Philadelphia Union had just played through a brisk, rainy, and scoreless first half at BMO Field in Toronto on Wednesday night when team leaders Andre Blake and Kai Wagner spoke up in the team huddle.
“We can be a little bit cleaner with the ball. We’re going to get our chances. As I said in the first, let’s be clinical when we get that chance,” Blake said.
“I said it last time, it doesn’t matter if we score now or at the end,” Wagner added.
The second half remained scoreless through the 74th minute, until the hosts scored the opening goal for 1-0 lead. With the deficit, Philadelphia Union was at risk of resetting their then-seven match unbeaten streak in MLS play, but in the final stretch of the match, they didn’t falter. Instead, 24-year-old Homegrown defender Nate Harriel spurred a comeback in the 86th minute, capitalizing on a set piece to equalize with a powerful header to the back of the net past Toronto keeper Sean Johnson.
Six minutes later, Wagner scored the team’s second, fulfilling his halftime prophecy to secure the team’s 10th MLS win in 2025, solifdy their spot at the top of the East, and put them back in the front of the Supporters' Shield race.
“It took a lot of heart, man,” Harriel said after his team's emotion-filled postgame celebrations on the pitch.
“Everyone that came in the game, the guys that started the game, showed heart and grit. I mean, that's our DNA – be hard to play against. We never back down. We never give up. You saw it tonight. You saw it against LA Galaxy. Man, this team has so much heart, so much grit. We're so proud of the standard we set, and we just want to stay at the top of the east as much as possible.”
His team’s late effort made club history – with the result, Philadelphia Union won their first regular season game after trailing entering the 85th minute of the match.
“That goal just shows that we're not satisfied with a draw,” Harriel said of Wagner’s late winner.
“Every game we play, we play to win. We don't play to be safe or to come out with just a point. We want all three points and to climb the table as much as possible. We sat on the front foot and Kai had the shot, it deflected, but who gives a crap at the end of the day, it went in the back of the net and that's all we can say,”
While it took most of the match for Philadelphia Union to finish their chances, Carnell remarked in his postgame presser that he was proud of his team’s performance start to finish, especially in their final rally.
“We might have lost 1-0 and I would have sat here and said I was really happy with the performance, because I really was believing and feeling that we were in control of the whole game and the outcome of the game,” Carnell said.
“Sometimes you can't control everything, and you might lose 1-0, but once you get that one look…they gave us the one set piece. It's the energy of the guys who came in. It’s the belief. It's just a whole new sort of reset of the press and the pressure and everything. So then, we get the set piece and all of a sudden, the dominoes start falling in our favor. The harder we were working, the more we were creating.”
Next up, Philadelphia Union will take on FC Dallas in Texas, looking to emerge from May without a single loss. Tune in with MLS Season Pass on Apple TV to watch the action.
