The Union finish another season short of the biggest title, and now big questions loom

It turned out that Matt Freese didn’t need to be the hero to oust his old team from the playoffs. Far more often Sunday night, the Union did it to themselves.

That was the feeling at the final whistle of the season as the Supporters’ Shield winners dropped a 1-0 decision to rival New York City FC in the Eastern Conference semifinals on Sunday night at Subaru Park.

Of all the game’s narratives — and there were almost as many as the fouls the teams bashed each other with — the Union looking so powerless was among the least expected. But far too often in the game, it felt like this team wasn’t going to score.

In the first half, the Union had four scoring chances, and at least two of them were only half-chances. The biggest what-if came in the 42^nd minute, when Tai Baribo flicked a first-time shot from close range wide of the far post instead of trying to slam it nearer.

In the second half, the Union didn’t have a quality chance until the 73rd, when Danley Jean Jacques botched heading a cross from substitute Frankie Westfield, then Bruno Damiani whiffed on an acrobatic attempt at the loose ball.

For almost all the time until then, a New York squad, whose leading striker Alonso Martínez and key midfielder Andrés Perea were out injured, sat back and defended. That also wasn’t surprising, but the Union kept falling into the Pigeons’ traps. Play up the middle repeatedly fizzled out, and New York repelled almost all of the Union’s repeated crosses. When the Union tried shooting from range to try to break things up, all but one of the attempts were off-target.

“They had a team out there that was hungry, and for the first couple of moments of the game, we didn’t really match that,” Union manager Bradley Carnell said. “That’s on me. … Something just didn’t feel right, and we were a little bit slow to get into the game. Once we did, I thought we were very good.”

» READ MORE: Union bounced from MLS playoffs with 1-0 loss to New York City FC

Freese had his moments, starting in the 75th when he stoned Westfield’s first-time volley on the doorstep.

By the time Cavan Sullivan entered in the 83rd minute, it almost felt too late already. But even in the 15 total minutes he spent on the field — seven of regular time and eight of stoppage time — he was more creative than some of his teammates were all night.

But the end felt inevitable well before the final whistle. Westfield blazed over the bar from close (but offside) range in the 87th, and Freese went full-stretch to deny Milan Iloski in the 92nd. The Wayne native let out a big shout and a fist pump with that, finally releasing some of the emotions he’d kept pent-up with the U.S. national team.

The Union now turn to their offseason roster decisions, which are due to the league by Wednesday. Four players are out of contract, and eight have options on the table.

Any team expecting to make a deep run usually knows by this point what its decisions will be. The Union are no exception, even though sporting director Ernst Tanner has been on administrative leave since Wednesday. Most of the big calls were likely made before then.

But that doesn’t mean there will be smooth sailing. While the season’s end opens the door for a quick decision on Tanner, the odds of that happening feel slim. MLS has to finish its investigation, and there have been no hints about how long that will take.

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If the league proves enough of the allegations of insensitive comments on many levels to move for Tanner’s dismissal, MLS and the Union will have to contend with however Tanner and his lawyers respond.

In the meantime, it looks as if the key decision-makers will be the trio of assistant sporting director Matt Ratajczak, scouting director Chris Zitterbart, and academy director Jon Scheer. All three know the way things work at the club plenty well, even if they don’t have Tanner’s name recognition or final-say power.

The biggest decision that has already been made is releasing Mikael Uhre. He’s out of contract, and it’s been an open secret in Chester for weeks that he’s on his way out. Nor is it a secret in his native Denmark that Uhre has feelers out to clubs there including his previous home, Brøndby.

Uhre stood for a long spell on the field after the final whistle, at times with colleagues and at times alone. As he headed to the locker room, the fans left in the River End gave him a nice ovation.

“Let’s just say I’m keeping my options open,” he said. “I’m not saying I would never come back. I love it here — I love the people here, I love my teammates — so I would definitely not say no. But yeah, that’s not only up to me.”

» READ MORE: Matt Freese is on the verge of something big with the USMNT. First, he had to beat the Union.

The other players out of contract are Alejandro Bedoya, who will presumably first decide whether he wants to play another year; and two players deep on the bench, midfielder Ben Bender and third-string goalkeeper George Marks.

Eight players have options on the table: goalkeeper Oliver Semmle; defenders Nathan Harriel, Isaiah LeFlore, and Olwethu Makhanya; midfielders Nick Pariano and Indiana Vassilev; and forwards Tai Baribo and Chris Donovan.

Most of those decisions should be easy. Semmle, LeFlore, Pariano, and Donovan will almost certainly go, and the other four should get picked up. The quartet deserve new contracts, and who negotiates them will be a big question. At least taking the options allows for time to have those talks down the road.

Baribo will likely be the biggest challenge. He has earned a big raise and would love to stay in town for on-the-field and off-the-field reasons. But the Union might be wary of breaking the bank for him, and they’d be right. His skill set has limits.

Earlier this month, Israel’s Ynet news website reported that the Union offered Baribo a $2 million contract. That has yet to be confirmed anywhere else, but if it’s true, the view here is that Baribo (and his agent) would be wise to take it.

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Sunday’s loss was not a failure of the Union’s system. They should have won the game since New York was shorthanded, and if they’d had the injured Quinn Sullivan, their odds would have gone way up. But the Supporters’ Shield trophy can’t be taken away from them, nor does losing at this point in the playoffs devalue it.

“On another night maybe it goes our way,” Carnell said. “But it just wasn’t meant to be. It gives us something to be hungry for down the line here starting in the new year, and that gives me motivation to come back and think we can do this thing one step further.”

As the Union, the crowd, and the season headed off into the Sunday night darkness, some words from a few weeks ago came to mind.

They came from principal owner Jay Sugarman when he met with the national media in New York, just before the playoffs started. He wanted to drum up some positive attention for his team, and he succeeded.

But at one point, he said something that he knew might come back around on him: “We don’t rely so much on guys creating their own shot.”

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

It was once again the missing piece Sunday. The only players who have that skill are Cavan Sullivan and Iloski, and that’s not enough — even though Sullivan will be ready for a lot more playing time next year.

It’s especially missing at striker. Ezekiel Alladoh could be a big-time addition, but the evidence from his time in Denmark shows him to be stylistically similar to what this team already has in Baribo and Damiani.

Then again, who will sign Alladoh if Tanner goes? That will put an even bigger question on the table for Sugarman and the rest of the Union’s ownership.

It will sit alongside the biggest question of all, one Carnell brought back into focus when he said that “the fairy tale came to an end tonight.”

A big-city team that has made the playoffs in seven of the last eight years and made deep runs in four of the last five — plus two deep Concacaf Champions Cup runs — shouldn’t have to frame a Shield-winning season as a fairy tale. The Union are legitimately one of the best teams in MLS. They should be again next year and should be treated as such.

But how to get over the biggest hump of all, to win an MLS Cup, is a question that can only be answered at the top of the organization.

That has been true since the beginning, and now it’s on to the 17th attempt.

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