Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Pivotal 8-day stretch starts on West Coast
CHESTER » The Philadelphia Union’s season could look very different in 10 days.
In that time, we could reflect back on a team that took its opportunity in the most consequential week of its season, one that has an Open Cup final ahead of it and remains in the thick of a playoff chase in the Eastern Conference, creeping up toward the red line as it embarks on a stretch of six straight games against Eastern Conference foes.
Or the future could look more bleak, a bad week torpedoing the Union’s hopes of one trophy and handicapping their chances in another competition.
That’s the challenge that manager Jim Curtin will navigate in the next week. The Union travel to Portland Saturday night (11, PHL-17) before returning home for Wednesday night’s U.S. Open Cup semifinal against Chicago and venturing next Saturday to New England to tangle with the sixthplaced Revolution.
So yeah, it’s kind of a big week.
It doesn’t begin in the most fortuitous way. First, the Union (8-10-3, 27 points) have to deal with a long road trip, always an issue for Eastern teams schlepping it to the Pacific coast. Saturday is the most difficult of the three games, with Portland (93-7, 34 points) riding a 13game unbeaten streak up to fourth in the West (second on points per game). The Timbers haven’t lost in MLS since April.
“Portland is probably the most challenging road trip to go on, and the team there is playing in really good form,” Curtin said Wednesday at his weekly press availability. “We’re going to use our full squad. We’ve talked about now and preached that we have a deep team. Guys are going to be called upon at different times.”
It’s not a result that the Union would’ve been likely to nab even with undivided attention, even if they have won consecutive road contests. But coming off a 10-day break for the MLS All-Star Game, it’s also not a game in which Curtin wants to rest starters entirely over concern about rust. The usual logic of trotting out the reserves is upended here compared to if, for instance, the Portland trip fell at the end of the week.
To mitigate the challenge, the Union flew out of Philadelphia Wednesday and trained Thursday and Friday in Portland, acclimating to the time zone and Providence Park’s turf surface. Curtin opted for a traveling party of 22 players, from which he’ll cull a matchday 18. The veterans that will lead the way against the Fire will take part in some capacity, in preparation for Wednesday’s match that Curtin labeled as the most important of the three (and is, objectively, the most winnable).
“You can’t just go into a semifinal with guys not playing together and not having that cohesion,” Curtin said. “It’s difficult because we have to go on the road. I think that when you weigh three games in a week, there’s certain guys that can handle it and do all three, but you want to try to get the best and maximize your opportunities to have the freshest team on the field and everyone playing at their highest level.
“If all three games were at home, it would be a different story and I think we could handle it and it would be difficult but we’d roll up our sleeves and we could go three in a row with our top group. But I think we’ll have a little bit of rotation when we go out to Portland just because a six-and-a-half hour flight is challenging. Again, you’re still going to see a really good team that steps on the field against Portland. We have the mindset there that we can take three points.”
The Union have a full team to draw from, save for the ongoing quad strain afflicting Ilsinho. Fabian Herbers played well in the last game against Houston, drawing a late penalty in the 3-1 win, and should earn a spot in the wing rotation Curtin has deployed.
Curtin has no concerns about others in his squad, including the 19-year-old center-back tandem of Mark McKenzie and Aston Trusty. Curtin has traditionally been most reticent to rotate his squad in defense, erring on the side of overwork rather than underwork. The extra flight in the legs of those two, after they played 45 minutes each in Tuesday night’s Homegrown Game in Atlanta, isn’t a concern for Curtin, citing their enviably youthful ability to recover.
The Timbers will be without Sebastian Blanco, the winger who has six goals and four assists, due to a suspension for yellow-card accumulation. And they’ll be playing their first game since the trade of striker Fanendo Adi to FC Cincinnati last week.
It’ll be a week in which the Union’s mantra of depth and competition are tested, with a lot on the line.
“We have a deep roster,” Curtin said. “We have confidence in all our guys, we have some guys playing very good at a lot of different positions and to be honest, there’s not a huge drop-off. We’ve played a lot of different guys a lot of minutes this year.”