Union takeaways: Kai Wagner’s hat trick of assists powered a needed win

Here are our day-after takeaways on the Union’s 4-1 win over the New York Red Bulls on Sunday night at Subaru Park, a result that extended the Union’s unbeaten streak against their perennial rivals to 13 games.

Kai Wagner. Goal scorers always get the immediate headlines, but Wagner’s hat trick of assists gets top billing next. In fact, he had a big role in all four goals, as he served the corner kick that bounced around to Jakob Glesnes on the tying goal.

Though Wagner’s 29-of-43 passing night resulted in a low-by-his-standards 67% completion rate, he had 10 passes into the attacking third of the field, and created six scoring chances. He also delivered at the other end of the field, with five defensive recoveries, one tackle, one block, and one interception.

» READ MORE: Union rout New York Red Bulls, 4-1, with goals from defenders and attackers alike

64: The number of passes completed by Jack McGlynn, out of 72 attempted. Honorable mention goes to the number 3, which is Dániel Gazdag’s total of goals from open play this season after his breakaway to finish the scoring. He has 18 goals in all competitions, but 15 from penalty kicks.

11: The number of defensive recoveries by McGlynn. He delivered a big game at that end of the field, on a night when he was in a big spotlight with Leon Flach out injured and Jesús Bueno and José Andrés Martínez suspended, and he delivered. McGlynn also had three tackles and one interception, and won four of the six duels he contested.

» READ MORE: Union’s Leon Flach could miss the rest of the regular season with a sports hernia injury

“He ran the tempo of the game. For a kid to do, that it’s not easy. … And the best part was, when Ale [Alejandro Bedoya] went forward on the right — and Ale got high tonight a lot of times — Jack was alone on an island by himself in the middle, and he put out a lot of fires defensively, too. Really proud of him.”

— Union manager Jim Curtin on McGlynn’s game.

“It’s no secret that I had a tough game on Wednesday. So I had, in my mind, already before I was coming out today, that today I had to score a goal.”

— Glesnes on scoring the game’s tying goal after being at fault for all three goals his team conceded at Toronto on Wednesday.

» READ MORE: Union lose badly at last-place Toronto FC, 3-1

Inter Miami 3, Los Angeles FC 1. There was only one other MLS game Sunday, and it got all the hype you’d expect these teams to create.

LAFC published a page-long list of celebrities in attendance. A sampling: Selena Gomez, Owen Wilson, Ted Lasso stars Brendan Hunt (a huge soccer fan in real life) and Jason Sudeikis, England’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, LeBron James, and disgruntled 76ers guard James Harden.

Harden, who has an ownership stake in MLS’s Houston Dynamo and the NWSL’s Houston Dash, has said publicly that he’s a big fan of Lionel Messi. He has also made no secret of his desire to play for the Los Angeles Clippers.

» READ MORE: The latest on the James Harden conundrum, and where the Sixers could go from here

Whether or not Harden ends up playing in SoCal, at least on this night he got what he wanted in L.A.: two Messi assists in a Miami win. And that helped the soccer team in the place Harden wants to leave.

No one in the Union locker room wants to admit to scoreboard-watching, but it’s getting to be that time of year. LAFC fell to ninth in the Supporters’ Shield standings with the loss, and now trails six Eastern Conference teams, including the Union. In fact, St. Louis is the only Western Conference team in the top seven leaguewide.

You can be sure, though, that LAFC scares potential opponents like no one else. All those Eastern teams would be thrilled to force the reigning champs to cross the country for an MLS Cup final, especially those that would have cold weather in December.

» READ MORE: Even after breaking the Union’s heart, LAFC goalie John McCarthy is the ‘same dude’ from Mayfair

The soccer world enters a FIFA national team window this week, so the Union have next weekend off. Their next game is a Sept. 16 home contest against MLS’s best team this year, FC Cincinnati. Bedoya will miss it because of yellow card accumulation, but Martínez and Bueno will be back from their suspensions.

Before then, Martínez and Bueno are off to Venezuela for the start of South America’s 2026 World Cup qualifiers. Not all of the Union’s international call-ups are official yet, but expect at least three others: Olivier Mbaizo to Cameroon for Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, and Andre Blake and Damion Lowe to Jamaica for Concacaf Nations League group stage games.

Gazdag was to go to Hungary for European Championship qualifiers, but he was withdrawn from the squad Monday morning due to the knee injury he suffered during his breakaway goal Sunday night. He was also kicked around a fair amount in the game.

He looked fine in the locker room postgame as he played with his children, but while their running around was spirited, it wasn’t quite the same. So Gazdag will get two weeks to rest up, and hopefully that will be enough.