The Philadelphia Union will travel out west this evening for a date against the San Jose Earthquakes of the Western conference. The Earthquakes are winless in four straight matches, including a 2-0 loss to Chivas USA earlier this week. The Union won the home half of this fixture 1-0 back in April on the back of a Sebastien LeToux goal.
The seventh place Earthquakes have been shut out in three of their last five matches and tonight face the stingiest defensive team in the Eastern Conference. Against Chivas earlier this week, striker Chris Wondolowski said the team was simply out of sync.
"To be honest, I think both offensively and defensively our whole team was on a different page from each other. We couldn't connect any passes, and couldn't defend well together as a team defensively. That's never a good formula for success," Wondolowski said. "Offensively I felt that we had opportunities to try to exploit them and be dangerous, but we couldn't do that."
The Union haven't been in the greatest form themselves either, with only one win in their last five matches. They've only lost once however, and have twice came back to salvage draws. The most recent was last week against DC United. Coach Peter Nowakwas proud of his team fighting back.
"I think the important thing is that on a night like tonight when we did not play well, we still got the point. We came back and tied the game in a very good fashion," said Nowak. "The boys are still fighting so this is a good sign and after half of the season right now it is good to be where we are right now."
Tonight's match kicks off at 10:30pm eastern.