Match Preview: Philadelphia Union at Toronto FC

The Union start a two-game road swing with a midweek contest against Toronto.

The busiest month of the Philadelphia Union’s season is almost over.

The Union start a two-game road swing on Wednesday night against Toronto FC. The second leg of the road trip comes on Saturday at FC Dallas.

It’s fairly easy to set the goals for the road trip.

Win on the road in Toronto against a much weaker Eastern Conference team and then Saturday is essentially a “screw it” game against a Western Conference foe.

The first-place Union are 17 points ahead of TFC in the standings. They’ve done a good job so far this season of beating the teams they are supposed to beat.

Bradley Carnell’s side owns five victories against teams currently outside the playoff spots in the East. It outscored those teams 11-1.

CF Montreal was the only team to score on the Union from that group. The Union shut out Atlanta twice and blanked New England and D.C.

If you expand that sample size to include St. Louis City and LA Galaxy from the Western Conference, the Union are 7-0 with a +12 goal differential against teams currently outside playoff spots.

A year ago, the Union finished with a 5-5-2 (WDL) record against teams outside the playoff positions. Four of those wins came against Nashville and New England.

So there’s your notable difference from the 2024 team to the 2025 edition of the Union.

They are simply picking up the points they are supposed to so they have a cushion available for a situation where they either fall out of form, or drop points at home.

The Union dropped nine points at home so far this season (not great), but they have four road wins for 12 points to make up that difference.

Banking another road win in Toronto would be massive for the team’s overall stock.

We could be talking about a similar situation with FC Dallas on Saturday if the Texan side doesn’t jump into ninth place, which is unlikely because it visits FC Cincinnati on Wednesday.

The Union received great news going into the week, as Andre Blake resumed full training and travelled with the group to Toronto.

Andrew Rick’s done a fantastic job in place of Blake during his injury layoff, and I’d make the argument to start the Homegrown netminder in one of the two games this week 1) because he’s earned it and 2) to ease Blake back into regular minutes.

Defeating Toronto should be a straightforward task regardless of who is in net and who the 10 outfield players are. I’d even go as far to say this is where you start Chris Donovan up top, and maybe even Jeremy Rafanello at the No. 10.

Carnell’s done a solid job with rotating the squad during the busy month and he’s already made it clear that he will reward fringe players who are working their asses off in training.

But, again, as I said above, no matter the starting XI, the Union should be able to rebound and continue their winning trend against lesser opposition.

Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Union.