CHESTER, Pa. – The Philadelphia Union are ready to close the book on March.
And never, ever think about it again.
Between a rash of injuries, silly red cards, unfortunate calls, poor finishing and untimely mistakes, the Union finished the first month of the season with zero wins, putting a whole lot of extra pressure on them to turn things around in April.
“We’re not pleased with where we’re at,” winger Andrew Wenger told MLSsoccer.com following Wednesday’s training session. “You can probably look at it and say we’ve had a month of weird things happen that it normally might take a full season to see, but we’ve also had some poor performances. And that’s the thing that we can control.”
The Union fell into last place in the Eastern Conference following Sunday’s 1-0 loss to the previous pointless Chicago Fire. In that game, Fred was issued the team’s second red card in two games, meaning the Brazilian will join fellow attacking midfielders Zach Pfeffer (suspension) and Cristian Maidana (MCL sprain) as TV viewers for Philly’s nationally televised game at Sporting Kansas City on Sunday (7 pm ET, Fox Sports 1).
Between other injuries to Sheanon Williams, Conor Casey and C.J. Sapong – as well as the absences of a few other players in training, including center back Steven Vitoria, whose wife is expecting their second child any day – Jim Curtin was working with a small and frustrated group Wednesday.
But the Union coach thinks they seemed determined, too.
“The group is still positive,” Curtin said during his weekly press conference Wednesday. “We only had 13 guys that trained today but, at the same time, they got after it the right way. The mentality’s still good in the group.”
When asked if any players have stepped up to take charge and try to lead the team out of the current mess they’re in, Wenger, not surprisingly, pointed to central midfielder Maurice Edu.
“Mo’s the captain, and he’s trying to bring us together and keep the mood light at times but also demanding more, which is what we need at this point,” Wenger said. “We haven’t been good enough, and we need to be better. It’s a poor month. And now we’re in April, and we’re onto something new and better.”
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Wenger’s fellow winger, Sebastien Le Toux, agreed that one bad month doesn’t necessarily make a bad season.
But the longtime Union player knows that everyone needs to improve – “myself included” – for Philly to overcome their 0-2-2 start and climb up the table.
“We’re disappointed about March, for sure,” Le Toux said. “We’d like to start April in a new way. It’s a new month, so we can kind of wash out what happened and start fresh, starting this week in Kansas City.”
Dave Zeitlin covers the Union for MLSsoccer.com. Email him at djzeitlin@gmail.com.
