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Union continue search for first win against Sporting

Apr 3, 2015 - 8:59 PM Kansas City, KS (SportsNetwork.com) - The Philadelphia Union will continue the quest for their first win of the 2015 season on Sunday when the club travels to Sporting Park to battle Sporting Kansas City.

Just about everything that could go wrong through the first four games has gone wrong for the Philadelphia Union and head coach Jim Curtin.

The opener saw the club settle for a point in a scoreless draw against Colorado, the following week the Union should have earned their first win of the season but were the victims of a phantom penalty call.

Week 3 saw the Union down to 10 men just before the half thanks to a wild elbow from Zach Pfeffer en route to a 2-0 loss to FC Dallas, and last week was probably the worst performance of the season in which the club managed zero shots on target in a 1-0 loss to the Chicago Fire.

The lone Fire goal came in the 37th minute when Harrison Shipp swung a free kick into the penalty area with pace. Union goalkeeper Rais M'Bolhi came to claim the ball but failed to do so and Adailton was there to nod it home with a glancing header.

Philadelphia then went down to 10 men for the second week in a row in the 72nd minute when referee David Gantar showed Fred a straight red card for what appeared to be a slap to the face of Shipp.

Following the red card, Philadelphia had the better of the play. Fernando Aristeguieta and Maurice Edu both squandered scoring chances as the Union remain winless through four games of the 2015 season and drop to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.

"I'm a competitive guy -- I have competitive guys in our locker room," said Union head coach. "[We're] not happy with the performance. We weren't good enough on the day. I don't think we had an opportunity. They're missing guys, we are missing guys, but that's no excuse."

Sporting Kansas City, meanwhile, claimed its first win of the season with a 1-0 victory over New York City FC at Yankee Stadium.

New York, which was without the services of David Villa due to an adductor strain, fell behind in the 12th minute when Ike Opara got on the end of Matt Besler's long throw into the box and sent a powerful header past Josh Saunders. . "I thought that the first half, overall as a team, we were pretty good. I think what happened in the second half everything changed because we were up a goal. It's their place. They've got to try and get back into the game and they threw a lot of numbers forward," said SKC head coach Peter Vermes.

"Where we could have broken them was there were a couple of really good chances for us to catch them on the counter in transition, but we didn't. But I thought for the majority of time we defended very well. We gave up a couple of opportunities, but at the same time so did they. I guess at the end it was a fair result for sure."

The Union won last year's lone meeting between the teams at PPL Park, a 2-1 win on Oct. 18, ending a two-game Sporting KC winning streak in Chester.