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Union welcome Revs to PPL Park

Apr 17, 2015 - 9:21 PM Chester, PA (SportsNetwork.com) - The Philadelphia Union will aim to extend their unbeaten streak to a modest three matches on Sunday when the club hosts Eastern Conference rivals New England Revolution at PPL Park.

It's been a difficult start to the season for Philadelphia as the club went winless in its first five matches and benched starting goalkeeper Rais M'Bolhi for poor play.

Local product John McCarthy got the start in net for Philadelphia against expansion side New York City FC last Saturday and helped the Union earn their first win of the season, a 2-1 result courtesy of a stoppage-time goal from midfielder Vincent Nogueira.

Looking to build on the first win, the Union traveled to Yankee Stadium on Thursday to battle NYCFC for the second time in six days, and came away from the house that Ruth built with a 1-1 draw.

New York created a handful of scoring opportunities in the opening period and managed to pull goalkeeper John McCarthy off his line on a few occasions, but the hosts were unable to break the deadlock before the interval.

The breakthrough finally came in the 57th minute when Khiry Shelton sent a cross-field pass to the top of the box where Mehdi Ballouchy was waiting to cut inside with a superb first touch and curl a brilliant left-footed effort just inside the far post.

The Union pushed in search of an equalizer and eventually found one in the 86th minute when a searching ball into the box was nodded down by Maurice Edu. C.J. Sapong was first to react, running onto the ball and sending a shot past NYCFC goalkeeper Josh Saunders with a deft touch for his first goal with the Union.

"The guys showed a lot of fight -- it was a real battle tonight," Union head coach Jim Curtin said. "Not the beautiful game that we all like, but at the same time I thought we created chances and we pushed and we got rewarded in the end. For us to get that one [point] is huge just because that's four points we've taken from them in two games. It would have felt like a wash if they got the three tonight."

New England, meanwhile, will look to get back to winning ways after being held to a scoreless draw against the Columbus Crew at Gillette Stadium last time out.

The Revs welcomes U.S. international Jermaine Jones back into the fold, but the club couldn't find the back of the net and had to settle for a point.

"I like that we got a shutout, but from that I think we wanted more from today leading up to it, but as the game went on you could just, we weren't firing on all cylinders and that's disappointing," said Revs head coach Jay Heaps. "We want points at home as much as we can, so we're excited to get back here when we come back in a couple of weeks."