Shaking off the sting of a loss as another test looms Saturday mindset of Union

Forget about it and move on to the next match.
That’s what the Philadelphia Union must do following a disappointing 2-1 loss to the Chicago Fire Saturday night at PPL Park.
The Union (9-7-7, 34 points) still took two of three from the Fire this season but halted their overall momentum with this one goal defeat to the scorching visitors.
Next up is a rivalry match against D.C. United in one week at PPL Park.
This one must be tossed aside.
“I think we have to put this one in the back of our minds and try to forget about it,” midfielder Danny Cruz told philadelphiaunion.com. “Obviously, a bad loss at home, but I saw a lot of positives, to be honest with you. They had two god chances out of nothing and scored on them. That obviously hurt and we look forward to D.C. now. This game is done and over.
“For me, I come in on Monday and I look forward to the opponent on Saturday. I try to take tonight to reflect, look at what I could have done better. Tomorrow when I wake up, I’m ready for D.C.”
The Union have proven to be a very resilient club all season.
There’s no reason to believe that will ever change.
“You have to wipe it away because there are plenty of games left in the season,” said goalkeeper Zac MacMath. “Three really good opponents coming up and every point matters so you have to put this one behind you. We have to go back to what we were doing better the last few months and hopefully that brings us results.
“Forgetting about games like this and continuing to improve as a team each and every game. You’ve got to take each game one at a time and make sure you know each game means just as much as the next one.”
In the big picture, the Union still remain in fourth place in the Eastern Conference. And they won the season series against the Fire.
Those are positive attributes to take away in early August.
“It’s a long season,” defender Sheanon Williams said. “We beat them twice this season. We’ll take that. We would have liked to have won the game. But we took six points out of nine and one of our season goals was to win the series. We did that against them and we would have liked to get the sweep. It’s tough to beat a team three times.”
The immediate goal is to work on defeating D.C. United next Saturday.
The players understand that reality especially in the aftermath of this tough loss.
“It’s a tough one to swallow because we didn’t start as well as we wanted to,” said captain and midfielder Brian Carroll. “We played catch-up for much of the game. In a way, it’s tough to swallow but you have to move on. This next game against D.C. is even more magnified and important now. We have to start focusing on that one and not let this one carry over to that one."
Contact Union writer Andy Jasner at andy.jasner@yahoo.com