It was my daughter’s birthday recently and the Philadelphia Union were kind enough to have her on the pitch holding the snake banner tonight along with two friends. What an amazing thing she’ll always remember. I have to say the Philadelphia Union as an organization really knocks it out of the park with being family oriented fun, and I’m extremely thankful for what they did for my daughter tonight.
So I missed the first 10 minutes of tonight’s game due to family stuff, but once I was in my seats ready to go we had a really decent game. It was full of aggression, tripping, shoving, and even punches. There was clear animosity between the teams and Atlanta played Angrily all night. You could tell they were very frustrated.
Definite shout out to Jacob Glesnes tonight for shutting down Atlanta’s advances early on. Atlanta had a pretty solid breakaway and a shot on goal that was deflected by Glesnes. The sound of that ball hitting him was so loud, and when he dropped to all fours, There were gasps from the crowd when they realized he’d just taken a 100mph shot to the nuts. Talk about giving it your all. We all feel for you on that one.
Our goals started off tonight with Quinn Sullivan launching a rocket into the net in the first half. Quinn shows more and more how valuable he is to this team. He can tear off on breakaways, tap dance and get free when cornered, and he places himself to help very well.
The second goal tonight was Jean Jacques. Kai Wagner ran the ball for the assist and passed it beautifully to Jean Jacques, who tripped up the goalie and sent the ball flying into the net. The applause for him was roaring and he beamed with gratitude for the crowd.
There was so much shoving and yellow cards tonight. Mostly calls against the union. Lukic angrily kicked a ball into the side walls, and the ref gave him a yellow card for it. A few minutes later there was some sort of altercation and again Lukic got heated running his mouth at the ref. This time the ref red carded him and sent him packing. Shortly after that red card we saw some nudging for position turn into Mateusz Klitch throwing three punches at a Union player, and we were all stunned that the refs said absolutely nothing about it. The crowd chanted insults to the on field Referee probably 5-6 times tonight.
Within the last 20 minutes Tai Baribo was substituted in to the game. About 5 minutes in, he capitalized on an opportunity laid up for him and scored the third and final goal securing Atlanta’s fate. It was the perfect response to all the foul play from Atlanta.
All in all it was a great game. The Union controlled the ball well when they were defending, and Andre Blake was phenomenal. Atlanta had one great shot on our goal during the second half. Blake took a diving leap through the air to his left and deflected a shot that was surely going in.
Tonight’s game night was a great game with an energized crowd, and the Union did not disappoint. Final score 3-0 Philadelphia Union. Congrats on a very solid win & have a great Easter to everyone who is celebrating.
