WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- Philadelphia take on Atlas in CCL: The Philadelphia Union resume their 2023 Concacaf Champions League campaign Tuesday evening when hosting Liga MX side Atlas FC for a quarterfinal leg-one matchup before the return fixture arrives April 12 in Guadalajara, Mexico. Here's how to watch and stream.
- NYCFC loan Andrade to Brazil's Athletico Paranaense: New York City FC have freed up a U22 Initiative roster slot by loaning forward Thiago Andrade to Brazilian top-flight side Athletico Paranaense. Andrade, 22, will be on loan through December 2023. The deal includes a purchase option that's automatically exercised if certain performance criteria are met. Thiago Andrade, who joined NYCFC from Brazilian side Bahia in April 2021, has 10 goals and four assists in 58 regular-season games (24 starts). He was part of NYCFC's MLS Cup 2021 and Campeones Cup 2022-winning sides.
SOME ADDED STAKES MAY BE JUST WHAT THE UNION NEED
In a year where expectations were higher than ever, the Union feel like they are already close to coming up short. That's not an exaggeration. Their three losses on the season so far are just two fewer than the five losses they had all of last year. The fact that two of those losses came against Inter Miami and CF Montréal makes it feel even worse. Honestly, their entire schedule so far seemed set up to keep them at the start of the East from the jump and, for whatever reason, it hasn't happened.
Obviously, there's a long way to go and any hopes of a trophy or two are still in play, but there's no denying at this point that Philadelphia will have to snap out of whatever's ailing them here. To be fair, it took them until about mid-summer last season before they truly started bulldozing teams. On top of that, Andre Blake has missed a couple of games. However, considering the extreme continuity this team had coming into the season, it's hard to find any convincing excuses for what's gone wrong. Even if we are talking about a small sample size. Union head coach Jim Curtin does have a theory though.
"I know the expectations for the group at the start of the season have been very, very high," he said. "And maybe we're all trying to be perfect rather than just doing our job. … I think that's what we need to get back to."
Tonight, Philadelphia will host Liga MX's Atlas at Subaru Park in a very winnable CCL quarterfinal matchup on the easier side of a very winnable bracket in what feels like a very winnable tournament considering the circumstances. Coming into the year, we fully expected the Union to feel like favorites at this point. Now, it's harder to be so sure.
That's not because of anything Atlas has done. They've been wholly unimpressive in both the Apertura and Clausura of the Liga MX season. And despite a huge comeback win in the opening round of CCL against Honduras' Olimpia, it's still maybe not all that great they needed to make a huge comeback in the first place. The Union, on paper, are the better team.
But things are off. So what reason should we have to believe that they'll have things fixed by tonight? Well, I know this isn't exactly based on tactical principles or anything relatively tangible, but it feels like the stakes of CCL might be exactly what the Union need. It's hard to blame a team that came a couple of goals away from winning MLS Cup and the Supporters' Shield last year for perhaps not being as invested in a Saturday night matchup with an SKC team that's scored twice the entire season.
The life-and-death urgency of it all sounds like a great way to keep a team from thinking too much. You don't really have the same luxury of thinking about how to be perfect when a single moment can change the structure of the entire tie. The Union can lose MLS games and still have trophies in front of them. A home loss in CCL tonight could take away the biggest prize. A winnable biggest prize.
It's time for fight or flight to kick in. And it would be unlike the Union to do anything but slam the "Fight" button over and over again as hard as they can. If they don't have that in them tonight, well, then maybe it really is time to talk about where this group is heading. But it wouldn't be surprising for Philly to look a lot like themselves again when all is said and done.
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Good luck out there. It's ok to be nervous.
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