The Philadelphia Union have clinched the 2025 Major League Soccer Supporters’ Shield with a game to spare, after triumphing 1-0 against New York City FC on Saturday night at Subaru Park.

Philadelphia has 66 points in 33 games, with none of the chasing pack — including last year’s winners Inter Miami — able to catch up in the remaining matches.

The Union went into Saturday’s game knowing a win would seal the Shield as the best regular-season team but anything less could see the battle go down to the final day, with Miami, FC Cincinnati, the Vancouver Whitecaps and LAFC the other teams that entered the weekend still in contention.

But Danish forward Mikael Uhre calmed the nerves in Chester, Pennsylvania, by finding the net with a deflected strike five minutes before halftime.

The anxiety resurfaced in the final moments of the 90 minutes when Máximo Carrizo looked to have equalized for NYCFC only for the assistant referee to raise his offside flag. Minutes later the final whistle blew to spark ecstatic celebrations.

The team has now claimed its first piece of silverware under head coach Bradley Carnell, who joined the Union in January ahead of the 2025 MLS campaign. He’s inspired Philadelphia to a 20W-7L-6D record this season to position the team as leaders of the Eastern Conference table and ensure home-field advantage in the playoffs.

Carnell, who was fired by St. Louis City midway through last season, replaced long-time Philadelphia coach Jim Curtin after the Union failed to make the playoffs last year.

“I always expect, because I have high standards, these players have high standards,” Carnell told Apple TV. “This it’s a winning team and it just needed to be rediscovered, a little bit of the foundations just needed to be filed off and polished.

“But man these guys emptied the tank. These guys are winners, I’m so glad they won today.”

While big names like Lionel Messi at Inter Miami, Son Heung-Min at LAFC and Thomas Müller at the Vancouver Whitecaps have joined the league in recent times, the Union have prospered with a less heralded roster.

“We’re not the superstars, I’m not the super coach, we don’t care, we like it this way. We fly under the radar, we make mistakes we grow, we learn and we move on and then we’re 66 points later,” Carnell said, before walking off when asked about his departure from St. Louis.

The 2025 Supporters’ Shield victory also secures the Philadelphia Union a ticket to the next edition of the Concacaf Champions Cup, joining MLS sides Inter Miami, Seattle Sounders, LA Galaxy, Nashville SC and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

The Union previously won the Supporters’ Shield in 2020, after concluding the campaign with a 14W-4L-5D record to win the first-ever trophy for the club.