Union play to second straight scoreless tie, this time at home vs. Toronto FC

The Union played to their second straight scoreless tie on Wednesday, this time against Toronto FC at Subaru Park.

It was the Union’s fifth straight home game without a win, and there wasn’t much to write home about. The Union (4-4-7, 19 points) took 11 shots, but put just one on target; Toronto (7-7-2, 23 points) had 13 shots, with three on target.

The night’s most dramatic moment came when the Union’s starting lineup was announced an hour before kickoff. Julián Carranza wasn’t on it, or even on the bench.

A team spokesperson said at the time of the announcement that manager Jim Curtin would address Carranza’s absence after the game, but he ended up not waiting that long. He spoke on Apple’s pregame show and revealed that the striker suffered a minor ankle injury in Friday’s practice.

“Woke up this morning, gave me a call and said it’s not right,” Curtin said. “So we’ll be smart and he won’t go tonight.”

Quinn Sullivan started next to Mikael Uhre instead, with Markus Anderson on the bench for the first time since mid-April after his own quadriceps injury.

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Toronto’s 3-4-3 formation, a setup you don’t see often anymore, focused on forcing the Union’s attack down the left side of the field — and isolating Uhre over there as much as possible.

The Reds succeeded at that in the first half, as the Union took just four shots and put none on target. Dániel Gazdag also found himself trapped deep in midfield often, without good passing outlets nearby.

This wasn’t the first time the Union struggled against a three-back formation. In fact, that happens often. But this one felt different because the Union had a lot of the ball, and were defending well — even with Toronto star Federico Bernardeschi on the right flank of the midfield quartet so he could get on the ball more often and create from there.

It also let Bernardeschi run in behind the play when others had the ball, and he did that perfectly in the 42nd minute. Jonathan Osorio saw him coming after a pretty passing sequence on the left flank and swept the ball over, but Bernardeschi hit the crossbar.

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The second half started better. Kai Wagner put a cross onto Alejandro Bedoya’s head that led to a sharp save by Toronto goalkeeper Sean Johnson in the 50th, and a minute later Sullivan spun and shot wide from 20 yards. But otherwise, there was little hope for a goal from either side for a long time.

Toronto manager John Herdman made the game’s first substitution, sending in Deybi Flores for Devon Kerr at the top of the front line. Curtin didn’t have many attacking options on his bench as usual, or at least not ones of consequence: just Anderson, Chris Donovan, Tai Baribo, and Jeremy Rafanello.

David Vazquez once again didn’t make the cut, even though Gazdag has just one game left before leaving to play for Hungary at the European Championship.

Curtin finally called for substitutes in the 73rd minute, but it took five minutes for them to actually get on the field. When the time came, it was a surprising triple-move: Baribo for Uhre, Donovan for Bedoya, and José Andrés Martínez for Jack McGlynn. Sullivan dropped back to Bedoya’s midfield spot, Leon Flach moved from the base of the midfield to McGlynn’s spot, and Martínez took over at the base.

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But Toronto had the next two scoring chances, including a Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty shot from close range that forced a diving save from Oliver Semmle.

Herdman withdrew Bernardeschi for young forward Tyrese Spicer in the 86th minute, a sign that the visitors were happy to leave town with a scoreless tie. And as a late-night rainstorm started to fall, the Union didn’t do much in the last few minutes to change that. There were two moves forward in stoppage time, but neither produced a shot, and the final whistle eventually put everyone out of their misery.