The Union’s latest loss proves this year’s collapse isn’t just due to Andre Blake’s injuries

It’s easy to look at the Union’s record with and without Andre Blake this year and conclude that if he hadn’t missed more than two months with a knee injury, that alone would fix all of this team’s problems.

It certainly would have helped if Blake hadn’t missed 20 of the 33 regular-season games his team has played this year. The Union certainly would have conceded fewer than 36 goals across those 20 contests, and have more standing points as a result.

But we said here at the time that while Oliver Semmle and Andrew Rick deserved some of the blame, there were many other shares to go around. Now that should be even clearer, in the wake of Saturday’s 3-2 loss at the Columbus Crew — a result that took the Union’s playoff fate out of their hands.

When a team gives up two goals on simple-as-can-be corner kick plays, as the Union did against Columbus star Juan “Cucho” Hernández, the entire defense gets no benefit of the doubt.

Union manager Jim Curtin has long made it one of his key phrases that his squad wins as a team and loses as a team. Now is a good time to apply that maxim, and Curtin willingly did so again Saturday night.

“It’s never just one thing,” he said. “We missed Andre for a very, very long stretch of the season. But we had minimal injuries to be honest, this year, compared to every team that goes through injuries.”

» READ MORE: Union’s slide toward an early offseason continues with 3-2 loss at Columbus

Then came a line that might end up being the Union’s epitaph for the year, whether they make the playoffs or not.

“It became a season where if you think back on some of the points that we dropped and the way that we did it, the fashion we did it, we did this to ourselves,” Curtin said. “And I think we realize that.”

We’ll see if sporting director Ernst Tanner has those words in mind when he judges which players to bring back next year. They staked quite a bit on proving that a squad whose core has been largely unchanged for three years deserved to be run back this season, and have returned a 9-14-10 record for it.

“We went through a really hard stretch in the middle part of the season,” Curtin said. “Yeah, part of that was because Andre was out, for sure. I do think it would look different if he was in the whole season. But we win as a team and we lose as a team. That’s the way it is with this group.”

Curtin turned to the other end of the field for a moment after that, or at least he seemed to.

“In these types of games like tonight, like [Wednesday’s loss at] Orlando, you need your best players to be your best players,” he said. “Not to simplify things — you look at our last three [games] and we can’t be relying on Nathan [Harriel] to be the one that’s getting goals for us.”

Yes, Mikael Uhre, Tai Baribo, or Dániel Gazdag have not scored during the Union’s current three-game winless skid, but Curtin knew that in the bigger picture, his logic doesn’t hold.

» READ MORE: As we wrote at the start of the season: The Union are running it back again. Will it work this time?

The Union have scored 61 goals in the regular season this year, third-best in the East and sixth-best leaguewide. But they have conceded 53, a year after conceding 41 (when Blake played 27 games) and two years after conceding a league-record low 26.

“Defense is our foundation and always will be,” Curtin said. “We have scored enough goals this year.”

So it bears saying again: When you get beat twice in a game on textbook corner kicks, it hammers home that this season’s collapse can’t just be the backup goalkeepers’ fault.

“If Cucho is able to run free and get in front of you without anyone touching, contact, throwing off his timing and his jumping, a guy like him that can finish plays off and is a killer, kills you,” Curtin said of the Crew’s superstar, who has piled up 23 goals and 12 assists into another MVP candidacy.

“To win a game on the road, in a big moment sometimes you need a performance from, whether it’s Andre to stand on his head, or a centerback to make a big play, or a striker to score a couple goals when we’re not at our best,” Curtin continued. “That’s what you need, and we didn’t get that over the last two games. … We just didn’t get it done against two teams that are, let’s be honest, better than us right now.”

Which is why, as Curtin said with his last words of the night, “Now we need help.”

» READ MORE: Fans were warned a few weeks ago that the Union's brief run of good form might not last

For the first time in eight years, the Union’s pursuit of a playoff spot will come down to the last day of the season.

The Union’s last game is Oct. 19 at home against FC Cincinnati. The only way the Union can earn a playoff berth is by winning that game and hoping one of the two teams above them loses: D.C. United at home to Charlotte FC, or CF Montréal at home to New York City FC.

If all three results unexpectedly go the Union’s way, all three teams would have 40 points and 10 wins. The Union would finish eighth on the second tiebreaker, goal difference, and host the 8 vs. 9 seed wild-card game.

The No. 9 seed could also be Atlanta, which has the same record as the Union and a better goal difference than D.C. and Montréal. (By some distance, too: the Union are currently +9, Atlanta is -4, D.C. is -15, and Montréal is -18.)

If the Union win and only one of D.C. or Montréal wins, that team would host the Union.

No matter who’s in the wild-card game, it will be played on Oct. 22. The winner will face Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami in a best-of-three series that will start Oct. 25 in South Florida.

“They’re going to fight ‘til the final whistle against Cincinnati,” Curtin said of his players. “We’ll find a way to get a result there, and get a win. And then, you know, stranger things have happened.”