While club carves niche, Curtin wants peer respect

CHESTER >> Union manager Jim Curtin said the word at the beginning and at the end of a lengthy quote Tuesday night. It wasn’t the word that gained the most traction on social media, however.

TV cameras caught Curtin and Atlanta United manager Gabriel Heinze in a deep discussion after a 1-1 draw at Subaru Park Tuesday night that sent the Union to the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League. That led to this quote from Curtin on Heinze that is almost certainly being painted on a banner for the River End:

“He’s an incredible coach, he’s an incredible player, but you can still be, also, a sore loser and an ass—— at the end of the game. I still think there’s a right way. I still think you should shake hands like men after the game.”

That eye-catching, fill-in-the-blank invective aside, the real crux of Curtin’s feelings through. For his team, it was about respect. And Heinze’s refusal to shake hands, to Curtin, was a moment where the Argentine coach refused to respect the Union as winners of the two-leg tie, via a 4-1 aggregate score over two quarterfinal round games.

Curtin nodded to that after the game, that his team likely wasn’t three goals better over the 180 minutes. But by punishing a loose defensive team in Atlanta with three counter-attacking goals (and, arguably, Curtin outcoaching Heinze by a wide margin), then managing the game well enough at home to draw and progress, they were definitively the better team on the field, which Curtin will tell you is all that matters.

“I went to shake his hand after the game in Atlanta and it was a little touchy,” Curtin said of the interaction. “And I went again and I shook his hand and he was kind of dismissive a little bit. I said, ‘You weren’t going to shake my hand again?’ and we had a discussion about the game. He thought our players were diving and faking injuries. I get that, but I don’t think that’s what we’re about.

“We’re about doing our talking on the field. I’m proud of the group for advancing.”

Heinze, 43, and Curtin, 41, are contemporaries in many ways. Both were defenders on the field. Heinze’s career took him from his homeland to European giants like Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Marseille and Roma. He accumulated 72 caps for the Argentine national team and won a gold medal in the 2004 Olympics. He also was notoriously well-versed in many of the dark arts of gamesmanship for which he accused the Union.

As a coach, though, Heinze is relatively young. He spent three fairly successful years at Velez Sarsfield and was hired in the offseason to lead Atlanta United after its disastrous 2020 season. In the arena of MLS coaching, he’s yet to prove he’s on Curtin’s level.

Curtin allowed that some things might have been lost in translation. Heinze was miffed at, for instance, the leisurely pace with which Sergio Santos exited the game Tuesday night, though it would’ve had to be a very slow walk to account for three goals on the aggregate count. Contrast that to the shoving match that accompanied the end of the Union’s first leg in Costa Rica against Deportivo Saprissa last month and it seems tame, especially in a competition where histrionics is elevated to an art form.

Those are all small details to Curtin, who was irked by what he saw as an effort to delegitimize what his team accomplished. Curtin’s career with the Union, which is approaching a seventh anniversary as head coach, has been about taking the club from afterthought to contender. He’s done that with four playoff berths in five seasons, peaking with last year’s Supporters’ Shield as the club’s first trophy.

A berth in the semifinals of the continental competition in their first try, just the 12th MLS team to get there in 13 years, is the latest step on that ladder. However the competition resonates with fans new to Champions League, it’s a significant marker for the club’s profile in the global landscape.

“It checks another box of a really important goal for the club,” Curtin said. “… To move on in this competition into the final four and await the winner of the Club America-Portland game, we have a big opportunity. That’s something that certainly is good for our badge, good for the Philadelphia Union.”

“It’s huge, we continue to make history, onto the semifinals,” captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “We’re one of the best four teams in the region, you could say that. I think it’s fantastic for everyone involved at the club, great effort from the guys.”

Those facts, as Curtin likely informed him in so many words, are not subject to the approval of Heinze or anyone else.