A picture-perfect night ushered in another Union Omaha home match at Werner Park. This time the opponent was none other than rival Forward Madison. After giving up the early lead, the Owls answered quickly. Ultimately, the three points went to the visitors as they were able to score a second-half goal and keep the lead until the final whistle.
In the first 14 minutes of the match, Union Omaha was throwing personnel and possessions along the left flank time and time again. When the ball wasn’t being settled and distributed along the back line, the ball spent far more time along the left sideline than the right. The heat map below will emphasize just how much time was spent on that side of the field:
Here’s a field chart with all of the successful passes among Union Omaha players in the first 14 minutes. This continues to display the obvious intent from the Owls to operate their business on the one side of the field:
Overall, the tone of the match in the opening moments seemed to lead fans into believing that a defensive showdown was unraveling before them. The visitors would soon strike first and take the early momentum.
The Flamingos stunned the crowd with a 14th-minute goal, as Aiden Mesias received a ball from Stephen Payne, eluded three Union Omaha players, and found a window around Union Omaha captain Conor Doyle to curl the ball inside the far post. The hosts would level the scoreline within a matter of minutes.
In the 22nd minute, first-half substitute Steevan Dos Santos was able to settle a throw-in, turn toward the goal line, and send a low-driven pass across the goal mouth for Shaft Brewer Jr. at the back post to calmly finish. The goal was Brewer’s first ever goal for Union Omaha.
At halftime, with the score tied at one, Union Omaha was, again, the aggressor and leader in the match. The Owls won 59% of their duels, 62% of their aerial duels, and only conceded 3 fouls. On offense, Union Omaha earned 4 corners, had 87% passing accuracy, 13 crosses, and unleashed 9 shots against the Flamingos. Union Omaha team captain Conor Doyle was instrumental in the development of attacks with 88% overall passing accuracy, 78% passing accuracy in the opposition’s half, and stretched the field with 7 long passes. Shaft Brewer Jr. also had a strong half, earning 96% overall passing accuracy, 78% passing accuracy in the opposition’s half, and creating a chance on top of the goal scored.
After the break, Union Omaha was having difficulty moving the ball past the midline. In the first ten minutes, the Owls were barely crossing the dividing line, relegating most of their passes to be among the backline. The passing chart below shows Union Omaha’s successful passes inside of the first ten minutes of the second half:
With Forward Madison pressing early and often in the second half, the Flamingos started to enjoy the fruits of their labor. In the 53rd minute, the visitors earned a corner kick. Despite Union Omaha clearing the initial threat, Stephen Payne was able to feed the ball directly back into pressure, putting it at the feet of their most potent goalscorer: Christian Chaney. After a quick challenge from Union Omaha’s Pedro Dolabella, Chaney was able to clear a window for himself and attack the high corner of the near post. Of Chaney’s three total goals scored this season, two have now come against Union Omaha. And just like he did in Week 2 when he scored on the Owls, Chaney made his way to the sideline for his usual backflip celebration. Another goal, another backflip, and another dagger to the hearts of the home crowd.
For the remainder of the match, Union Omaha faced off against the brick wall of Forward Madison’s defensive unit. Chances on goal, shots, and crosses were all attempted, but not a single shot would be counted as “on goal.” The Owls had five blocked shots, most of which were right around the goal area. For varying reasons, the ball never traveled closer to the goal line and the home side would have to settle for their first loss in over a month. Here’s a map of Union Omaha’s shot map in the second half. The red arrows are the shots off target and the blue arrows are the blocked shots.
In comparison to Week 10’s results, the loss keeps Union Omaha in 9th place in the league standings. Week 12 has the Owls traveling to Charlotte for a second matchup against the Independence. The first meeting between the two sides was in Week 6, when the Owls settled for a scoreless draw on the road.
After the match, Union Omaha’s Shaft Brewer Jr. and head coach Dominic Casciato were kind enough to provide some thoughts on the evening.
Shaft Brewer Jr.
General thoughts on the match:
“It’s a tough night. We always want to win and we always push and we’re training and pushing to put out good performances and always win, especially at home. But, you know, it was one that got away from us and it’s really something that shouldn’t happen much, but we’ll go back to the table and go back to training and prep and get ready for the next one. So, it’s a tough one. It’s football. It happens. So, we can’t really think about the loss that much, but it’s a long season.
So, hopefully this is going to be it and then, you know, we keep pushing.”
On his first-ever goal for Union Omaha:
“Amazing. Super amazing. I love the fans, love the environment, love the club, love my teammates and I can’t thank anybody else, but all of them that helped me get there and helped push to get this goal. So, really exciting night and yeah, hopefully more will come.”
On his role in the offense:
“I think a lot of the time, you know, in our game plan, we pushed to get me up against that back line and let me use my speed to go after guys. I feel like offensively one-on-ones and balls behind, I do have a major advantage, especially with my speed. I used to be a forward, so obviously I am pretty comfortable up there and it’s one of those things for me – the team counts on me to get up there and do that. That’s my job, so obviously we train for this and mentally I’m always ready to go after guys. So that’s why you’ll usually see it every game – me trying to push and get a lot of balls in behind so that our guys can get opportunities. It seems like there’s the determination in the locker room and speaking among some of the guys to turn these results into wins.”
On the team staying positive:
“I think it’s just instilled in us. Coach has done it. All the guys have a winning mentality. We all want to win the Championship. We all want to win the League and that starts with every single day, every single game. Everyone is always pumped up and ready to go because we all want the same thing, right? We’re all one and we all think the same thing and that’s to get a win, that’s to do better in training, to push, and obviously we have that mentality in the locker room like crazy.”
Head Coach Dominic Casciato
General thoughts on the match:
“Yeah, disappointed. I think guys were tired, you know, after a free game week. I thought we played well. I thought we maybe rushed things a little bit in the last ten minutes. You know, we were in control of the game and sending so many long straight balls that we weren’t getting on the end of. I think we need to have a little bit more patience in the last ten minutes and we would have created a couple more chances for ourselves, but that being said, we had some big chances in the first half. I think we’re doing a lot of good things, but we need to start turning these good things that we’re doing into points from the game. So, we keep working, we keep pushing forwards and we stay together now and stay positive.”
On the offense’s productivity:
“Yeah, I think if you watch the game, we didn’t do a lot wrong, right? I think defensively we maybe switched off on two moments. I think they had three shots on target the whole game, so we dominated the game, but dominating isn’t enough. You’ve got to put the ball in the back of the net and you’ve got to make sure that you’re defending your area and you’re defending the box.. So, lesson for us is to make sure we punish teams and that we close the door more at the back end because it’s not been good enough the last couple of games.”
On Joe Gallardo’s injury:
“Yeah, he pulled his groin early. You know, I was disappointed for us. Joe was somebody that was going to give us good energy today and has started the last few games, but some were expecting a lot out of today. Hopefully it’s not a bad one.”
On whether JP will play more matches out of the back:
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. We like JP everywhere. We wish we had 11 JPs, but today he was played as a sort of right back purely for tactical reasons. If we need to look at him there again in the future we will.”
On the upcoming away match against Charlotte in Week 12:
“Yeah, we feel confident. If you look at the performances this week, which has been really positive performances, it’s just about turning positive performances into points. When we went to Charlotte last time we dominated there, as well. Again, like big, big chances in their box that we somehow didn’t take and we came away with a 0-0 tie. So, as soon as we turn that corner and we win one of these games that we should win, I think you’re going to see the belief flow through the guys and we’re going to be unstoppable, but we’ve got to get to that point and we’ve got to make a little bit of our own luck.”
Match Summary
Attendance: 2,886
Goal Summary:
14’: MAD – #23 Aiden Mesias (assisted by #22 Stephen Payne)
22’: OMA – #28 Shaft Brewer Jr. (assisted by #10 Steevan Dos Santos)
53’: MAD – #9 Christian Chaney (assisted by #22 Stephen Payne)
Substitution Summary:
20’: OMA – #10 Steevan Dos Santos replaces #11 Joe Gallardo (injury)
65’: OMA – #6 Chavany Willis replaces #8 Joe Brito
65’: OMA – #18 Junior Palacios replaces #22 Conor Doyle
72’: MAD – #19 Wolfgang Prentice replaces #17 Derek Gebhard
72’: MAD – #8 Eric Conerty replaces #23 Aiden Mesias
80’: MAD – #24 Nazeem Bartman replaces #2 Robert Screen
88’: MAD – #14 Mauro Cichero replaces #18 Francis Jno-Baptiste
Discipline Summary:
8’: OMA – #8 Joe Brito (Yellow Card)
11’: MAD – #14 Mauro Cichero (Yellow Card)
33’: OMA – #17 JP Scearce (Yellow Card)
33’: MAD – #23 Aiden Mesias (Yellow Card)
39’: MAD – #24 Nazeem Bartman (Yellow Card)
57’: MAD – #55 Bernd Schipmann (Yellow Card)
78’: OMA – #6 Chavany Willis (Yellow Card)
90’+5: OMA – #10 Steevan Dos Santos (Yellow Card)
Who Gives A Hoot? 