt to corral a loose ball just off the goal line, and had an easy tap-in past Andre Blake.

That was enough for Curtin to withdraw Alejandro Bedoya in the 72nd and send in Jack McGlynn to spell the veteran for the rest of the night. Quinn Sullivan was the Union’s last sub in, replacing Cory Burke — not Jamiro Monteiro, surprisingly — in the 85th.

“To play 75 minutes down a man, [then] down a goal, we leave ourselves a mountain to climb,” Bedoya said. “I thought we got some momentum going in the second half, and then another little mistake in the back cost us a second goal just as we were pushing, and that kind of just took the air out of us. A night to forget, obviously, and we’ve got a quick turnaround, thankfully.”

Curtin called it “a very disappointing night — apologies to the fans who came out and supported us.“ And he added a “promise we’ll have a good response” on Tuesday.