Top 10 Union moments all-time — as told by Union fans

In advance of the Union preparing to embark on their 14th season as Philly’s MLS franchise, we’ve decided to take a look at the Top 10 most memorable moments in the club’s short history — but with a twist.

This Top 10 was compiled from suggestions by supporters who answered the call on Twitter to give us the moments they’ll never forget — and perhaps a few they’d prefer to forget but are memorable just the same.

This one is a shocker not because of the significance of the game, but because it was a good goal against one of the best clubs in the world. In the 2011 World Football Challenge, the Union took on European powerhouse Real Madrid in an exhibition at Lincoln Financial Field. In the 80th minute, with Real Madrid up, 2-0, Farfan used a nice move to elude an onrushing defender and laid a ball off to forward Danny Mwanga before making a run into the box. Mwanga played Farfan the ball back for a one-time chip over the head of Madrid’s goalkeeper. You could call 2011 the year of Farfan, who played his way to becoming an MLS All-Star — subbing into that game in the second half for David Beckham at PPL Park.

The memories of legendary forward Carlos Ruiz as a member of the Union are mixed among its fans, but his 75th-minute howler against Chicago is not one of them. In a back-and-forth game against the Fire, Ruiz took a deflection from his own free kick and off a one-bounce smashed the ball past Fire goalie and Delco native Jon Conway to give the Union a 2-1 win. It predates Jakob Glesnes’ 2021 screamer against the Red Bulls in the MLS playoffs and wasn’t as significant, but it was a game-winner that the sold-out crowd at PPL Park won’t soon forget.

It would appear that this list is full of many memorable moments that come complete with wins over I-95 rivals the New York Red Bulls. This moment has all the story lines that make it easy to understand why fans noted it had to make the list. A quarterfinal match in one of America’s most storied soccer tournaments. The Union were on the road and down to just 10 men following a Conor Casey red card. The game would go into extras and forward Fernando Aristiguieta would send the traveling fans into rapture after kicking the game-winning PK. That secured the Union its third trip to a U.S. Open Cup semifinal round in four years.

OK, so for this one fans have to remember that up until this goal you could usually hear a pin drop inside what was then PPL Park. In the 94th minute of extras, Union forward Antoine Hoppenot made a sizzling run into the final third toward the box but was tripped up on the edge of the 18-yard-box. Sebastien Le Toux initially stepped up to the spot to take the free kick, but it would be Kleberson, the former Manchester United wunderkind, who stepped up to take it. Kleberson barely played the entire season, just seven games, but with just two steps, he whipped a curling shot over the wall into the net. While fans may remember that moment, guess who’d like to forget it? Union reserve goalkeeper Joe Bendik, who at the time was Toronto’s No. 1.

This was the day the Union’s Brazilian forward, known simply as Ilsinho, became a legend here. With the Union down 2-0, Ilsinho entered the match as a second-half substitution and within minutes of entering set up a goal and scored the equalizer to level the match at 2-2.

Then in the 72nd minute, Ilsinho would make himself the hero, pouncing on a penalty save to lift the Union to a 3-2 win and with the three points put the team at the top of the Eastern Conference standings, four points clear of the next-best club. The Union’s website still refers to the moment simply as “The Ilsinho Game.”

“Jakob Glesnes has scored some stunning goals for the Union, but the one he scored Saturday might just top them all.” Those are words from Inquirer reporter Jonathan Tannenwald, who described a moment fans on Twitter noted “has to make the cut.” In the 123rd minute of extra time in the Union’s first-round playoff game against the Red Bulls, the latest a goal has been scored in Major League Soccer, mind you, Glesnes took a ball cleared out of the Red Bulls’ 18-yard-box off his chest and smashed it into the left corner of the goal to give the Union the win in front of a sold-out crowd of 18,623. The victory propelled the club into the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The day he was drafted, Jamaican goalkeeper Andre Blake knew very little of Philadelphia, the Union or even Major League Soccer for that matter. But his selection as No. 1 overall in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft is a pick that most fans will call one of the best decisions the club has ever made. He’s now a four-time MLS All-Star, three-time member of MLS’ Best XI team, and a three-time MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, which is a league record.

While the result wasn’t what Union fans were looking for, the club’s 2022 season will undoubtedly be one no supporter of the club will forget. Take the MLS Cup extra-time loss away, and there still are the multiple wins by football-sized final scores against D.C. United (twice), Colorado and Houston, there’s the playoff run-it-back against New York City FC, which defeated the Union a year before when several starters contracted COVID-19 the week before the Eastern Conference final. This time around, the Union defeated NYCFC in dramatic fashion, winning by 3-1 after going down a goal in the second half. Even the MLS Cup came down to needing to get beaten by one of their own in former reserve goalkeeper John McCarthy, now with Los Angeles FC, who stymied his old club in the penalty kick shootout to earn MLS Cup MVP honors. Fans will be talking about that season for a long, long time.

For fans who had been supporters of the club since Day 1, it’s possible they never thought that after so many dismal early seasons from the Union they would watch the team hoist the MLS’ Supporters’ Shield, given to the team with the best overall regular-season record. Technically, the team didn’t hold up the Supporters’ Shield at first, but a Captain America shield fashioned to look like it. The actual trophy did not arrive in time to present after a win at home against the New England Revolution secured the club’s 14-4-5 overall mark. Ask some fans and the makeshift shield trophy might actually be as good a story as winning the title itself.

There might not be a better moment besides last season’s dominant run to the MLS Cup than the indelible memory of French forward and fan favorite Sebastien Le Toux scoring a hat trick to lift the Union to a 3-2 win over D.C. United in front of nearly 35,000 fans inside Lincoln Financial Field. After a rough defeat in the Union’s first-ever game in Seattle, fans didn’t know what to expect from the team. What they learned is that Le Toux was worth whatever he was getting paid, making perfect runs to get behind United’s defense twice and scoring on a header for his first goal that surprised even him.

“I was not really supposed to be in the box … I was more waiting on top of the box,” Le Toux recalled of his first goal in 2020. “When the play kept going, I knew that nobody really marked me. So I snuck in the box, was kind of like, ‘Put it in a good spot,’ and I don’t know, the ball really just fell right on my head.”

It was a moment that truly connected the fans to the action as told by this memorable picture of a perfect night.

The Top 10, presented by Xfinity, takes a look at the most memorable, iconic, and newsworthy moments in sports, sports culture, and Philly’s place in all of it.