An official who decided to make the game about himself, combined with poor play helped secure the Union their first loss of the 2025 campaign
Ooof. A very frustrating day in Chester indeed. The Union were hoping to improve to 4-0-0 on the year, but a feisty Nashville squad had other plans. Let’s dive into the less controversial. The Union simply did get outplayed in this game. On the offensive and defensive side, they did not look like the better team. The Union’s defense was noticeably porous, as Carnell’s aggressive mentality led to a lot of opposing attacks with plenty of space on the pitch. The Union, again just looked flat for the majority of the first half of the game for whatever reason, despite the success, the Union’s first 20 minutes seemed to be lacking. This helped lead to Nashville’s first goal by Sam Surridge in the 15th minute who walked in largely uncontested. The Union was able to steady the ship and respond with an absolute banger of a goal from Jovan Lukic, his second of the year. However, that was followed up by more horrific defensive play as Amhad Qasem, with help from an indecisive play from Andre Blake, had another easy goal.
The Union started the second half on much better footing with some real opportunities when at the 60th minute, Quinn Sullivan was taken down inside the 18 by defender Dan Lovitz. While not called a foul on the play, a few moments later they would go to VAR for a determination. After watching the replay, Lovitz clearly missed the ball and just went for the body, even extending his leg to make sure he got him. Everyone in attendance, including the broadcasters, waited for the PK to be called. 10 minutes went by, but finally, head ref, Pierre-Luc Lauziere, after the VAR review from Timothy Ward signaled, no foul. This was a call that came as a shock to even the Nashville players who seemed relieved to not have to deal with a PK. 16 minutes later on a throw-in, Union defender Jakob Glesnes and Hany Muhktar had some pretty brutal, yet incidental, contact as both, unaware of each other went to head a ball and collided the backs of their heads. While both lying in a heap on the ground, Laviere again went to VAR. The broadcast commented on how it was an unfortunate accident and the faithful crown awaited the inevitable, play on indication…Then a PK was called for Nashville. To say the crowd was angry was an understatement as dollar dogs bombarded the pitch and with it, Muhktar leveled a pretty PK and it was 3-1 Nashville.
After single-handedly creating a 2 goal swing in the game, Referee Laviere truly started to make the game about himself. In the final 25 minutes of gameplay, there were 3 yellow cards called, two of which were given to the Union and a red card ejection for the Union’s Olwethu Makhanya who was penalized for being angry about being absolutely drilled from behind (no discipline was handed out to the Nashville player who hit him). Laviere appeared biased against a rightfully angry Union team. The Union did get a PK of their own late in the match, but since it just wasn’t meant to be, they brutally botched that as well. All in all, it was a bad day in Chester. The Union, played their worst game so far this year, but also very realistically should have at worst drawn to Nashville if not for the refs wanting to make the game about themselves. Ultimately, while a bad loss, the Union are still off to a great start and will look to hop right back on this horse, on Saturday against Bradley Carnell’s former squad, St Louis City.