Mandate clear for Union: win the Shield

Even if it appeared to be falling on social media, the sky remained very much above Jim Curtin Sunday afternoon in Columbus, fi rst- half snow fl urries notwithstanding.

His Union club had just outplayed the Columbus Crew but spurned too many chances, unable to solve goalkeeper Eloy Room from the run of play. The result, after a pair of softly conceded goals, was a 2- 1 loss to the Crew and an as- you- were reset of the Supporters’ Shield race.

In most contexts, the Union’s performance in Columbus would have inspired confi dence. With the win- and- get- a- trophy mandate laid before them, anything but a victory felt to many as a failure.

In the big picture, however, the Union enter the fi nal weekend of the season with something exceedingly rare in sports: Control of their destiny.

Win against the New England Revolution at home Sunday ( 3: 30 p. m., 6ABC- TV) and the fi rst piece of silverware is theirs.

They also could back into the trophy with, pending some math after Wednesday night’s games, a better result than Toronto gets Sunday ( at New York Red Bulls) and the Crew doing anything but winning their fi nal two games ( vs. Orlando Wednesday night, at Atlanta, which is playing for its playoff life).

All of those extenuating circumstances aside, the Union have a simple objective: Win, at a building where they have won all eight of their contests this season, against a team that it has a 3- 0- 1 record against in 2020.

That’s it. It won’t be easy in execution. But as so little in the topsy- turvy 2020 has been, it’s frighteningly simple in design.

“The players know what’s at stake,” Curtin said Sunday. “The players know we have a home game to end the season in a stadium we’ve been very good in all year, against an opponent that ... ( is) a very good team, too, and every time we’ve played them, the games have been tight. Nothing’s easy in this league. You have to continue to work hard.”

The winner of the Supporters’ Shield in 2020 will have had to work. In a campaign with essentially three preseasons, a three- month hiatus, a bubble tournament in Orlando then a restart in home markets, in front of some empty stadiums and some occupied to an alarming and seemingly unsafe capacity, this year’s Shield will reward toughness as much as any other trait. The pure distillation of the European- style, pseudoleague trophy is gone with this year’s unbalanced schedule. Instead, the winner will have shown something different, resilience in the face of positive virus tests, quarantines and a bunch of other wrinkles no soccer manager has ever before had to consider.

So maybe it’s fitting that the easy route was unavailable to the Union. Winning in Columbus, taking the first chance the club got to wrap up the trophy, would’ve been too easy, too un- 2020 ( and too un- Union). The path through the sixth- place Revs won’t be easy, despite those previous results, if their last meeting at Subaru Park, where an Anthony Fontana wonder goal was required to banish Bruce Arena’s 10man squad is any indication.

But the Union have control over their fate, such a rarity this season. They will take the field Sunday trying to finish the best regular season in franchise history. That bar was set in 2019 at 55 points; the Union are on pace for a 34- game total of 68 points this season.

They are the only team to have won all of their home games, eight wins in eight outings. Only two others ( Orlando City at 5- 0- 3, FC Dallas at 7- 0- 3) can claim not to have lost at home much less not dropped points. And they’re secure in knowing that if they match what they did in their last home game, the 5- 0 hammering of shorthanded) Toronto FC to seize control of the Shield race, they can beat anyone.

The perspective, though Curtin won’t say it publicly, is that a result at Columbus was always going to be a bonus. The Crew are third in the East, one a chic pick to win the Shield. They have one home loss in nine outings, counteracting their winless run on the road this season ( 0- 4- 5). After beating Toronto, the Union got the upper hand in the Shield race, needing just to match TFC the rest of the way and enjoy the cushion of a huge lead on goal- differential, the second tiebreaker. The Union’s midweek win over Chicago, paired with a TFC loss to New York City FC, put the Union out ahead. The reversal of those results on the weekend – the Union’s loss to Columbus, TFC beating Inter Miami – simply restored the status quo from the beginning of the week.

So the Union head into the final week trying to put to rest not just 11 years of futility – the 0- 3 record in U. S. Open Cup finals, the 1- 5 record in MLS Cup Playoff games – but nine months of chaos this year. They’ll do it with a player hurrying back from COVID- 19, with a goalie who hasn’t won an MLS game in more than two years, with a striker who was just let back into the country after 18 months and a 20- year- old set to depart it as the most expensive American Homegrown transfer in MLS history.

In short, they’ll do it with a chance to cap 2020 with a very 2020- type of win.

“We lost our goalkeeper ( Andre Blake); we lost Jose Martinez, we lost Ray Gaddis this morning,” Curtin said Sunday. “Every time we’ve had a little bit of adversity, this group has stepped up in a big way and to have another really strong performance against New England to finish the season.”