Alejandro Bedoya, right, delivered a sterling performance Saturday
in a reconfigured midfielder that yielded a 3-1 Union win over Chicago.
(Mikey Reeves/DFM)

Jim Curtin heard you, dear citizens of Twitter, and decided to change his formation as a result.

OK, no, that wasn’t the reason that Curtin flipped the Union from the 4-2-3-1 into what is more of a 4-1-4-1 Saturday, a move that certainly contributed to a 3-1 win over the Chicago Fire. To what degree is debatable. Curtin pushed the right tactical button by clamping down on the central midfield space afforded to Dax McCarty in a Fire side deprived of Juninho and Bastian Schweinsteiger. But the efficacy of Saturday’s switch has limits, and no one was more cognizant of that than Curtin, who cheekily faced up to a question about the formation change with a response that deserves to be published in full:

“Yeah you know, people get caught up in the graphics and how they get put out and as soon as I saw the graphic get put out that I figured that you would probably come with that as the first question. To be honest, it's still a 4-2-3-1, you know, just because it's written that way on a schematic that comes out, it's the difference between a yard or two in either direction. If you look, go back and watch the tape, as we will as well, by design we still always had someone next to Warren, so it is still the 4-2-3-1. The best thing about the formation is there can be fluidity in it. Warren is a guy who is a ball winner. We thought, matchup-wise, he's obviously been in good form and what Chicago likes to do, we thought that it was important to invert the triangle a little bit in some moments to get pressure to Dax McCarty, who for me is the engine of that team. So, yes, on paper it looks a little different. The running of five, six yards a little more forward from Alejandro defensively and from Haris is a little bit of a change, but still the same formation, the same idea, same principles that the guys, as you saw, when they execute them, are pretty dangerous and tough to play against.”

It’s been two and a half years since Curtin has done anything even remotely as different as this in his formation, so the temptation could be to read too much into it. So let’s assess what this move does, and what it doesn’t do moving forward for the Union.

- It does … minimize a weakness and maximize a strength. We can argue until we’re blue in the face whether Ilsinho and/or Roland Alberg has been given too many opportunities this season. There’s no rationale I’ll allow for saying that Warren Creavalle should be starting fewer than 10 MLS games. He’s just a better player than that, and his failure to find the field regularly lands squarely on the lack of attacking creativity in the other five members of the midfield/forward six. In this regard, it’s a smart move by Curtin given the constraints of his roster.
Read more »

Union winger Ilsinho, playing against Chicago last month,
has raised his level in recent weeks, earning MLS Player of the Week honors.
(Digital First Media/Pete Bannan)

For weeks, Jim Curtin has struck the “just wait” refrain about Ilsinho. Just wait until he’s healthy and fit and acclimated and over all those minor obstacles of adjusting to MLS, particularly after being without a club for the better part of a year.

In Saturday night’s 3-0 win over D.C. United, MLS saw the potential Ilsinho has, for which he was Tuesday crowned MLS Player of the Week by the North American Soccer Reporters (NASR) for Week 18 of the season.

“Very happy,” Ilsinho said after training Tuesday, via translator Leo Fernandes. “But the most important thing is that the team won and that we're playing well. It was good to get three points.”

Ilsinho is the third Union player tabbed as player of the week in the last six weeks, joining Roland Alberg in Week 16 and Chris Pontius in Week 14.

Ilsinho scored twice Saturday, once off a penalty kick that he drew. His 47th minute goal from the run of play was a Goal of the Week nominee, a rocket after CJ Sapong knocked down an Alberg free kick.



Getting his first goal with a team is a poignant moment of arrival, as Ilsinho appreciates.

“When you come into a new team, to score that first goal, that's really one of your main goals,” he said. “It took more than 15 games. But it's good for the rest of the season and my confidence just keeps growing.”

It’s also fulfills the promise that Curtin has long touted. Ilsinho, who was last with Ukrainian club Shaktar Donetsk until the end of the 2014-15 season, played his way onto the team from a preseason trial but required time to come to grips with MLS’s physicality and fitness demands. He started the first four games of the season, going the full 90 in the loss to Chicago, but then suffered a hamstring injury and a quad knock that cost him five games.

He went from April 2 to the June 15 Open Cup match without making a start, limiting his brilliant trickery on the ball to flashes in substitute appearances.

Despite the stop-start open to his Union career, Ilsinho has earned an impressive distinction. He’s played 14 games for the Union this season, which overtakes former Red Bull midfielder Juninho Pernambucano and Columbus defender Glauber as the second-most MLS games played by a capped Brazilian national. First on the list is Kaka, the Orlando City all-star, who’s played 37 and counting.
Read more »

A lot was said today by Philadelphia Union manager John Hackworth on a variety of topics. The top one certainly was the acquisition of goalkeeper Oka Nikolov, I'll have a little more on that later. But the rest of the talk here from Hackworth.

On the stretch that lies ahead, starting with the New York Red Bulls Sunday:
We think it’s going to be a very difficult stretch, maybe one of the more difficult stretches of the year that we’re going to have. Particularly with how good Dallas has been this year, they’re probably a little bit of a surprise in the league, the fact that they’re number on in the Supporters Shield and the top team in the league right now. New York is not a surprise. The quality that they have is apparent to everyone, and they’re a good team. So then you have to go on the road and take on Salt Lake which you’re dealing with not only one of the best teams in the league but you’re playing at elevation, and then you turn around and go to probably one of the hottest places in the hottest month of the year and play a team that has an unbelievable home record in Houston. So this is going to be a huge set of games for us, these next four. We talk about the parity in the league all the time, and we’re going to have to go through these four and face four very good opponents. But we’ve done that this season so far, and while it hasn’t been smooth sailing so far, I like where we are and I like the way we’ve rebounded from adversity and from poor performances and the way we’ve kind of grinded out results at times and especially we’ve been a tough team on the road. I like our chances, and I’m really glad we have those first two at home.
Read more »

Official lineups:

New York Red Bulls (0-2-2, 2 points)

Robles

Kimura-Olave-Holgersson-Pearce

Alexander-Juninho-McCarty-Steele

Cahill (c)

Luyindula

Bench: Castano, Miller, Digao, Sam, Bover, Akpan, Henry

 Philadelphia Union (2-1-0, 6 points)

MacMath

Williams-Okugo-Parke-Gaddis

Cruz-Carroll(c)-Lahoud

MFarfan

Le Toux-McInerney

Bench: Konopka, Torres, Fernandes, Daniel, Casey, Hoppenot, Jordan

The talking points:
Not many shocks from the Red Bulls. Fabian Espindola was widely expected to be out, and Thierry Henry's fitness was a serious doubt. He starts from the bench, as does much-maligned defender Roy Miller and newly-acquired striker Andre Akpan. If Peguy Luyindula and Tim Cahill don't produce in attack, expect the hook to be quick. Thomas Holgersson and Jamison Olave get another game to gel in defense. Expect Dax McCarty to do the dirty work in the midfield. Juninho will have to get forward and pull the strings of the the attack.
For the Union, few surprises. The same backline is trotted out again for the fourth time in as many games (fifth if you include the Pumas friendly). Danny Cruz is recovered from his broken nose. It could be a very narrow formation if Michael Farfan sits off the shoulders of the strikers. Sebastien Le Toux and Jack McInerney unsurprisingly pair up top again, with Conor Casey on the bench. Leo Fernandes makes the bench as does Greg Jordan, the only defender on the bench, despite being loaned to Harrisburg earlier this week.