Union keep unbeaten streak going strong in a defeat of Real Salt Lake
With the win, the Union extended their unbeaten streak to 13 games, improving on a franchise record set one game earlier.
Union forward Bruno Damiani scored the game’s first goal before setting up Milan Iloski on the second to fuel the Union’s 2-1 defeat of Real Salt Lake.
With the win, the Union extended their unbeaten streak to 13 games, improving on a franchise record set one game earlier. It also marked the team’s seventh consecutive win — another team milestone.
The team is in position for a playoff run, remaining in sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
Before the World Cup break, the playoffs seemed unattainable with the squad with just one win in 15 matches. Since returning under interim head coach and Bucks County native Ryan Richter, the team has gone on an unprecedented run.
“Of course it’s an amazing streak,” Richter said. “There’ll be time to look back at stuff like that after the season, but right now it’s ‘focus on the next one’, and let’s keep going in that way.”
In a packed Subaru Park, the Union (12-6-10, 42 points) outshot Real Salt Lake (9-5-14, 32 points), 14-10.
Goalkeeper Andre Blake finished with three saves.
Union defender Frankie Westfield was aggressive early on Saturday. In the sixth, the Northeast Philadelphia native narrowly missed a header off a corner kick, with the ball just clearing the top of the crossbar. Later in the first, he set up the game’s first goal.
Bruno Damiani found the net’s bottom right corner in the 31st, courtesy of a cross to the center box from Westfield. Westfield’s cross rolled through the legs of Union forward Milan Iloski, who played decoy to set up Damiani’s strike. Westfield, who logged his ninth assist of the season, was one of five Union starters to make his return from U.S. senior men’s national team duty on Saturday.
“I think I’m going in the same way the team’s going,” Damiani said. “I think, particularly as a striker, I depend a lot on the confidence the wingers have and the number 10s for us and the amount of chances we create.”
“First half of the year, I had many chances, but I couldn’t score some of them,” he added. “So everything was in a bad way going, and now it’s completely the opposite.”
Milan Iloski, the Union’s leading goal scorer, got one of his own in the second half. In the 87th, Iloski bullied the ball in after controlling it inside the center of the box. It was initially called a handball before a VAR review revealed that Iloski had controlled it off his chest. Damiani was given the assist.
Iloski’s 17th goal tied him for third in the Golden Boot race.
“We were struggling a little bit,” Iloski said. “You know, they were a difficult team to play against with that back five … The way they play is a little bit ugly, and we were a little bit a little bit shaky, a little bit off, but it was a big second goal.”
Real Salt Lake found the back of the net in the 96th. Following a corner, substitute midfielder Saba Lobjanidze chipped a shot in from the box following an assist from center back Luc de Fougerolles.
Union phenom Cavan Sullivan, playing since his impressive debut for the U.S. men’s national team, failed to score on three shots. Sullivan did have one impressive sequence in 76th. Sullivan, 17, willed his way past Real Salt Lake’s back five before launching a shot into goalkeeper Rafael Cabral’s chest.
“I don’t think it was his best game,” Richter said about Sullivan. “He was solid, I would say. Even in a game where he wasn’t electric in the way that he has been in most games, he still had a hand in the first goal with the [second] assist, and then he kind of makes the play that leads to the action for the second goal.”
The Union will host Chicago Fire FC on Wednesday (8:30 p.m., Apple TV).
