CHESTER, Pa. – Brian McBride. Freddie Ljungberg. Nery Castillo. All three are big names in the soccer world, and names that will be at PPL Park on Saturday afternoon to take on the Philadelphia Union.
But for Union forward Danny Mwanga, the focus falls not just on the Fire’s stars, but on the rest of a team hungry to reach the postseason.
“I think we have to worry about the whole team,” Mwanga said Wednesday. “They have a lot of good players on their team. … We just have to make sure everyone on the team stays focused and pays attention to their entire team, because you never know who is going to hurt you in a game.”
When the clubs last met on June 5, the Fire controlled much of the match and walked away with a 2-1 win at Toyota Park. Mwanga wants to see his team improve on that performance and get something from the match this time around.
[inline_node:315969]“They have a lot of players that might hurt us, so we just have to look back at the game we played and see what we did wrong in that game and try to correct it,” Mwanga said. “We need to look at what we did well … and try to improve it in order to win the game on Saturday.”
Perhaps the biggest difference this time around is the new allegiance of midfielder Justin Mapp, who spent the bulk of seven seasons with Chicago before he was traded to the Union in late July.
“We just have to keep doing the things that [Union manager Peter Nowak] and the coaches are preaching,” Mapp said. “Keep working hard, and we have definitely had opportunities to win these games.
"We just haven’t been able to get over the hump. We have to keep pushing, not give up, and I think if we keep doing the right things the results will hopefully come.”
