The Union’s first league win of the year is a huge relief for Bradley Carnell and Jesús Bueno

MONTRÉAL — The setting in one of North America’s best soccer cities deserved better than a Basement Bowl matchup between two of the worst teams in MLS.

A lot of the players on the field did, too.

But that was the scene on Saturday inside Stade Saputo. The Union took the field 0-6-0, and CF Montréal arrived at 1-5-0, one of an unsightly four Eastern Conference teams with just one win so far this year.

Just short of two hours later — 117 minutes of game clock, to be precise, counting all the stoppage time — the Union made it five such teams. Their 2-1 comeback win was far from pretty, with just as many frustrating moments as the previous losses. But if ever there was a day where the result was all that counted, this was one.

The relief in the Union’s locker room afterward was palpable, starting with Union manager Bradley Carnell.

“Listen, everyone’s been feeling it,” he said. “Everyone’s been taking it personally; everyone has not been happy with the standard of the results. We feel that we’ve been performing at a good level, but not enough to get the games over the hump.”

Since this is a hockey town (and both Montréal’s and Philadelphia’s hockey teams are in good form right now), let’s give three stars of the game. We’ll start at the top, though, because Jesús Bueno deserves spotlighting first.

» READ MORE: Heroics from Jesús Bueno help the Union snap a six-game MLS slump at CF Montréal

When he scored the game-winning goal, he screamed with joy, then ran toward the Union substitutes nearby for a team-wide celebration. Alejandro Bedoya’s embrace of his fellow midfielder looked especially emotional.

“That goal meant a lot,” Bueno said in his native Spanish. “It’s been a very difficult year for me and for the team, not only with results. But to score the winning goal makes me very proud, and it was a great effort by the whole team.”

Then he helped close the game out, which was far from assured given the team’s psychological frailties. It came all the way down to a Montréal free kick in the final seconds, and the Apple TV production knew what it was doing by putting the camera on a crouching Carnell.

Fate smiled on the Union this time. Olger Escobar launched the ball into the stands, referee Alex Da Silva blew the final whistle, and Bueno fell to his knees in celebration.

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“It’s never easy to win in MLS,” he said. “It’s been difficult for us this year, but the whole team worked for it [today]. The whole team did what we needed to do, getting back to basics to find the results we wanted.”

We’ll give the second star to Japhet Sery Larsen. He was caught upfield on Montréal’s opener, but made up for it by scoring the equalizer with a thumped header off Milan Iloski’s free kick. Larsen pointed at the bench as he celebrated, and it looked like he was pointing at Carnell as a vote of confidence.

“I wish he was pointing at me,” Carnell said afterward, claiming it was assistant coach and set piece expert Frank Leicht instead. “No, I love it. … Really happy for ‘Jeff.’”

The third star goes to Ezekiel Alladoh. He still hasn’t put a shot on target yet in a league game, but his header in traffic that sprung Bueno for the goal was a significant play.

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“Just happy for the team to win,” Alladoh said. “I’m not thinking about my assist or something. The first win is good [enough] for me.”

Carnell called the play “excellent,” and praised Alladoh for his progress since an internal suspension last month. It was issued for showing up late to a practice and other ways where the striker’s mentality wasn’t at the needed level. This was a sign of progress.

“It just shows a testament to him,” Carnell said. “For absorbing information — there’s been a lot of information, a lot of expectation. And everyone at the club has invested. Invested in him, invested in extra film, extra training on board, and he’s invested as well.”

Alladoh offered thanks in turn, saying he was “happy for the team to be trying to help me to be the [player] I want to be on the pitch.”

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Bueno made an especially strong endorsement of someone he called “a great player, a great person, and a friend.” That was notable on its own, since Alladoh hasn’t been with the club for long. But for all his struggles on the field, he has clearly found connections off the field.

“The team made an investment in a young player,” Bueno said. “In my personal opinion, I think he can be a face of Philadelphia for many years. He has the qualities to be a key player for the club, but I ask for the fans to be patient with him.”

It’s a big ask, since Alladoh set the Union’s transfer fee record when he arrived. Some teams in MLS can get away with calling a $4.5 million striker a signing for the future, but the Union haven’t been one of them.

“Things will fall into place,” Bueno said. “I trust him, because he has the qualities to succeed. And the fans should, too.”

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Bueno knows a few things about patience. He waited a long time to become a regular Union player, and he still isn’t all the way there yet. But if you really want to talk about patience, look at the home side of this game.

Soon after Carnell’s postgame news conference, word went around that Montréal manager Marco Donadel was about to be fired. This reporter was standing near the visitors’ part of the building when he heard it from a well-placed source.

At the same time, in the press conference room upstairs, Montréal’s public relations chief told the media waiting for Donadel that neither he nor any players would be speaking. (That was a violation of league rules, for the record.)

Reporters from two Montreal-based outlets, La Presse and Radio-Canada, caught Donadel as he drove out of the stadium parking lot. He lowered a window, shook hands with the reporters, then said he couldn’t talk — which, of course, said enough. (It was also a nice endorsement of old-fashioned journalism.)

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Even though Montréal has rarely been among MLS’s elite, the team formerly known as the Impact has been around for 33 years, playing in other leagues before joining this one in 2012. There’s pressure on the team in this town, in a way that the Union have rarely felt in Philadelphia.

Would Carnell and his bosses have felt some if this game had been a defeat? Because it wasn’t, they don’t have to find out.