Ryan Richter isn’t worried about the Union’s latest loss. The big picture shows he doesn’t have to be.
For as much as the scoreboard renders the final verdict, Richter wasn’t entirely wrong to say his team played the better soccer in Saturday’s 1-0 loss at FC Cincinnati.
When things go well for a long while, a stretch of two ties and two losses in four games late in a season can become a worry.
But there aren’t any alarm bells sounding about the Union right now, either within the team or within the fan base. Nor should there be.
For one thing, everyone knew the schedule was going to kick up in difficulty in the second half of October, and it did. For another, the injury bug bit Milan Iloski and Cavan Sullivan at the same time Bruno Damiani and Danley Jean Jacques served suspensions for yellow card accumulation.
Now here they are in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, right about where most people thought they’d land once things started going well. And for as much as the scoreboard renders the final verdict, interim manager Ryan Richter wasn’t entirely wrong to say his team played the better soccer in Saturday’s 1-0 loss at FC Cincinnati.
“It’s tough to walk away from this game with nothing, but I think we played a good game,” he said afterward. “At the end of the day, if we continue to play good games, then we’ll continue to be successful. We’re in a tough stretch right now, and it was a tough week, and at least from what I saw, we put a lot of energy into this game, and I thought we were the better team.”
He then added: “What we have to do is find a way to turn these games like this, when you outplay a team on the road — we have to turn those into wins.”
It was stating the obvious, but this was a game where stating the obvious was enough.
» READ MORE: Repeated Union misfires result in a 1-0 loss at FC Cincinnati in their next-to-last regular season game
Are there things to clean up? Sure. Agustín Anello had another good chance that he didn’t finish, and Ezekiel Alladoh had another game without a chance in the first place. That will raise more calls for Malik Jakupović to go back above him on the depth chart.
It also bears noting that Quinn Sullivan has now gone six games without a goal or an assist, with starts in four of those contests. Ending that drought would be a big help heading into the playoffs.
“If you get 15 shots in a road game, that’s creating a number of chances … I think we just we didn’t take any,” Richter said.
Those included Bruno Damiani crashing a header off the crossbar; Agustín Anello turning a shot from a good position right at Cincinnati goalkeeper Roman Celentano; and Nathan Harriel’s close-range header in the 21st minute that forced a great close-range save from Celentano.
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The biggest lesson of the day might have come at the other end of the field. In the buildup to Cincinnati’s goal, their star playmaker Evander drove right at four Union players and no one really stepped in to stop him.
Of course there was the risk of conceding a penalty kick if they did, but still, a team that prides itself on defending will notice when there wasn’t enough of it. Those players will also know that the next time an attacking midfielder that good gets in that kind of a position against them, it might be Lionel Messi in a Union-Miami playoff series.
“With a player like Evander, and a number of teams have a quality attacking player like this, they have to make sure that they close down when he gets anywhere around the goal,” Richter said.
Overall, the best prescription right now might be a few days of rest before getting back to practice, and getting Iloski back on the field on schedule.
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Follow that with a win in next Saturday’s regular-season finale against Toronto FC (4 p.m., Apple TV), and whatever nerves are out there should be mostly settled. The Union will seal sixth with a win, and will stay out of the wild card game with a tie. But a win should be the expectation, as it already is within the team.
Then it will be on to the playoffs, and we’ll see what happens.
“We don’t have concern,” Richter said. “We need to get the guys fit, and get the guys back in, and with our strongest team hopefully leading into the Toronto game next week.”
