The Philadelphia Union must be prevented from playing D.C. United any more this year, just for common decency’s sake.
The Union already beat United 7-0 at Subaru Park back in July, a defeat so resounding that it seemed to hasten D.C.’s choice to hire Wayne Rooney and find some sort of path forward in a dismal season.
United got to play host Saturday night, and they suffered an only marginally less catastrophic 6-0 loss. The Union rode some luck to get to halftime up 2-0, but ripped United to shreds in the second half, and in truth could have scored more.
Philadelphia manager Jim Curtin was diplomatic after the match, opting not to rub it in after his team finished the season series with a 13-0 goal difference.
“(United) put a ton into the first 20 minutes of the game. A ton,” Curtin told reporters following the match. “Credit to them, they came out really, really fast, caught us off-guard quite a bit… A couple of plays or bounces here or there, and we’re picking the ball up out of the back of our own net.”
That was a stark contrast from United’s captain Victor Pálsson, who stood in for the suspended Steven Birnbaum at center back.
“Absolutely embarrassing… Individual mistakes, it all goes back to mistakes,” said Pálsson to reporters before taking responsibility for the Union’s first goal. “We just completely collapsed.”
Pálsson called the defeat “one of the worst days of my career” before summing up how United felt about the game. “It’s not acceptable. It was f—…ashamed. I’m ashamed to be captain today.”
The Union got a hat trick from Julián Carranza, and one each from Mikael Uhre, Daniel Gázdag, and Cory Burke. For Carranza, it’s his second hat trick against United in 2022, and Philadelphia has scored over 25% of its 51 goals this season against United.
Rooney was unsparing in his analysis.
“Second half was just not acceptable,” Rooney told reporters. “We lost every second ball, we had players not wanting to take the ball, giving the ball away cheaply. It was completely unrecognizable from a team I manage.”
Rooney said he “purposefully stayed quiet” on the sideline rather than berating his charges. “I wanted to see which players were gonna take responsibility and show some leadership, and the only one was Chris Durkin.”
Mercifully for United, their schedule no longer contains any more Union games.