I can’t believe what I just saw. If you’re not a soccer fan, you’ll just have to indulge me. The Philadelphia Union is a football club in the Major League Soccer league. They’re an expansion team. This is only their second year in existence. They have a very nice stadium on the Delaware River in a bad part of Chester, Pennsylvania. It sits picturesquely under the Commodore Barry Bridge.
Tonight they played one of the better teams in the English Premier League in what they call a “friendly” match. This will help you get an idea of who the Union were playing:
Everton Football Club are an English professional association football club from the city of Liverpool. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of English football. They have competed in the top division for a record 108 seasons, they have played more top-flight league games than any other English team and have won the League Championship nine times—the fourth highest of any team. Everton have remained in the top division since 1954, and were founding members of the Premier League in 1992.
Neither team started all their best players, and Everton is technically enjoying their off-season, so their level of fitness is less than it would be ordinarily. Still, I expected the Union to be taught a lesson in soccer and to struggle to hold the ball or complete any series of passes. Instead, the Union dominated the first half and had no trouble whatsoever moving the ball around and creating scoring chances.
In the second half, both teams made several substitutions. The Union put three of their developmental players on the field, all younger than eighteen. And it was one of these players, 17-year-old Christian Hernandez, who scored the winning goal with only three minutes left to play. Hernandez isn’t even technically on the Union roster. He plays for their Development Academy. What a dream come true it must have been for him just to put on the Union uniform, but to score the winning goal against Everton? Priceless.
