The Union’s postseason return brought intensity — and Andre Blake’s shootout heroics

Two years isn’t a long time to wait between playoff games, in MLS or any other sport. But the Union’s return to the postseason brought an intensity to the air at Subaru Park that hadn’t been felt for a while, even with the many soccer spectacles that have come to town since then.

It also brought a very compelling game, if not always for the right reasons. At the end of the night, it felt like the series-opening win over Chicago had been four games in one: the scoreless first 70 minutes, the Union’s surge to a 2-0 lead, the Fire’s comeback, and the penalty-kick shootout.

Let’s take each in turn to go inside how the home team prevailed.

The first stanza was defined as much by referee Sergii Boyko as by the lack of goals. He seemed to have little interest in calling most of the first half’s contact as fouls, less interest in the crowd’s opinion of him, and the least in Chicago goalkeeper Chris Brady’s repeated time-wasting on the ball.

Those antics took much of the energy out of a crowd of 19,019 that for once was in the stands well before kickoff. Perhaps that was helped by the starting time being advertised in some places as 5:30 p.m., though it was long known and correctly printed elsewhere as 5:55. (Cue the joke that the time should be printed wrong more often.)

The fans were alive when Chicago’s starting lineup was introduced, launching a storm of boos at manager Gregg Berhalter for his previous tenure with the U.S. men’s national team. Then they shook the rafters when Quinn Sullivan was unveiled as the pregame drummer, a few weeks after surgery on a torn ACL that ended his season.

» READ MORE: Union cough up late lead to Chicago Fire but win Game 1 of playoff series in a shootout

And they were touchingly silent during a pregame tribute to Brad Youtz, one of the Sons of Ben supporters’ club’s founding members, who died earlier this month. His loyalty began even before the Union existed, as he helped lead the fan movement that brought an expansion team here.

The view of what transpired next looked familiar to any watcher, from Youtz upstairs to the new generation in his old River End seats.

Berhalter’s 3-4-3 tactics had helped the Fire build a six-game winning streak heading into their first playoff berth in eight years. That setup turned the screws on the Union, the latest proof that for all that has improved in Bradley Carnell’s first year as manager, the team can still struggle to solve three-back defenses.

The game changed when Carnell turned to his own toolbox, with the first substitutions in the 64th minute. One of them, Mikael Uhre, broke the game open.

It was a classic quick move down the field, with Milan Iloski sending Uhre down the right side. He was one-on-one with former Union teammate Jack Elliott and drew on some inside knowledge.

» READ MORE: The long-term vision for Union captain Alejandro Bedoya? Return to the MLS Cup final. Full stop.

“He probably knows that normally I would go on my right,” Uhre said. “So I was thinking, let me cut it in and then see how it opens up. And then I could see Indy making the run on the back post.”

That was Indiana Vassilev, and Uhre found him with a dazzling, lofted pass across the 18-yard box. A quick trap, a quick shot, and Brady was flattened.

Five minutes later, the player who arguably changed this team’s whole season had another defining moment. Here came the Union again, this time with Iloski on the ball on the right flank. He had Vassilev and Uhre charging up the middle, and Chicago’s defense was expecting a pass.

Instead, Iloski kept the ball, cut left on Elliott, and slammed a shot into the top corner.

» READ MORE: Jay Sugarman wants the Union to get more respect, and knows winning MLS Cup will make that happen

“As I was dribbling forward, I noticed there wasn’t a lot of options,” Iloski said. “I knew off the dribble I could beat anyone in this league. Once I let the guy kind of get close to me … I just got the ball out of my feet and then focused on hitting the ball on target.”

That same self-confidence would come in handy just over 20 minutes later. But there was still a long way to go.

Even after Jonathan Bamba’s goal out of a corner kick traffic jam in the 84th, there was little reason to believe the Union would blow the lead.

But between Chicago’s goals, Berhalter made a tweak that turned the game, subbing in attacking midfielder Brian Gutiérrez for centerback Sam Rogers. Removing a defender ended up helping Iloski, but the Fire benefited more, and for the second game in a row Gutiérrez showed why he’s a U.S. national team prospect.

“He was playing in these half spaces — that was really difficult for us, and they had some success to the end of the game,” Union goalkeeper Andre Blake said. “We couldn’t stop him from getting on the ball and he’s a great player, so he was able to create some dangerous plays for them.”

» READ MORE: The Union’s return to the playoffs is a milestone moment for Bradley Carnell

At the start of stoppage time, Jakob Glesnes tripped Mauricio Pineda just outside the Union’s 18-yard box. And just as happened a previous time when Glesnes tripped Lionel Messi against Miami in May, this was a game-changing moment.

Bamba shot the free kick into the wall, the ball came right back to him, and he laid it off for Elliott to fire from 30 yards — low, hard, and straight past his former teammates. That he did not celebrate made the moment even more resonant.

When Boyko finally blew the whistle to end regulation, the game headed straight to penalty kicks. It was a moment that both elevated the drama and exposed again the strangeness of the MLS playoff format: a best-of-three first round and single-game knockouts the rest of the way.

Plenty of other competitions around the world these days go straight to penalties after regulation, as a kindness to players’ health. But none so contort things by making a score barely matter over the course of a series.

» READ MORE: Amid a Union injury bug, Cavan Sullivan will stay a little longer before the under-17 World Cup

MLS used to do what the rest of the sport has long done: single-game rounds all the way, or a two-game, home-and-away series in which the aggregate goal tally decides the winner. In this best-of-three setup, it doesn’t matter if you win 2-0, 2-1, or by any other score; or if the tie after 90 minutes is 2-2, 1-1, 0-0, or 5-5. All that counts is which team wins.

It helped the Union this time, and it’s certainly an American tradition. But that doesn’t make it a good soccer principle.

Carnell offered the zinger of the night when he called the game “a contrasting of two styles — one team just trying to waste every second and try and get out of here. Probably, they got what they wanted, [which] was penalties.”

Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

» READ MORE: The Union’s Frankie Westfield was one of the U.S.’ breakout players at the recent under-20 World Cup

Blake had studied Chicago’s takers with the Union’s outstanding goalkeeper coach, Phil Wheddon. A veteran of the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams and American clubs going back to the early 2000s, Wheddon delivered again this time, working out a set of signals from the bench that Blake needed only a glance to see.

While Brady ran his mouth, the best goalkeeper in MLS for a decade running did his job. Blake stuffed Elliott, got a big piece of Hugo Cuypers’ shot even though it went in, and psyched Joel Waterman into hitting the crossbar.

That easily overcame Uhre being saved on the Union’s first turn of the shootout. Iloski, Frankie Westfield, Tai Baribo, and Jesús Bueno were perfect afterward.

“In truth, I was a little bit nervous before my penalty kick,” Bueno said. “But when Blake gave me the ball, I just looked at him in the eye, and we laughed, and we knew that everything was going to be OK.”

So it proved, and now it’s on to Game 2.