Olwethu Makhanya has his long-awaited breakout game to give the Union their third straight win

For a year and a half, it felt like Olwethu Makhanya was mostly invisible with the Union.

Despite signing a first-team contract in July 2023, he didn’t play at all with the first team in 2023 or 2024. Left out 39 times from 66 squads, he rarely made the bench for eligible games..

When the centerback did play for the Union’s reserve team, he didn’t always show he had the stuff to make the jump to the top level. At the time, the reserve squad’s coach, Marlon LeBlanc, said on a few occasions that Makhanya still had things to learn about life as a pro.

So when the club started this year with Makhanya as the third centerback on the depth chart, there was cause for concern. And when Ian Glavinovich’s hamstring injury made him unable to start the season, things looked even worse.

But Makhanya did well enough in the preseason, prompting manager Bradley Carnell to throw his fellow South African in the starting lineup to start the year. And in one of the many ways in which the Union have exceeded expectations, Makhanya played reasonably well in the first two games.

In the third game, the 20-year-old officially had his breakout. Contending with frigid weather, artificial turf, and a wide-open game at New England, he played a huge role in the Union’s 2-0 win on Saturday.

» READ MORE: Tai Baribo’s latest goal sparks the Union’s 2-0 win at New England

If you didn’t know who had the following statistics, you might think it was Jakob Glesnes: 83 touches, three tackles, five interceptions, 10 clearances (including seven headed ones), eight defensive recoveries, and eight duels won from 14 contested. In fact, that was Makhanya.

He even had a pretty good passing night, completing 40 of his 54 attempts and sending eight passes into the attacking third.

“We’ve thrown Olwethu in the deep end time and time again, and asked him to do things that are not conventional for centerbacks,” Carnell said after the game. “We kind of go against the grain with our philosophy a little bit, and he’s really embraced it.”

The victory marked the Union’s first 3-0-0 season start and, more importantly, their first shutout of the year following 4-1 and 4-2 routs.

“It shows, especially a team that’s playing away from home, how we can learn to control the game in certain moments,” Carnell said. “They stretched us a little bit, they bent us a little bit, but we didn’t break.”

» READ MORE: New Union centerback Ian Glavinovich is dealing with a hamstring injury

That was for sure. Though Andre Blake only had to make one save — and it was a terrific one — New England had several good scoring chances. New England’s failure to capitalize was a clear symptom of a winless team that hasn’t scored a goal yet this season. The task got even harder when striker Leo Campana was subbed out just 10 minutes after kickoff due to an injury.

It took the Union a long time to finally capitalize. But once Tai Baribo broke the deadlock with his sixth goal of the year, the visitors took control and never let up. New England didn’t record a shot for the rest of the game, while the Union had four and ran off 10 minutes of second-half stoppage time.

That goal, by the way, tied a MLS record for the most by a single player through three games of a season. Ante Razov, one of MLS’s original players in 1996, had stood alone with six since 1999.

Anyone who follows the Union understands the team’s goal is to play fast-paced, high-pressing soccer focused on transition. Carnell was hired to refocus the players on that philosophy after they strayed too far from it for sporting director Ernst Tanner’s liking.

But while we might not see this squad play like Barcelona or Brazil, to use the famed soccer cliché, it can play some pretty stuff when it wants to. Saturday’s second goal was a prime example. Jovan Lukić's terrific bank shot off the left post capped off a 19-pass sequence over 53 seconds that sapped the life out of New England’s defense.

» READ MORE: Jovan Lukić has fit impressively fast into the Union’s new-look midfield

Even when the Revolution had an opportunity to regain the ball off a Blake launch up the field, they gave it right back, and didn’t touch it again until it was in their net.

“I’m not the one who says I don’t like the ball, right?” Carnell said of the play. But he knew that while the win gave him the right to make a wisecrack, he said something pretty close to that when he took the job.

At his introductory press conference, Carnell spoke of wanting to see 60% of his team’s goals come from transition play, 30% from set pieces, and 10% from possession.

“I’m not a 75% possession guy,” he said back then.

You don’t have to be a math whiz to figure that 53 seconds out of a 108-minute game (counting all the stoppage time) is well under 10%. Still, that goal made a point. Carnell knew it, and he didn’t mind saying he enjoyed it.

» READ MORE: How different are the Union this year? The Cincinnati team they beat last weekend knows best.

“We want to control both sides of the game,” he said. “If we get moments to combine, I think you’ve seen in the first two games that we have some really good, intricate moments with the ball. It takes a creative player or creative players, it takes a lot of little nuances in planning the week, and and how we go about our business training under stress and pressure.”

You read here last week that just because the Union are undefeated doesn’t make them good yet. That stance hasn’t fully changed yet, and won’t until the Miami game on March 29.

But there’s no doubt that they’ve looked good, and have earned the praise they’re increasingly getting from around the league.