After a 0-0 draw with Seattle Sounders followed by a heavy 3-1 loss to Portland Timbers, 2nd placed Philadelphia Union will no doubt be welcoming the basement side of the Western Conference, Colorado Rapids, to their Talen Energy Stadium on Wednesday night.
Philadelphia Union had made a solid start to their new MLS campaign as the hosts had collected 7 wins from their first 12 matches of the season, but recently seem to have hit a speed-bump of late with the recent draw and defeat on home turf.
Nevertheless, Philadelphia will be confident that they can bounce back with a win here and in doing so, could actually lift themselves to the top of the Eastern Conference, depending on how DC United fare at home against Chicago Fire on Wednesday night.
Philly have lost just 2 of their first 8 home matches which were defeats to Toronto and Portland Timbers, but the 5 home wins to date (they’ve won the most at home in the Conference so far this season), have seen the hosts register wins over Columbus Crew, Dallas, Montreal Impact, Cincinnati and a 6-1 thrashing of New England Revolution.
Colorado Rapids sit bottom of the Western Conference with just 8 points to their name and already find themselves some 10 points off the pace of the play-off pack and 7th placed Dallas ahead of this difficult looking trip to face Philadelphia Union.
The visitors had previously suffered a horrific 8-match losing streak which had left them firmly rooted to the bottom of the Conference and although they’ve since showed signs of a recovery after back-to-back wins against LA Galaxy (away) and Columbus Crew (at home), they still trail second from bottom outfit, Sporting Kansas, by a 6-point margin.
Colorado Rapids have always struggled on their travels in recent times as the bigger picture has resulted in just 3 away wins from their last 26 matches on the road in the MLS, which is an incredibly poor record indeed.
In addition, Colorado have failed to score in 12 of these last 26 away matches during what has been a woeful period of results on the road for the visitors, and their last visit to Philadelphia ended up in a 2-1 loss back in 2017.
Despite their recent hiccup, Philadelphia should win this clash quite comfortably.