Saba Lobjanidze scored his team-leading eighth goal in the 72nd minute to lift visiting Atlanta United to a 1-1 draw at the Philadelphia Union on Saturday in a match pivotal to the playoff chase.
Lobjanidze’s header leveled the game 11 minutes after Nathan Harriel scored for Philadelphia (9-12-10, 37 points), which began the night in the ninth and final Eastern Conference playoff place and two spots above Atlanta (8-13-10, 34 points).
United plays two of its final three at home and will continue to have a match in hand on Toronto, which remains in eighth above Philadelphia on the first tiebreak of total wins. Toronto played to a 1-1 draw at Chicago on Saturday.
Brad Guzan made six saves for the visitors, who scored on their only effort on target but offered more of a threat than that number suggested.
Guzan’s best stop may have been his last, when he used his foot to deny a ferocious low strike from Daniel Gazdag in second-half stoppage time.
Atlanta’s goal came after an impressive switch of fields that eventually led to Daniel Rios’ overlap pass to Brooks Lennon down the right.
Lennon ran onto the ball and looped a well-weighted cross toward the back post, where Lobjanidze outmuscled Harriel and headed into an open goal.
After a first half in which Union’s attackers couldn’t make good on their chances, the defender Harriel gave his side the lead 16 minutes into the second.
With several attackers advancing into the box, Harriel filled the space they vacated with a secondary run toward the top of the penalty arc.
Fellow fullback Kai Wagner provided the low cross from the left, and Harriel guided a first-time finish low beyond Guzan’s dive and inside the left post.
Long before his late denial of Gazdag, Guzan thwarted Jack McGlynn’s dipping effort from distance with a diving save to his right in the eighth minute.
In the 19th minute, an apparent Mikael Uhre goal was ruled offside for Gazdag’s position in the buildup. Then in the 32nd, Uhre’s deflected shot bent just wide of the far right post.
–Field Level Media
