Union’s disastrous losing streak continues with 2-1 defeat to New York City FC

You can find some pretty ugly things if you look far back enough in the Union’s history. But you’ll never have found a time when the Union lost four straight home games, until now.

Despite lineup changes designed to fortify the defense, the Union fell behind New York City FC in just the second minute of play on Wednesday at Subaru Park, and never climbed all the way back in a 2-1 defeat.

Alonso Martínez opened the scoring in just the second minute, Hannes Wolf doubled New York’s lead in first-half stoppage time, and Julián Carranza scored the Union’s only goal with a free kick in the 47th.

Manager Jim Curtin started Jack Elliott at centerback and Leon Flach in midfield to give defensive reinforcement, but it took fewer than two minutes for that to not matter.

The entire back line was yet again caught way too far upfield when former Union midfielder Andrés Perea’s low pass from his own half to well into the other rolled right past Elliott and Kai Wagner. Santiago Rodríguez was off to the races, and it didn’t look like the Union (3-4-5, 14 points) would catch him.

Indeed, they did not. Elliott and Jakob Glesnes hustled back, but Glesnes wasn’t paying attention as Martínez ran behind him. Rodríguez’s pass across the 18-yard box was as simple as it gets, and Martínez slammed in the finish from the doorstep.

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Play was halted in the 20th minute when a raccoon ran onto the field. It seemed to come from the south side concourse, and it took the stadium staff a good 2 ½ minutes to corral the creature.

Once that finally happened, it was another two minutes before the staff were able to escort the raccoon out of the seating bowl in a stack of trash cans, then play finally resumed.

“We promise you this isn’t the nature channel,” play-by-play broadcaster Callum Williams said as the crowd came up with racoon-themed chants. “We need to find him a ball, because he’s moving very well in the center of midfield.”

Analyst Calen Carr recalled a famous piece of MLS lore from his playing days, the raccoons that inhabited D.C. United’s old RFK Stadium in Washington.

The raccoon was unavailable to comment on whether those folks were relatives.

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Oliver Semmle hasn’t been at fault for a lot of the goals that have gotten past him, but he didn’t look good on New York’s second.

Wagner charged into New York’s Wolf near the corner, earning the Pigeons a free kick and Wagner a deserved yellow card. Wolf took the free kick himself, and whether or not he meant it — though it sure looked like he did — fired a dart to the top of the far corner of the net.

Semmle punched at the ball with one outstretched fist, but came up well short.

It was Wolf’s first goal since joining New York (6-5-2, 20 points) in January from Borussia Mönchengladbach, one of Germany’s biggest teams, in a surprising free transfer. Coincidentally, Wolf grew up in Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg’s youth academy, which was run by Union sporting director Ernst Tanner at the time.

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Carranza’s goal finally gave the crowd something soccer-related to cheer about. It was a dazzling free kick, whipped into the top corner from 20 yards, and it was the Argentine striker’s ninth goal in 13 games this year.

Once again, though, one goal wasn’t enough. The Union aimed 24 shots at New York goalkeeper Matt Freese, a Wayne-born longtime Union backup, but they never found an equalizer.

Elliott came closest in the final minute of stoppage time, but his goal was correctly disallowed because Dániel Gazdag was offside when he received the ball in the buildup.

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Nor did Curtin’s substitutions make too much of an impact: Alejandro Bedoya for Quinn Sullivan in the 71st minute, and José Andrés Martínez for Flach and Olivier Mbaizo for Nathan Harriel in the 84th.

But the law of the ex, as soccer calls it, certainly struck with force. Freese made four saves, and Perea helped the visitors clog up the midfield all night.