The Union’s first shutout of the regular season couldn’t have come at a better time

There was much to like in the Union’s 2-0 win over Minnesota United on Saturday.

Dániel Gazdag scored a timely goal early, and Julián Carranza scored an even timelier one late — right after a Loons goal was offside in the buildup.

The expected goals sum will have pleased the stat-minded, 2.32-0.59 in the Union’s favor. And the first afternoon regular-season game at Subaru Park in two years will have pleased the many fans who enjoyed the sunshine (at least until it rained) instead of a cold night.

But the most important aspect of the day was the shutout, and everyone on the Union’s bench knew it. This was just the second clean sheet in nine games overall this year, and the first in the regular season.

“That’s what we’ve built our success on in the past five, six years,” centerback Jack Elliott said. “Getting back to two strong defensive performances in a row, and a clean sheet this week, obviously it’s important for us.”

» READ MORE: Dániel Gazdag and Julián Carranza score to lead Union’s 2-0 win over Minnesota United

It surely helped that the Union had a full week of rest and training. After eight games in 24 days to start the year and then the international break, they had the full squad in as close to a proper rhythm as they’ve had all year.

“It’s easy to say that now when we are winning,” said defender Jakob Glesnes. “It has been a lot of traveling, and also a lot of tough away games. Of course that costs mentally and also on the energy level, but now we have nothing to complain about.”

It’s not just that there was a lot of travel and games, it’s that it all came at the expense of real practice time.

“Being a bit more settled for games helps a lot,” Elliott said. “Especially playing against teams that obviously have that rest and recovery during the week, and actual days to be able to train.”

Now the Union face back-to-back tough road games at Nashville and Atlanta. But the team will return to the road with real momentum.

“Everybody raised their level because of what happened in Portland a week earlier,” Union manager Jim Curtin said, “That was a big win. Now hopefully we can get on a run.”

» READ MORE: The Union was finally at full strength for the first time this year

It wasn’t Curtin’s idea to shift formation to a flat 4-4-2 when Alejandro Bedoya subbed in for Mikael Uhre in the 66th minute. It was his assistants’ idea.

The Union has rarely used that formation in recent years, even though an improvised version made a cameo appearance at Portland on March 23. This time, it wasn’t so improvised.

“I give my staff credit because I didn’t want to do it today,” Curtin said. “At home, I always think it’s a little conservative to go a little bit deeper. But it wound up working, and it gave us a calmness in the middle part of the field.”

The flat setup — with Jack McGlynn, José Andrés Martínez, Alejandro Bedoya, and Quinn Sullivan — gave the Union width in midfield that they don’t often have. It seemed to especially suit Sullivan, who’s always willing to run at defenders one-on-one; and McGlynn, who had tons of space on the left to move into.

“[Ryan] Richter, Frank [Leicht], and Phil [Weddon] kind of said, just stick Ale in the middle, give us two No. 6s — him and José can share it — and leave Quinny to just do his thing on the right,” Curtin said of three top assistants. “So I trusted them … At the end of the day, I’m humble enough to say they were right. It was a great decision, and it helped the team.”

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If the formation’s success surprised Curtin, one might wonder how much it can surprise other teams. The rest of the league knows the Union likes to play a winger-less midfield diamond, and one way to beat it is by overloading the flanks to spread the Union out. Now, the Union have shown they can fight back with the same weapon.

Could we see the Union deploy a flat midfield more often? The biggest hitch is in how the team’s roster is built. Unsurprisingly, a team that rarely plays with wingers doesn’t have many wide attackers in the first place.

“We haven’t had a dribbler, a 1-v-1 guy, since Ilsinho,” Curtin said, “Quinn showed a little bit of that today, even maybe more than I thought, when he got isolated and showed a change of speed to go by a guy and turn the corner. … When you talk about width, you have to have guys that are 1-v-1 dribblers and we don’t have tons of those guys right now.”

But he might just have enough. Sullivan showed he can do it, and he has while a member of U.S. youth national teams before. Markus Anderson played the role in Spain before coming here, and McGlynn showed Saturday he can do it, too.

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