Philadelphia Union’s Julián Carranza could have big role vs. NYCFC

At some point Sunday night, the hype and trash talk around the Union’s revenge rematch will yield to an actual soccer game — the Eastern Conference championship of Major League Soccer.

That might not be as fun for fans who enjoy trash talk more than soccer. (Or fans who don’t know much about the Union in the first place, the kind that Fox29 inadvertently found the night the Phillies won the NLCS.)

But if the Union are to reach the MLS Cup championship game, they will have to solve the many challenges that reigning champion New York City FC has posed to opponents in these playoffs. And nothing from the past will help the home team, because New York plays a very different style right now from what it did in the Pigeons’ two clashes with the Union earlier this year.

The 3-4-3 setup that has fueled New York’s seven-game winning streak is different from most MLS teams, different even from other teams that play with three centerbacks, such as FC Cincinnati. It has been especially good for playing on the front foot, as City has conceded first only once in those seven games.

The Union hadn’t sat down for their formal film review session yet when they came off the field after Wednesday’s practice. But Julián Carranza has done plenty of homework already, as many Union players have, watching New York’s 3-0 wins over Miami and Montreal in the playoffs’ first two rounds.

» READ MORE: Want Union-NYCFC hype? Sean Johnson won’t give it to you, and that’s just how he likes it.

“They’re a good team, but they have to come here, and we’re a good team, too,” he said. “We’re playing at home, so it’s going to be a fun game.”

A fun game would be a difference on its own from the Union’s conference semifinal win over Cincinnati, when the visitors sat back and tried to deny space to the Union’s prolific attacking front three.

You didn’t have to be a tactics savant to see that Carranza, Mikael Uhre, and Dániel Gazdag had a tough time getting behind Cincinnati’s defense for the kinds of breakaway runs that usually fuel their scoring exploits. On the few occasions when they did, the crowd at Subaru Park crackled with anticipation, only to be left unfulfilled.

It might be that way again on Sunday (8:25 p.m., FS1 and Fox Deportes), or it might not. If it is, Carranza could be as key as he quietly was in making Leon Flach’s game-winning goal against Cincinnati happen.

As Jack McGlynn and Gazdag brought the ball down the field in the buildup, Carranza watched for a hole to break through. He spotted it between Cincinnati centerbacks Dane Murphy and Matt Miazga, but when Gazdag was ready to feed Carranza, the hole was closing fast.

So instead of running toward the goal, Carranza flared out toward the corner — and took Murphy and right wingback Alvaro Barreal with him. Now Cincinnati was in trouble, and knew it. Carranza played a nifty pass back to Gazdag, and it took three orange shirts to stop him from passing to Uhre nearby.

» READ MORE: Injured Union captain Alejandro Bedoya says he’s ‘doing better’ as he aims to return Sunday

Those players swarmed Gazdag so tightly that they knocked him over. But he managed to fall toward Uhre, allowing the big Dane to swoop in before Cincinnati could clear the ball. Uhre then did a brilliant job of holding the ball up and squaring it for Flach to blast in.

Enough happened in the sequence after Carranza’s pass that his role can be overlooked. But if he doesn’t make the run to create the space for the pass to go into, the rest of the play might not have happened.

Carranza isn’t a big talker, whether in English or his native Argentine-accented Spanish. Asked Wednesday about adjusting to New York’s defensive setup, he answered simply: “We are just focused on our system and how we’re going to play. If they change the back line, it’s not a big thing for us because we know already what we have to do.”

But his feet can say plenty, and have done so this year to the tune of 14 goals and six assists in 33 games.

Of course, Carranza could have a big role in Sunday’s game by scoring a goal. But he could also have a big role by doing the small things, which happened against Cincinnati. That could go a long way toward a Union triumph.

» READ MORE: Julián Carranza has found a home with Philly as the team hits new heights