The Union are a good team, but the vibes are bad, and so are the numbers

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The way things ultimately shook out, you can make the case that the Union got the most favorable first-round playoff matchup possible, facing a less-than-impressive New England team instead of the prolific attacks of Atlanta or Columbus.

But that’s just about the only good thing you can say about the Union right now, after Saturday’s 2-1 loss at the Revolution consigned them to fourth place in the Eastern Conference. This team is backing into the playoffs, with just two wins since the start of September and just four shutouts since the start of July — two of which were scoreless ties.

A few areas are of particular concern. The most obvious is the aforementioned lack of good defense.

“It’s pretty clear that we know we could do better,” Union midfielder and captain Alejandro Bedoya told The Inquirer in a mostly silent locker room Saturday night. “We haven’t been able to keep as many shutouts, and that’s frustrating. Especially when we play in some of these games where we play five in the back, three in the back, whatever we want to call it — we should be able to be more compact and harder to score [against].”

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If you’d rank a lack of good offense above a lack of good defense, that’s understandable. I’ll take the other side. The Union set a record for the fewest goals conceded in a 34-game regular season last year, 26, and this year conceded 41.

Year-to-year roster change isn’t why. Stuart Findlay and Matt Freese departed, but Findlay left at midseason last year, Damion Lowe has been a fine replacement, and Joe Bendik hasn’t played since July 13. Everyone’s to blame, and as Bedoya said, they know it.

Mikael Uhre’s lack of production is a factor in the regular-season goals scored total also dropping by 15, from 72 to 57. He has 10 goals in 45 games this year, after 13 in 30 last year — and he has found the net in only seven contests this season. (Consider where the Union might be if he’d had a goal in each of 10 games.)

Tai Baribo hasn’t done much since arriving in August, but there’s a long history of MLS summer signings who don’t flourish until the next year. He also was signed as depth, not as a starting-caliber player. The latter player has to come this winter after Julián Carranza is sold (assuming he is).

If roster changes aren’t to blame for the defensive woes, they are a factor at the attacking end. On a number of occasions this year when the Union have seemed to lack a spark, I’ve wondered not just if Quinn Sullivan would help (which he did at times), but if Paxten Aaronson would.

» READ MORE: Union forward Julián Carranza is focused on scoring goals, not European transfer rumors

That doesn’t mean the Union were wrong to sell Aaronson a year earlier than they’d probably planned to. Eintracht Frankfurt offered far too good a deal to turn down, and Aaronson has already shown he’s at that team’s level. But this team doesn’t have a true alternative to Dániel Gazdag, whether as a backup or as someone who can bring more of a lock-picking skill set to the attacking midfield role.

“We do need to get back to, when we get that one-goal lead, not taking the foot off the gas, continuing to push, try and get the second, third goal,” manager Jim Curtin said Saturday night. “Sometimes [that] is the best defense. But then also being really stable and sound defensively,.”

Joaquín Torres could have been an answer here, and was in flashes. But only in flashes, because his lack of defense and strong practice habits nailed him to the bench. Curtin rarely calls his players out publicly, but he walked right up to the line with Torres in late September, and that was enough.

There’s another area of the field where the Union have come up short lately, one fans aren’t going to like hearing about. It’s outside back, and that includes Kai Wagner.

» READ MORE: Jim Curtin says the Union remain focused amid Alejandro Bedoya and Kai Wagner’s contract disputes

Perhaps you wouldn’t be reading this if Nathan Harriel’s teammates had been onside when Wagner served up the free kick that Harriel put in the net late in Saturday’s game. But in the last few games, neither Wagner nor Olivier Mbaizo nor Harriel (whose attacking game isn’t his strong suit) has delivered his usual quality of chance creation from the flanks.

The importance of Wagner’s end of the bargain grows with Mbaizo out injured. Curtin said Saturday night that he’ll have “our full group” in practice this week, which implies Mbaizo could be back.

“Our wingbacks and our outside backs, whether we’re in a four or five [back line], have to give us some attacking moments, have to give us service for sure,” Curtin said. “And it’s not just crosses, it also maybe means joining in the box and, and shooting and attacking. So something will certainly need to work on.”

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MLS announced the first-round playoff schedule Sunday night, after a day of negotiations with teams and broadcasters. What emerged was unusually lopsided. The Union’s series starts Saturday at Subaru Park (5 p.m. Apple TV), then waits 10 days until Nov. 8 for Game 2 at New England (7 p.m., FS1, Fox Deportes, Apple TV). If a Game 3 is necessary, it will be after a short turnaround: Nov. 12 at Subaru Park (3 p.m., Apple TV).

Then again, the playoff structure as a whole is unusual: the 8 and 9 seeds in a wild-card round, then a best-of-three first round, then one-game rounds the rest of the way.

For all the unknowns, two things are known. One is that the Union and Revolution will have played each other three or four straight times by the time their series ends, depending on how long it goes. Another is that no team anywhere in MLS will want to face the Union in the playoffs, given how much postseason experience they have, even if too much of that experience is at coming up short.

“We said before the game that we have to be ready now, because we should play with a playoff intensity, and we didn’t do that today,” centerback Jakob Glesnes said. “So we are disappointed. We ended up in fourth place and it’s slower than what we were expecting, but it is what it is.”

He called New England “a good team, but we are also a great team. And we have shown over several years now at home that we are hard to beat.”

That’s all true. This team’s talent is indeed known, and its home record is very good. But this group of players has to show what it’s truly capable of now, once and for all this year. If it doesn’t, its window of opportunity will slam shut fast.

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