Omaha, Nebr. (Oct 30, 2026) – Union Omaha’s season came to an unceremonious end at the hands of Chattanooga Red Wolves, for the second time in the club’s history.
Each of the four times the Owls have lost in the playoffs, it went further than 90 minutes. And for the third of those four instances, it ended in penalty kick heartbreak.
“Just disappointed and sad that we couldn’t overcome the adversity we set for ourselves early,” said Head Coach Vincenzo Candela. “I’ll learn from it, get guys in better positions to score more goals at the end of the year, and… I thought we deserved more this year, and it’s disappointing to come away empty-handed, because that was never the goal.”
The match went awry from the very beginning. Yanis Lelin slid a pass into the path of Pedro Hernandez on a diagonal run in the box, and his shot trickled past Nuhu and over the line in just 31 seconds. That kind of start played right into the hands of the visitors, who immediately sat in a back five and soaked up pressure.
It was a testy first half from that point onward, with the match throughout disrupted by a string of fouls and Chattanooga players going down with injuries. Ricardo Jerez in net had stoppages in both halves of regulation to receive treatment, among others, in a knock-down-drag-out affair.
Omaha, for their part, struggled to create clear chances against that low block. A flurry of floated crosses into the box never truly threatened, and many a potential final pass were either cut out or nicked off the receiver by a Red Wolf before a chance could come of it.
“It’s always hard to win a playoff match,” said center back Brent Kallman. “It’s one soccer game, things can happen, just like tonight. They score on their first chance and change the game completely. We found a way to fight back… but this game can be cruel. We definitely did enough, we gave ourselves chances and got to penalty kicks, and from there anything can happen.”
After the half, the Owls began to find some more life, but it was their first substitution that really sparked them. Diego Gutiérrez, in his first professional playoff match in his hometown, scored an absolute belter from the left flank, cutting inside and whipping a ball into the far corner. After 66 minutes of huffing and puffing, it was a badly needed breakthrough for the home team.
While Chattanooga were forced into more action from there, the goal was still clear: hold firm. And to that end, they absolutely did. By the end of regulation, they were outshot eighteen to four, ceded 81.2% possession to Union Omaha, and had just 46% passing accuracy to the Owls’ 89%… and the score was still deadlocked at one apiece.
That held through extra time as well, and in the penalty shootout, a mirror image of last year’s defeat to FC Naples came to the fore when a Rashid Nuhu save against Matthew Acosta was canceled out by Ricardo Jerez stopping Aarón Gómez. After several more successful attempts, Younes Boudadi saw an attempt saved as well to hand the Red Wolves a 5-4 win in the shootout.
“The guys have just got to use it as fuel in the offseason, to work out and come back,” said Kallman. “It’s really important during this phase, that we want to help the club continue to grow this thing, and we’ve got to keep our foot on the gas and keep winning games and get folks out here so that when the new stadium’s done, everyone’s coming to games and we’re selling out. The players that are here right now, they won’t all be back, but the guys that do come back, we’ll push this thing forward.”
ABOUT UNION OMAHA
Union Omaha, the 2021 and 2024 USL League One Champions, is the premier professional soccer team in the state of Nebraska. USL League One is a United States Soccer Federation-sanctioned professional men’s soccer league that occupies the third tier of the American soccer landscape, below USL Championship (tier two) and the newly announced top-tier USL Premier, launching in 2028. Union Omaha plays its USL League One home matches at Morrison Stadium in downtown Omaha. The team is led by Chief Operating Officer Alexis Boulos in the front office and by Head Coach Vincenzo Candela on the pitch.
