CHESTER — It was another type of fight that dominated the conversation after Wednesday night’s 2-2 draw with Inter Miami. But to Philadelphia Union interim head coach Ryan Richter, the battle over the 90 minutes ultimately resonates most.
The Union remain unbeaten in Richter’s five games in charge. Four victories led into Wednesday’s stalemate with Lionel Messi’s Miami. And while the Union were left to rue missed chances denying them the full return for being the better team against the second-place side in the Eastern Conference, the progress in performance is evident.
“It’s not about being happy with the result or happy with a point at home,” Richter said. “It’s about the performance, and we’re not going to be completely satisfied unless we get the win. But overall, the performance, it’s a statement of where we’re at, who we can compete with, and we have to take a lot of positives from this and a lot of confidence from it.”
The perspective doesn’t take much hindsight.
The last time the Union played Miami was in Florida on May 24, the last game of Bradley Carnell’s tenure.
The Union lost, 6-4, Luis Suarez running roughshod and Rodrigo De Paul scoring the game-winner in stoppage time. At no point in that affair — not when the Union lead 2-0 inside of 10 minutes and 3-1 inside of 20 — did anyone really expect Miami not to come back, such was the Union’s deficit of confidence and match-winning.
Miami rallied. The Union fell to 1-10-4. The axe fell on Carnell eight months after lifting a trophy.
Wednesday, the Union were the better team. They won the xG battle, 2.99-1.73, outshot Miami by a 17-5 margin and notched 34 touches in the opposition’s box to Miami’s 14.
And thus they are 5-10-5, their 20 points four shy of the final playoff spot in the East, having risen past two teams out of the basement and with a trip to the West’s 14th-placed team looming Saturday night in Austin.
Two moments of brilliance from Messi put Miami up 2-1 at half.
His cross-field ball sent the defense moving side-to-side, headed back across the grain by Suarez to Daniel Pinter for a doorstep tap-in in the 21st. Five minutes later, Messi’s fast-twitch feints beguiled Kai Wagner to get the ball out of his feet in time and space that a mortal’s understanding of the universe suggests shouldn’t be possible, curling a shot into the far-side netting.
Messi has six goals and four assists in six games against the Union in all competitions. The Union are 0-5-2 in seven games against Miami squads since Messi’s arrival, games that have featured 35 goals. All of what Messi did, then, was par for the course of his greatness.
Messi was coming off a game Saturday against Nashville in which he had 11 shot attempts, an assist and a missed penalty. He had just one assist in a relatively quiet performance in the May meeting. Wednesday, the Union bottled him up: 37 touches, three shot attempts (two free kicks blocked by the wall), and one chance created.
“I think on the goal, when he’s in those situations, I think we have to not let him get to that spot,” Milan Iloski said. “But I think we did a really good job. It’s really hard defending him throughout 90 minutes, but the guys in the back did a great job in trying to prevent him getting the ball in dangerous spots.”
It’s the third straight MLS game in which the Union trailed at halftime and have rallied for points. That resilience has defined Richter’s tenure.
“I think in order to believe something, you have to do it, and once you do it once, you know that you can do it over and over and over again,” said Indiana Vassilev, who scored the opener on a lovely volley assisted by Frankie Westfield. “So I think it was wildly important to win games. We need to win games to try and climb back in that playoff picture, but once we won the first game coming from behind, the belief to do it again is always going to be there.”
The Union took the game to Miami in the second half. They created seven big chances, five of which were missed in what became the difference. Neil Pierre tied the game in the 58th, throwing his head at a fizzled near-post free kick from Iloski.
“I was just standing there,” Pierre said. “I was like, hopefully, if Milan hits it hard enough, either it hits me or it just goes straight on goal, and then luckily I scored.”
The Union had the ball in the net in the 62nd, Pierre’s header of a Wagner free kick saved before Iloski buried the follow off the underside of the crossbar. But some part of Pierre’s 6-7 frame was offside.
Iloski was denied on a great counter in the 71st. Bruno Damiani, who had to score in a 1-v-1 with goalie Dayne St. Clair in the 20th minute just before Miami’s first goal, had his follow blocked. Cavan Sullivan fired just wide of the post in the 78th on a fast break.
The stoppage-time fracas got more play afterward, Quinn Sullivan slamming Ian Fray to the ground after the defender tried to step over him in the penalty area, then Yannick Bright and Cavan Sullivan shown red cards for violent conduct in getting hands into each other’s faces in the post-melee hullabaloo.
Whatever is to come next there in terms of discipline and appeals is less consequential than what the Union did for the 90 minutes, three points or not.
“I think we’re continuing to push through and continuing to build,” Pierre said. “I think obviously we wanted three points, and we showed we could have gotten three points in the second half. But I think we’re moving in the right direction. That’s all we can do.”
