The Dog Days of Summer

Not much to do for a few weeks except wonder if Newcastle will keep Alexander Isak.

Hoorah for Uhre

Minutes away from a disappointing 1-1 draw with visiting Colorado, Mikael Uhre found his scoring touch and poured in two goals in the match's closing moments.  The Union had run the Rapids ragged all night so a draw would have been a particularly galling outcome.  Possession (not the U's strong suit) was 60/40, shots were 30/5 and shots on target were 11/1.  The kicker was an xG of 4.8 - 1.

A productive Uhre would be a big help down the stretch
Picture: Philadelphia Union

After dominating the first half, they fell behind on Navarro's header rebound at 37 minutes.  Second half was more of the same until a Wagner cross found Baribo at the far post to level things at 64 minutes.  But really, a draw at home to Colorado would simply not have been good enough.  Fortunately Uhre, a 73rd minute sub, came on to work some magic.  For the first tally, seen here as this week's YouTubeableMoment, he simply pushed the ball with his right foot into an open area just inside the box, then slotted a left footed shot in off the far post; if you note just before he took the shot, there's a circle of five Rapids around him but none are in position to do anything about the shot.  For the second, he took a breakout pass from Bedoya (a late sub himself) and basically outran the defender to put a shot through the five hole.

With Nashville and Columbus losing while Cincinnati was getting a draw with Miami, the U creep back into the top spot. The fly in this ointment is that while Miami are eight points back in 5th place, they have three matches in hand.  Three time three is, well, you get the picture.

Hail Brittania

In the Euro Championship Final, England, as they are wont to do, fell behind Spain in the 25th minute.  You wouldn't say it was against the run of play.  However, the Lionesses are no slouches when it comes to defending and importantly kept the score at 1-0 through the first half.  Spain were still the better side in the second half but England did break through with the equalizer at 57 minutes.  Then, it was over an hour of goalless football.  This chart from Opta shows how Spain dominated play in those 60 minutes:

So Spain generated another 1.35 expected goals in the last hour of the match while England generated what looks like .04.  That Spain didn't win before PKs seems like a combination of shots not on target and a couple of solid saves from English keeper Hannah Hampton.  In the dreaded PK shootout, Spain got the jump and were up 1-0 before missing three straight (including two saves from Hampton) and England prevailed 3-1.  

Bronze Gets Gold

Lucy Bronze sports her gold while leading England's celebration
Photo:Eddie Keogh/Getty Images

We would be remiss if we did not point out the obvious.  Lucy Bronze is England's captain.  

A Week Off

A week of friendlies or pre-season or whatever you want to call them.The Union will play Eintracht Frankfurt (who feature ex-Union Paxten Aaronson).  Wait, why the break this week?  Well, we have the League Cup featuring sides from MLS and Liga MX, so the MLS regular season is on hold for week.  The U, by virtue of their low finish last season are spared this spectacle.

We will probably take off next week and return in time for the EPL kickoff on 8/15.