Union’s wild second-half comeback falls short in 3-2 loss to Seattle Sounders

The Union lost to the Seattle Sounders on Tuesday at Subaru Park, 3-2, completing their game that kicked off on March 9 and was suspended in the sixth minute because of a rainstorm.

As the rules instructed, the game resumed at the moment it was stopped — 5 minutes, 28 seconds on the clock — with a Union (3-2-4, 13 points) free kick from the left side of central midfield.

Seattle (2-5-3, 9 points) scored all of its goals in a first-half rout: Raúl Ruidíaz in the 13th minute, Obed Vargas in the 22nd, and Ruidíaz again with a penalty kick in the 37th. The Union mounted a ferocious comeback in the second half after making three substitutions, but couldn’t find an equalizer after Jack McGlynn scored in the 55th and Dániel Gazdag did so in the 57th.

It’s the first time the Union have lost consecutive games since last July, and the first time they’ve lost consecutive home games since 2021.

If you were paying attention ahead of time, you knew things were likely to get weird when the Union replaced the players who played on March 9 but were out Tuesday. And indeed, it did.

All the absentees had to be replaced by players who were on the original gameday squad. So technically, the replacement for injured forward Markus Anderson was Tai Baribo — for his first appearance this year, and at all since last Sept. 27.

But Baribo never actually got on the field. In fact, he didn’t even walk out with the “starting” lineups that stood for the national anthem. The Union used one of their game substitutions before kickoff, withdrawing him for Julián Carranza.

» READ MORE: How MLS’s resumption rules impacted the postponed Union-Sounders game

The second move was at goalkeeper. Andre Blake’s swollen knee sidelined him, as was feared, so Oliver Semmle moved up from the bench. With No. 3 netminder Holden Trent still sidelined, Andrew Rick was brought up from the reserve team to be the backup.

This was the fourth time Rick was called up to the senior team, the maximum allowed for a reserve player before he must be signed to a first-team contract. So the next time Rick is summoned, if there is a next time this year, the Union will have to put him on the first-team roster.

Damion Lowe was another March 9 starter who was out injured Tuesday, because of an ankle knock. Jakob Glesnes moved up from the bench to replace him, and Leon Flach took that open bench spot.

Finally, Matt Real was on the bench on March 9, and is now loaned out to Colorado Springs of the second-tier USL Championship. Sanders Ngabo took that spot.

Seattle had two moves to make, because starting centerback Xavier Arreaga was traded last week and forward Danny Musovski was injured. Yeimar Gómez went from the bench to the field, and midfielders João Paulo and Albert Rusnák took the two open bench spots.

» READ MORE: Union loan Matt Real to second-division team Colorado Springs Switchbacks

With all the oddities before kickoff, the night deserved an oddity on the field, too. Ruidíaz provided it after José Andrés Martínez committed a rare giveaway just inside the midfield line.

As the ball rolled away, Ruidíaz sprinted to it, and spotted Semmle outside his 18-yard box. The veteran striker’s first touch was a smash toward the net, and Semmle was helpless as the ball flew by him.

The second goal was more traditional, and thus more concerning. A simple passing sequence on the left side ended up with Vargas taking the ball, cutting to his right, and curling a shot past Semmle from the top of the 18-yard box.

» READ MORE: Union goalkeeper Andre Blake’s plan to ‘push through’ in his continued return to full form

Ruidíaz’s penalty kick came after a long video review of Mbaizo tripping Vargas in the 34th minute. There wasn’t much contact, but the review officials led by Chris Penso judged there to be enough. Center referee Joe Dickerson didn’t even go to the sideline replay monitor, depriving the half-full stands of the benefit of a new MLS rule: the center ref announces video review decisions to the crowd from the field.

For the record, it took until the second minute of stoppage time for the Union to register anything that even looked like a scoring chance. The first legitimate shot on goal didn’t come until the fourth minute of stoppage time, when a rare good buildup led to Gazdag shooting low at Sounders goalkeeper Andrew Thomas. A few seconds later, Thomas came off his line to block Gazdag on a break.

» READ MORE: The Union want to expand Subaru Park, but know it won’t be easy: ‘We want to be better, bigger’

Union manager Jim Curtin made a statement to start the second half, with three substitutions: Kai Wagner for Olivier Mbaizo in defense (moving Nathan Harriel to right back), and Alejandro Bedoya and Jack McGlynn for Martínez and Jesús Bueno in midfield.

The moves paid fast dividends, with two goals in the first 15 minutes of the period. Suddenly, a crowd that had booed its own team off the field was awake and loud.

McGlynn struck first, whipping in a 19-yard rocket with his great left foot out of a corner kick sequence in the 55th minute. Gazdag tallied barely two minutes later, capping off a textbook Union fast break with a well-placed header of Quinn Sullivan’s cross. That made the Hungarian the Union’s all-time leading scorer in all competitions, with 57 goals.

But there was nothing more to come. The closest anyone got was Carranza hitting the crossbar with a header in the 85th from a tough angle.

» READ MORE: Dániel Gazdag is fully deserving of the Union’s all-time scoring record