Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Long-sought road win ugly, and a beaut
Jim Curtin knew that when (if?) a Union road win finally materialized, it might not be a thing of beauty.
It could be ugly, could be unorthodox, could be outside the confines of the usual plan compiled by the coach.
So naturally Saturday, when the Union might least expect it, those three points finally arrived … or rather were earned in the team’s grittiest outing of the season.
There were plenty of reasons why Saturday’s 2-0 win over Montreal shouldn’t have happened. Curtin had loaded up his firstchoice players for Wednesday’s game against Columbus, a hapless 1-0 loss that marked the fourth straight road loss this season and 16th consecutive away outing without a victory. He changed three of his front four players in the name of squad rotation, and perhaps also under the guise that the alleged firstchoice options hadn’t been playing like them.
The Union went up a goal via the unlikely combination of Ray Gaddis to Cory Burke, then went down a man courtesy of Burke’s rash two-footed tackle. But the Union (3-5-2, 11 points) persevered, drawing a red card on Germantown Academy grad Daniel Lovitz for a last-man foul on Fafa Picault, then iced the game through Haris Medunjanin’s first goal of the season.
It was thoroughly ugly, involving two of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference this early season. It was also the most beautiful sight that Curtin and company could’ve asked for.
“We needed to have fresh legs on the field and a lot of guys stepped up in a big way, from our teenage center-backs to Cory Burke up top,” Curtin said. “I thought every guy on the field left everything out on there (Saturday), which was key.”
The significance is to be taken with a grain of salt, given how bad Montreal (38-0, 9 points) has been. The Impact has allowed 26 goals this season, the most in MLS by a wide margin (no one else has more than 21).
But the Union couldn’t start to turn things around until they broke through the wall and got that first win. And they did so with different players stepping up. Mark McKenzie was outstanding, stepping in for Jack Elliott in the center to pair with Auston Trusty. Keegan Rosenberry continued to uncover his rookie form, shutting down Ignacio Piatti. Seldom used Warren Creavalle had a significant turn in midfield after the red card, settling the game down. Even David Accam, without a goal in 16 appearances, set up Medunjanin’s goal, albeit when Montreal defender Jukka Raitala spilled the ball directly on to his foot.
Taken together, it was the kind of tenacious performance authored by a less purely talented starting lineup that the club had been sorely lacking.
“Yeah, it was a team performance,” Medunjanin said. “I think we played as a team very good. When we play as a team we are tough to beat, but this is only one game. We need to show this every game when we play.”
“It takes a full team effort,” Curtin said. “It takes all 18 guys, and if we give maximum effort, we’re a handful to play against. But if we have letdowns and three or four guys have off nights, we’re going to get beat, because we don’t have the margin for error that maybe some other teams do.”
The perspective is threefold. First, there’s the fact that the Impact is a struggling squad. Second is the impending question of whether some players’ status as first-choice should be swapped out for their reserves, which presents another set of deliberations in the coming weeks. And finally there’s the notion of “margin for error” that Curtin references, that was supposed to have lessened over time as the club’s spending increased and talent grew.
Those are questions for another day, though. For the moment, the most salient takeaway for the Union is the confidence boost. Yeah, things bounced the club’s way to turn into three points, but only after they overwhelmingly failed to get those favorable decisions in the previous weeks. Getting that burden off their back offers space to figure out some of the conundrums that have held them back and the chance to decipher longer-terms answers.
“It’s just important because it’s something that we know we’re capable of, we just haven’t been doing that,” Fafa Picault said. “It’s going to take us doing that and pouring our all our energy and focusing every game like that in order to get these results. We can’t play one game like that and not another one like that, or lapses in games where you’re going 20 minutes doing that and other moments not doing that. I think overall, we were there for 90 minutes and showed up as a group and that’s very important.”
“It’s good for confidence,” Curtin said. “You go in the locker room now and there’s more belief. The guys have had some decent performance on the road, but they’ve been sporadic. But today I think we put together a full 90 minutes. And that’s what it takes. We’re a team that has quality.”