Philadelphia Union Have Plenty of Room For Improvement After Leagues Cup Opener

An unacceptable second-half start and only three goals on 17 shots on target left the Union frustrated after Saturday's win over Club Tijuana.

If you were teaching an Introduction to Concacaf course at a local university, Saturday’s Leagues Cup match between the Philadelphia Union and Club Tijuana would be a good example to show your class.

The Union finished their 3-1 victory with a two-man advantage in a match that featured two penalties, one made and one saved, and multiple conversations between the referee and VAR.

The chaos and back-and-forth nature of the match seemed wild in the moment because of how bizarre the sequence of events was, but it was tame compared to other Concacaf nonsense, which is why it was more intro level than a 301 class.

For the Union, they achieved the goal of winning the match and earning three points, but the overall performance could have been much better.

“Overall, we know we need to get better,” Union head coach Jim Curtin said. “It’s a good thing there’s a lot of improvement for our group. We have to play ourselves into the competition and we set ourselves up in a good spot if we control things against Queretaro, we go through as a top seed, which means we stay here in this building.”