The Union face another test of their summer progress with a visit to the Red Bulls
Interim manager Ryan Richter knows as well as anyone how far the team still has to go, even as he knows how far it has come in the last five weeks.
Union fans know well by now how forgiving a MLS season can be. But that doesn’t mean it forgets.
The team’s progress since the World Cup break will hit a milestone at Saturday’s visit to Red Bull New York: it will be the teams’ first meeting since the 3-1 Union win on July 22 that started their six-game unbeaten run in league games.
Extending the streak would bring another round of good headlines, especially if Cavan Sullivan and Neil Pierre lead the way again. But a win wouldn’t bring the milestone fans really want, getting into a playoff spot. Though it could tie the Union (5-10-6, 21 points) with ninth-place Orlando City, the Lions would keep the lead on the first standings tiebreaker of total wins.
In a way, that frees interim manager Ryan Richter to focus on the day-to-day, as he prefers. He knows as well as anyone how far the team still has to go — even as he knows how far it has come in the last five weeks.
“On one hand it feels like that was 20 games ago, and then on the other it feels like it was yesterday,” Richter said Thursday in his weekly news conference.
“I’ve learned a lot about the guys — I hope they’ve gotten to know myself and the staff, and how we’re operating through a season when you’re actually playing a lot of games. And I know I’ve learned a lot about the guys, and seen the good side and the bad side of them, and just appreciate the way that they’ve continued to work, and stay focused, and be honest in conversations over this really busy last couple of weeks.”
» READ MORE: Neil Pierre plays another huge game for the Union in Austin to keep the team’s unbeaten run going
A look forward finds an equally unclear horizon. Usually when the season hits the end of August, the conversation starts turning to the playoff race. But the World Cup break means there are still 13 of the 34 games left to play in just over two months, with the regular season concluding on Nov. 7.
“You guys know my outlook on this,” Richter said." The position the team’s in, the position that I’m in myself, I’m not worrying about 10 games from now. I’m excited for the game this weekend and putting all our energy into that, and trying to prepare the guys the best way that we possibly can so that they can be successful.”
A transaction
The Union loaned forward Stas Korzeniowski to Rhode Island FC of the second-tier USL Championship for the rest of the year on Thursday.
A 23-year-old Penn product in his second year as a pro, he has made nine appearances for the Union’s first team this year, and scored two goals in the early-season Concacaf Champions Cup rout of Trinidad’s Defence Force FC. He has spent the rest of the year with the Union’s reserve squad in MLS Next Pro, scoring seven goals in six games.
» READ MORE: The Union are fighting toward being a better team, but they’re not there yet
The state of the first team’s depth chart means Korzeniowski was stuck between sitting on the first team bench and playing for the second team at a level he’s probably better than. Going to the USL Championship for a few months will let him play in between the two.
