The Union will play Charlotte FC on Saturday in the midst of Hurricane Ian’s remnants

The Union’s quest to win the Eastern Conference and potentially the Supporters’ Shield will take them into the remnants of a hurricane this weekend.

Hurricane Ian, which made landfall Thursday in Florida and will soon hit the 76ers in South Carolina, is scheduled to pass over during the Union’s visit to North Carolina to play Charlotte FC (5:30 p.m. Saturday, PHL17). Forecasts have the storm arriving in town Friday night, with the center passing through the city early Saturday morning.

Because of that, the Union will fly down to Charlotte on Friday morning and train at Bank of America Stadium that day, instead of their usual routine of flying Friday afternoon after training in Chester. Union manager Jim Curtin said Thursday that doing so should get the team into town before the wind gets too fierce.

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The game can’t be moved to Sunday because the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, who have the same stadium and ownership group, play at home that day. Charlotte FC also has another home game Wednesday night, a contest against Columbus rescheduled from Aug. 2 because of thunderstorms.

Nor could the game have been moved earlier, because both teams have key players returning from national team games played around the world earlier this week. The Union had eight players scattered across Europe, South America, and Asia; Charlotte star striker Karol Świderski played for Poland in the UEFA Nations League and scored a game-winning goal against Wales — coincidentally the United States’ first opponent at the upcoming World Cup.

A source with knowledge of the situation told The Inquirer that there were discussions of moving the location of the game, but it’s not known where the move would have been.

“The league did a good job of being proactive in discussing all the different possibilities of potentially moving the game,” Curtin said. “We will change our schedule a little bit to get there earlier because the last thing you want is to finish training here, jump on a plane, and be sitting on a runway for hours and hours not being able to land or get in.”

If the worst of the storm passes through Charlotte on Saturday morning, the conditions could be passable — certainly not ideal, but passable — by the late afternoon.

That likely won’t help the many Union fans planning to travel south this weekend, but it might help the game be played on time.

The Union also will have to contend with the unusual aesthetics of playing a soccer game atop gridiron lines. Stadium staffers don’t usually paint the field for the Panthers until after Charlotte FC is done for the week, but because of the storm, the paint will go on before the rain arrives.

One would think that Jakob Glesnes, Mikael Uhre, and other Union internationals have seen a lot in their careers. But playing on an NFL gridiron might be new.

“I think when you can actually play in the stadium [at practice] … you take that opportunity and it works out being a good advantage for us,” Curtin said. “Optically, it will be good for them to get over that first impression, rather than the first time they step out on the field [be] on the game day.”

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