Union blow late 3-1 lead to suffer another ugly loss, 4-3 at Chicago

The Union’s downward spiral continued Wednesday, with a loss that was remarkably even more of a collapse than ones that preceded it: 4-3 at the Chicago Fire, after leading 3-1 past the 80th minute.

After Chicago’s Maren Haile-Selassie opened the scoring in the 30th minute, the Union scored three straight: Chris Donovan in the 38th, Dániel Gazdag with a penalty kick late in first-half stoppage time, and Jack McGlynn in the 49th. Hugo Cuypers cut the deficit for Chicago in the 82nd, Gastón Giménez tied the score in the 90th, and Cuypers won it in the 92nd.

It was the Union’s fifth straight loss and ninth straight game without a win, plummeting them to next-to-last place in the Eastern Conference (4-8-9, 20 points). For the first time in years, the Union are lower in the standings than the Fire (5-6-10, 21 points), who have long been one of the league’s worst teams.

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Goalkeeper Oliver Semmle’s benching lasted two games. He returned to the net Wednesday, and it’s no coincidence that Andrew Rick gave up six goals over those two games. Some of those concessions were poor enough to make it clear that Rick wasn’t ready for the big-time yet, as well as he’s played with the Union’s reserves.

But while Semmle made six saves, and some of them were sharp, the two late goals he conceded were ugly.

Chicago’s equalizer to tie the game came after Semmle botched a punch of a ball in the air, and the ball went out for a corner kick. Giménez scored on the ensuing sequence, left wide open despite the Union having seven field players in their own 18-yard box at the time.

Semmle looked bad on Cuypers’ winner, too. The setup was a high, looping pass from Haile-Selassie, and Semmle didn’t come off his line to try to get it. Cuypers was inside the six-yard box when the ball arrived, and Semmle’s attempt to stoop low and block a shot failed.

With so many players injured or gone with national teams, the Union had just seven players on their bench instead of the usual nine.

Two of them were young prospects CJ Olney and David Vazquez, who were there for the fourth time. That milestone matters.

Olney is on a reserve team contract, and Vazquez is on an unusual “off-budget” contract for a first-team academy product. In both cases, if they are to make a first-team game day squad for a fifth time, their contracts must be converted into full first-team deals.

The rest of the bench was Rick; right back Olivier Mbaizo; centerback Olwethu Makhanya; attacking midfielder Jeremy Rafanello; and forward Markus Anderson. Striker Tai Baribo did not travel because of back spasms.

Rafanello was the only one who played, replacing Donovan in the 75th. Though Makhanya is inexperienced, it was a choice to not send him or Mbaizo in to help defend the 3-1 lead.

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The Union had a few brief flickers of hope for an early goal, sparked by Quinn Sullivan and Gazdag. But it felt inevitable that Chicago would score first, and Haile-Selassie did.

There were moments in the buildup when he was offside, but not involved in the play. When it mattered, he was on, and that included when Kai Wagner and Jack Elliott slid to block Allan Arigoni’s cross from the right side.

Elliott did block it, but right into Haile-Selassie’s path. Semmle tried to kick the ball away, but Haile-Selassie kept it away from him and poked it into the net.

At a time when so much is going wrong, it doesn’t matter how the ball goes in the net as long as it gets there. Perhaps it was with that in mind that Leon Flach decided to try his luck from 23 yards, but shot the ball right into Donovan instead.

It would stretch the truth to say Donovan finished the play with skill. The ball just deflected off him and kept on going into the net. But the Drexel product had run into the right position, and gets the credit for his first goal of the season.

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Two minutes into first-half stoppage time, Nathan Harriel won a penalty kick when he was grabbed by Chicago goalkeeper Chris Brady — a potential teammate on this summer’s U.S. Olympic team — at the edge of the 18-yard box.

After a long video review, referee Abdou Ndiaye was convinced that it was both a penalty kick-worthy infraction and inside the 18-yard box, which it almost wasn’t. He pointed to the spot, and Gazdag stepped up to bury the shot.

By next Monday, we’ll know who’s on that Olympic team. But we already know McGlynn has been a leading candidate to make it for a long time.

Playing across town from U.S. Soccer headquarters, McGlynn showed why the national team program likes him so much. Chicago’s defense gave him a gap just outside the 18-yard box, and he gladly accepted the invitation to curl an inch-perfect shot that pinged off both posts as it beat Brady.

And it was at the same end of the field as the famed “double doink” Bears field goal miss in that 2018 playoff game against the Eagles.

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