CHESTER >> Without prodding Saturday evening, Haris Medunjanin allowed the mystery shrouding the Union’s season to cloud the postgame joy of a 3-1 thumping of FC Dallas.
Seven of the last eight times the Union have taken the field at Talen Energy Stadium and Medunjanin has subsequently held court with the media, the tone has echoed the joyousness of three points gained. Yet even as the Union appear to have surmounted the years-long bugaboo of consistent success on home ground, the club’s table placement has remained stagnant thanks to that competence too often deserting them upon lighting out on the road.
“It’s a great win for us,” Medunjanin said, before pivoting as quickly as he did in the 17th minute to shed a defender with the ball in the lead up to a goal. “I don’t understand why we don’t play away like this.”
He’s not alone in that quandary, which has evolved into the defining facet of the Union season.
So it was that Jim Curtin, before the Dallas affair, laid bare the situation for his players. Twelve games remained, six at home starting with Dallas’ visit, six away. Maintaining the 6-1-0 clip at home was a requirement for playoff aspirations. But just as pertinent is tipping the 1-7-3 trend that has blighted the Union’s road trips, the fourth-worst return of points league-wide.
“It’s no secret, we’ve struggled on the road,” Curtin said. “It’s hard, first and foremost, to play on the road. I think that everybody knows that across the sport now. It’s very difficult and there are a lot of different variables that go into it. We haven’t been brave on the road; we’ve kind of been reactive.”
That dichotomy reflects the fracture in logic of predicting the Union’s direction in the 11-game mini-season that awaits. The Union (8-10-5, 29 points) can still make the playoffs, but to do that, they have to transmute potential to results. In their last 12 games of the season, they also have to come close to matching their win total from the first 22 (seven), a task that isn’t impossible, but also isn’t exactly what you’d label as likely.
The schedule is challenging: The Union have six games against teams residing in the top five in the Eastern Conference, four of them on the road where points would seem distinctly unlikely. But the other two road contests are winnable: San Jose, which has lost just once at home but is a hot-and-cold side, and Minnesota, which is tied for the MLS lead with six home losses.
The home games aren’t easy either – Montreal, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle and Orlando City – but the path exists for a team just three points afield of the sixth and final playoff spot.
The process begins with confronting the road deficiencies, which for all their shortcomings, the Union haven’t shied away from. Diagnosing the timidity that afflicts them on the road is one step. But rectifying it is another. Curtin has spoken glowingly all season about his veteran nucleus and their ability to recognize and fix problems in game.
The inability to win – and more acutely, to play the way the Union want – on the road constitutes the big puzzle that will define the season. And it’s one that Curtin’s team is ready to work on.
“There’s a huge difference in our away and home games,” Medunjanin said. “We beat a top team in the West (in Dallas), so we can play against everybody but need to do that in away games also. We have a match coming up against Montreal here that we need to win if we want to – we still believe in the playoffs, so this game is important for us.”
