Reality hits the Union’s playoff hopes, and now it’s an uphill battle just to get there

At least you were warned.

For all the positive momentum that the Union’s last four games generated, you’ve read here repeatedly that it could all end up being for nothing.

On Saturday night at Subaru Park, a dose of reality arrived with the rain that ended summer and started fall. Saba Lobzhanidze’s equalizer for Atlanta United 11 minutes after Nathan Harriel’s opener left the Union with a 1-1 tie in what was on paper the most winnable game for the rest of the year.

Union manager Jim Curtin knew it, as much as he seemed to not want to admit it after the game.

» READ MORE: Union’s playoff hopes dealt a big hit in draw with Atlanta United

“We still played some decent soccer for stretches, but at this stage no one remembers the amount of chances you create,” Curtin said. “They only care if it’s three points, and tonight wasn’t good enough.”

That was a reference to the Union outshooting Atlanta 23-11, including 7-1 on shots on target. But it too often felt like the Union weren’t going to get a second goal.

“We’ve put ourselves in this situation where we’re still in control of our own destiny, but at the same time our margin for error is very, very small,” Curtin said. “Not taking those extra two points tonight makes it a little bit more challenging, there’s no question about that.”

Players knew it too, led by left back Kai Wagner.

“Of course you have to look at reality,” he said, later adding: “It’s still in our hands to get into the playoffs, we just have to go there and win the games. It sounds pretty easy — it’s not, I know that.”

» READ MORE: The Union are in the thick of a real playoff race for the first time in eight years

This team still has ambitions to make the playoffs and make a run in them, and the players are entitled to believe in themselves. But Wagner acknowledged that the short term has to come first.

“I don’t look that far ahead now,” he said. “I think If we go in the playoffs, nobody will want to play us. But I think right now, we just have to look for ourselves.”

The Union (9-12-10, 37 points) got lucky that lowly Chicago held eighth-place Toronto to a 1-1 tie on Saturday, meaning the Union and Toronto remain level on points. Because of that, eighth could still be in reach. That team gets to host the playoffs’ one-game opening round before heading to whoever finishes first, likely to be Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami.

But seventh place feels out of reach now, since its occupant Charlotte FC (11-11-9, 42 points) has two more wins than the Union and a much easier remaining schedule.

Just as bad, and perhaps worse, is how close the chasing pack is behind the Union. Montreal has tied the Union on points with the same record, and trails only on goal difference. Atlanta is three points (one win) behind, and so is a D.C. United team led by MLS’s top scorer this year, Christian Benteke.

» READ MORE: For Jim Curtin, every game is ‘must-win’ for the rest of the Union’s season

Next up for the Union is a Wednesday game at fourth-place Orlando City (7:30 p.m., Apple TV), a team that has won 10 of its last 13 regular-season games. Then it’s off to reigning champion Columbus before a pause for the October FIFA national team window.

“There’s a lot of teams that are still alive, a lot of teams that shouldn’t still be alive that are, and that’s the reality of the league,” Curtin said. “We have to find a way to get in the playoffs — then anything can happen.”

One of the oddities of this season is that the Union have been better on the road (5-5-5) than at home (4-7-5) in regular-season games. For most of the team’s recent years among the Eastern Conference’s elite, it’s been the other way around — and by some distance.

“I don’t know how we are better on the road,” Wagner said. “We feel more comfortable on the road. It shouldn’t be like that.”

The seven home regular-season losses this year represent the same number of total home losses the Union suffered from the 2019 through 2023 seasons combined.

» READ MORE: Lincoln Financial Field selected as a stadium site for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup

In one stretch from mid-September 2021 through late March 2023, the Union went 24 straight games unbeaten at Subaru Park. The game that snapped the streak was during a FIFA window, so the team was shorthanded, and it didn’t lose again at home for the rest of the year.

That is the standard set by not just this team, but this specific group of players that has been together for so long. At a certain point, Andre Blake’s injury absences alone aren’t enough to explain the failure to meet that standard.

On Saturday night, it felt like that point had arrived. Just three games remain to prove that it hasn’t yet.