Union midfielder Indiana Vassilev, right, is pursued by Charlotte FC defender Nathan Byrne during the first half of the April 4 game at Bank of America Stadium. (Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images)
The Philadelphia Union are circling the drain. And if they don’t take the opportunity to escape this spiral that the schedule presents in the next two weeks, things could get very, very bad.
A bad start to the season drifted into historically bad realms with last Saturday’s 2-1 loss at Charlotte. The Union have lost their first six games of the season, the first time in club history a team has done that and the first time in MLS history that a Supporters’ Shield holder has followed up its trophy with so many consecutive losses to start their defense.
But six losses tips the Union into more than a drought, more than just a bad version of itself. The longest losing streak to start an MLS season is nine, by Toronto FC in 2012. There was a seven-game streak from the Kansas City Wizards in 1999, though two of those losses were draws decided in the erstwhile shootout. Then there’s the 2001 New England Revolution and the 2026 Union at six losses each. The Union are the last team in MLS in 2026 without a win or a point.
It’s dire stuff.
“You can see over 90 minutes, we’re there and thereabouts, but we also have to accept as a group now that everything’s an uphill battle,” coach Bradley Carnell said Saturday. “Everything’s a struggle, everything we touch needs to turn to gold, and it’s not. So that’s the unfortunate part, because we’re in a tough situation. But we can’t hang our heads. We can’t drag our feet and mope around. We have to get up and go again.”
How the Union got here is pretty clear. It turns out that when you jettison defenders that accounted for 406 career regular-season and playoff appearances (397 of them starts), six MLS All-Star nods and four Best XI selections in Jakob Glesnes and Kai Wagner, there’s an adjustment period with the group that replaces them.
Turns out, too, that 25 goals and 12 assists in all competitions from Tai Baribo and Mikael Uhre in 2025 isn’t a plug-and-play replacement.
But that doesn’t hint at how to steer out of the skid, short of more time together, a luxury that MLS’s lack of promotion and relegation uniquely provides relative to any other league in the world.
The underlying numbers suggest that things aren’t as bad as the record indicates. The Union are 16th in MLS in expected goals at 8.6, per FotMob. They’re underperforming their xG by the widest margin in the league. They’re just 19th in the league in expected goal differential, at minus-1.5. Their actual xGD is minus-7.
That means they’re letting themselves down on both ends of the field, whether it’s unnecessary concessions of goals or inability to turn possession into chances into goals.
The Union have not led in a game this season, surrendering the first goal each time out. It’s tough to win 1-0 when you don’t ever keep a zero. But five of the losses have been by one goal. They are, as Carnell said, nearly there. But getting over the hump to get a win has been the challenge all along.
The problems have shifted from that rebuilt defense, which has looked better since the 3-1 loss in Atlanta on March 14. Six goals allowed in four games – two games against Club America in CONCACAF Champions Cup, then losses to Chicago and Charlotte – deserve a better fate than 0-2-1.
The attack is in the spotlight now. The Union are 28th out of 30 teams at 3.3 shots on target per game. Their shot conversion rate – a percentage of shot attempts that find their way on target – is 4.8 percent, the lowest in MLS by a massive margin. (Next is St. Louis at 6.0 percent; New England leads the league at 26.2 percent.) Last year, the Union were 12th in MLS at 4.9 shots on target per game at a conversion rate of 10.9 percent.
This season, they are 19th in the league in big chances generated (13) and 13th in big chances missed (10). They’re both letting themselves down by not keeping consistent, low-grade pressure on teams with the volume of chances and then, with pressure building up on big chances, squandering those. Add on the pressure of not having led all season – they’ve only been tied at a non 0-0 score for 25 minutes – and the pressure builds.
Hence Carnell calling the team “fragile” in moments, both and after the Charlotte loss.
Club-record signing Ezekiel Alladoh has no shots on target in 201 MLS minutes. Last year’s record signing, Bruno Damiani, is without a shot in 500 minutes. They’re not generating chances, and no one’s putting them away.
The Union do, however, have a window. Montreal is 13th in the Eastern Conference, which is where it finished last season. It is 1-5-0 this season, all on the road, the Union coming to town for the home opener. Next week brings the Union their only home game of April with D.C. United, the bottom club in the East last year. The Union lost to D.C., 1-0, in Week 1, in part thanks to Alladoh’s red card.
It’s entirely possible that the Union’s luck could turn and land them on the edge of the playoff places with two wins the next two weeks. But if they manage to end up still toiling in the ranks of the winless by the end of the D.C. United game, it’ll be an apocalyptically inhospitable reception on the banks of the Delaware.
