The key to the Union’s season-altering 12-game unbeaten run? Ridding the locker room of ‘toxicity’

Recently, a Union fan, an original Sons of Ben member, texted this reporter following the team’s 4-2 win against Orlando City. Clearly enthused by what was a win by a team devoid of five of its starters, he sent in all caps: THIS TEAM MAY NEVER LOSE ANOTHER GAME!!!

For anyone who understands the law of averages, you know that’s not the case, but it’s hard to look at this current win streak the Union are on and not take even a little of what is such a bold statement into consideration.

Over the course of a 12-game unbeaten streak, the Union have had come-from-behind victories, knocked off teams in the East sitting way higher than the club’s current sixth-place perch, and have scored 18 goals in their last four games, including their last game when they were without those five starters, including longtime goalkeeper Andre Blake.

On Saturday night, with a full roster in tow, they’ll look to make it 13 when they host Real Salt Lake at Subaru Park (7:30 p.m., Apple TV).

With just seven games remaining in a season that appeared over before it began after just 15 matches ahead of the FIFA World Cup, the Union’s resurgence is the best story in Major League Soccer at the moment and arguably one of the best in MLS in quite some time.

The variables of all this success have been so good it’s easy to overlook how the club got to this point and the sweeping changes that fueled the team’s resurgence.

» READ MORE: Cavan Sullivan sees USMNT call-up as a ‘way of serving’ his country, and his grandfather

It’s hard to see all that ails a club when access arrives in segmented portions of a daily training schedule. In addition to game day access, typically, a media member is in the building and on the field for a few minutes in the morning, just long enough to see warm-ups before reporters are whisked away until the end of a training session to get post-practice interviews or speak to the coaching staff.

That does not provide a lot of time to notice things like body language or other little innuendos that raise eyebrows. But there are those times, like this one, where you don’t need to ask; someone approaches you. Late last month, a team official told The Inquirer, on condition of anonymity, that “there was some toxicity” between players, the former coaching staff, and the since-departed sporting director.

“I can’t get into specifics, but it was tough, man,” the source revealed. “Guys were playing out of natural positions, guys were getting sent away, there was talk of sending a few players who are starting now out on loan, and then you had the whole [misconduct] thing in the backdrop. It’s no excuse. At the end of the day, our job is to put together results on the field, but there was just some toxicity that I do think affected us on the field.”

What’s supporting this claim is what players and coaches have intimated on the record during this run. In the aftermath of his hat trick performance that lifted a shorthanded Union roster over Orlando City at home a few weeks ago, Milan Iloski praised the work that interim coach Ryan Richter and his staff have done, and for giving him the freedom to be the club’s true No. 9, instead of the hybrid striker-midfielder role he employed under previous coaching directives.

» READ MORE: In his rightful spot as the Union’s main striker, Milan Iloski is doing more than scoring goals

“Super happy,” Iloski said. “That’s what I was brought here to do and to play … and that’s where I’ve had all the success in my career really. So, I’m really comfortable, really happy … When Richter came in and the new staff, it was [made] really clear that was what we were going to do. I was super happy to hear that … [and now,] I feel like I’m impacting games, which is really important.”

Following that game, Richter said something that also stuck out. It was in reference to a question asked around Iloski’s output, but the answer seemed to touch on things on a much larger scale.

“What I was always taught from [former Union Academy director] Iain Munro, who was my first mentor, my first coach as a coach, was that your job [as a coach] is to put the players in a shape and in their position where you see their strengths.

» READ MORE: What sparked Mark McKenzie’s return to the Union? Being closer to ‘family,’ on and off the field

“When I analyze the first half of the year, when we [as coaches] analyze the first half of the year, you know, you think of what are [Milan’s] best qualities? The ball falls to him in the box. It ends up in the back of the net. He knows how to play one-touch combinations and read the moments when you play with two strikers. Of course he can play a couple of different positions; he’s versatile like that. But I always looked at it, and that was my first conversation with him: I see [you] as a striker; this is the reason he was [brought] on board. And he agreed.”

Playing players in their right position and where they’re comfortable.

Quite the novel idea.

It almost makes you wonder if you’d even be reading this if that was always the prevailing strategy heading into this season.

On Friday night, Subaru Park once again played host to the annual service academies rivalry between Army and Navy. There were additions to this year’s event, like the inclusion of an earlier match between the two women’s programs, but on the men’s side, former Union boss and first-year Navy coach John Hackworth roamed manager’s row once again.

When asked earlier this week how it felt to return to Chester, the spot where he got his first stint as a head coach and as a chief soccer officer (soccer’s fancy term for general manager) in Major League Soccer, he said he was “super proud and privileged.”

“To see what this place is today, and remembering what it was, I’m just in awe of the strides that have been made,” Hackworth told The Inquirer earlier this week. “I have so many fantastic memories from when [Subaru Park] wasn’t even built yet. I remember when it was a gravel parking lot. To watch it being built and then to work out of it for five and a half years, yeah, it was one of the great privileges of my life.”

Hackworth’s tenure ended in 2014, but he led the Union for two years and made it to the U.S. Open Cup semifinals in his first season in charge. The next season, his first full season in charge, the Union got off to a strong start, launching to as high as second place in MLS’ Eastern Conference before winning just twice in their last 10 matches to miss out on the 2013 MLS Cup playoffs by a mere three points.

But returning as head coach of Navy is an honor, Hackworth said, and to take on Army, a rivalry across all sports that he says became quickly apparent, was going to be one of his greatest honors, win or lose.

“I’m going to enjoy Friday night no matter what,” Hackworth said. “I’m going to be enjoying a spectacular soccer game, which means the world to these prestigious military and academic universities. And I haven’t experienced that, you know?

“I mean, I’ve been to World Cups, I’ve been at Olympic qualifying matches, I’ve won a national championship in the USL. I went to the playoffs and finals in MLS. But Friday, I am going to experience something totally new in a building that is near and dear to my heart. Yeah, it’s going to be fun.”

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