Sometimes you know exactly what you’re going to get. Red Bulls on rest? The lineup is a fairly easy guess. How will Columbus Crew play? Pretty doggone consistent answer.
But when Philadelphia Union went down to Orlando Saturday night, there were surprised abound. First there was the lineup. James O’Connor called two previously-suspended players — Cristian Higuita and Yoshi Yotun — and recovering Sacha Kljestan into the eleven. He dropped Carlos Ascues into the back line to make space in the midfield and shifted Jonathan Spector out to left back so Ascues himself had somewhere to go. Whew.