Philadelphia Union couldn’t hold their lead Saturday night and fell 4-1 to Montreal Impact. Perhaps more accurately, the Union couldn’t hold their lead against Ignacio Piatti. The Argentinian superstar played a major role in all four of his team’s goals, and he contributed in many different ways.
Powered up Piatti
Piatti is just a singular presence when he’s feeling good. Diego Valeri, Giovinco, Miguel Almiron: These are some comps that could be used for the man they call Nacho. In MLS, Piatti has never played with the quality that those players have had around them, but he elevates those in blue and black each and every game. Now that Montreal has Saphir Taider and Alejandro Silva to support Piatti, the playmaking winger can occasionally light up a game without even scoring, as he did Saturday.
For some reason, Piatti was only credited with two assists on the night (he made the pass that released Daniel Lovitz to assist Quincy Amarikwa’s goal, but that didn’t get counted as a secondary assist because...). He set up Silva’s opener, he made the pass that set up Amarikwa’s shot that led to Taider’s go-ahead goal, he sent Lovitz through, and then he joined in Silva’s late romp up the center to finish things off, exchanging a quick 1-2 with the winger to close the game out.
The passing map tells the story here. Piatti had two more passes into the box from open play than the entire Union team, and he was able to spray the ball around the pitch or dribble through pressure when he got on the ball. On one hand, the Union could have done more to close down the impressive winger. On the other, Nacho was just very, very good.
Impact sit back
Overall, Philly struggled mightily to penetrate the Impact’s low block. With Samuel Piette and Micheal Azira encamped in front of the box, Borek Dockal often dropped into the central third of the pitch to pick up the ball. With Cory Burke remaining on the center backs, this left a gap in connectivity that doomed the Union’s offense.
One of the intriguing aspects of Montreal’s season has been how Remi Garde has vacillated between completely nailing his gameplan and whiffing entirely. Two matches ago, Garde’s high line was easily exploited by Toronto FC, but the Impact came back and whomped New York Red Bulls by employing an organized trapping system focused on the wings.
Against the Union, Garde got it right. Notably, it still took a series of unfortunate events for the Impact to get their breakthrough, but once they did the visitors proceeded to open up the Union with vicious attacks through their star. On Wednesday, Philly will face another squad with a tendency to sit deep, and they will need to be more insistent on penetrating up the flanks and firing in low crosses to catch a retreating defense unawares.
Everyone must play well to win
One slightly overlooked aspect of the Union’s five-match league unbeaten streak is that almost everybody played well when Philly won. On Saturday, as Jim Curtin indicated after the match, that was not the case. Andre Blake could have stayed in his net for the first goal and perhaps should have pushed wide the shot that led to Taider’s game-winner. Cory Burke only attempted four passes all match and only received eight balls in his 80 minutes. These are guys the Union have leaned on heavily this season and they were both coming off international appearances with Jamaica. Both players have shown the ability to be consistent, positive difference-makers this season and Philly will need them to do just that this Wednesday in Seattle.
