Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Slow MLS start can’t compare to priority of CCL play
CHESTER » The concept of a meaningless game is a misnomer to Jim Curtin. Never as an MLS head coach has he approached a game declaring little interest in the result. Odds are, he won’t ever, a Montgomery County-raised guy who knows his audience.
But Curtin came as close to that line as ever Saturday after the Union’s 2-0 loss to New York City FC. It wasn’t the plan for the Union to run up the white flag at home against a conference rival. But they also didn’t plan on going down a goal within five minutes and down a man within 15.
So with a hill to climb, and a bigger game looming Tuesday in the CONCACAF Champions League, discretion became the better part of valor.
“We always want to take three points. I’ll start by saying that,” Curtin said. “We always want to take three points whenever we step on the field, no matter who’s on the field, how we sub or change or do things. But I will say, our focus and the most important thing is Champions League. Getting to the final four of that competition trumps the third game of the season. It just does. That is a fact.”
It’s a fact that won’t sit well with fans who watched the Union drop a second straight home game for the first time in three years. But Curtin’s job is not to lose the forest among the trees. And the Union’s biggest objective of this week, this month and this half of the season is Tuesday when Atlanta United visits for the second leg of the CCL quarterfinals, the Union holding a 3-0 edge from the first leg.
Curtin only hints at the fact, so let’s put into plainer English: The measure of the Union’s 2021 campaign won’t be taken until the MLS Cup playoffs. There’s little until then that they can do to make this season a success. Even were the Union to repeat as Supporters’ Shield winners, the response from a majority of the fan base would be along the lines of, “Great, now go win more than one playoff game.”
The only meaningful accomplishment before the postseason is what they’re doing in the CONCACAF Champions League. They’re 90 minutes of even below-par soccer from getting to face the winner of the Portland Timbers and Mexican heavyweight Club America in an August semifinal, a stage that only 11 MLS clubs have made in the last 12 years. There’s little that early-season MLS can offer to match the heights of what was accomplished last week in
dealing Atlanta its most lopsided home loss ever.
While the 0-2-1 start isn’t ideal – and Curtin won’t pretend it is – there are caveats. The MLS season is a 34-game slog. There’s a lot of time to compensate for a sluggish April.
“It’s the third game of the season,” captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “We’re competing in Champions League, too, so a lot of games early on already. But I think two losses at home is not good, especially when we’ve been pretty dominant at home the past few years. So we need a wake-up call, for everybody.”
The Union aren’t alone in struggling. Through three weeks, the five CCL quarterfinalists from MLS have a combined record of 2-56. That includes Atlanta losing in New England Saturday and Portland getting stomped in Dallas. It’s part of the league-wide parity:
Only two of the East’s 14 teams, New England and NYC, have two wins from the first three weeks.
Aspects of Saturday’s loss are concerning, though that’s tempered as they contrast how the Union have played in Champions League. Jose Martinez’s red card for a forearm slam to the face of Valentin Castellanos is a problem, not only because it’ll exclude him from next week’s trip to Chicago and beyond once the Disciplinary Committee screens video. Martinez’s ability to ride the line between aggression and violence is a necessary part of his game. He’s done it well in Champions League and last year was able to throttle it back. Curtin and Bedoya both promised difficult conversations with the combative midfielder.
The error by Jakob Glesnes on the second goal, a botched back pass, didn’t offer Curtin much concern given how well the Norwegian has played otherwise. Ditto the lack of connecting final passes in a shotless performance.
Curtin is most concerned about the red card’s disruption to his plans. They included rotating three starters, chances for players like Anthony Fontana and Matt Real to start and a chance for Leon Flach, Martinez’s presumed replacement Tuesday with the Venezuelan out for yellow-card accumulation, to acclimate to the No. 6 role.
None of that transpired for a team playing down 10 men for 75 minutes. About the best thing Curtin could say is that it saved him the, “don’t get complacent” part of his speech Tuesday.
“The plan went out the window unfortunately,” Curtin said. “We had a lot of ideas for how we wanted to see things tonight. And then with the red card and the change in formation and the change in subbing, everything gets fouled up.”
Curtin isn’t happy. He’s not expecting fans to be, either. But he also has to keep priorities in focus. And a chance for the Union to call themselves one of the four best teams on the continent easily takes precedence.
“I’m not concerned at all,” Bedoya said. “As an experienced guy myself, it’s only the third game of the regular season and I know we’ll come along. We’re doing well so far in Champions League and that gives us motivation and confidence, and we’ve just got to keep chugging.”