With loaded early schedule Union struggle to find practice time

Thursday morning’s training session was sufficiently unusual to get Jim Curtin’s attention.

As the Union head coach led a group of young players and reserves through an intense workout, he became aware of just how long it had been since he oversaw such a session with his full squad. As his regulars did regen sessions following Tuesday’s effort, Curtin was struck by how such a routine midweek practice could feel so odd.

“It felt like the first training session I’ve ran in a while,” Curtin said via Zoom Thursday. “… It’s been a challenge.”

The Union have created that predicament by advancing in CONCACAF Champions League. Saturday’s trip to take on the Chicago Fire (1 p.m., PHL17) is one of nine games in 31 days for the Union, through next Saturday. It’s a gauntlet of their own making but a potent early-season test nonetheless.

Saturday marks game No. 8 for the Union (0- 2-1, 1 point), twice as many as the Fire (0-2-1, 1 point). Instead of gaining form from those games, the physical and mental expenditure in outings like Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Atlanta United to advance to the semifinals of the CCL have come with a price.

So you have situations like Thursday’s rare training session. The team reserves days after they play for regen and days before games for walkthroughs, so full tactical practices have been few and far between.

It’s both a testament to the Union’s toughness in surviving in Champions League and a potential explanation for the slow start in MLS. In particular, Curtin has lamented the lack of crispness in the final third as a consequence of the lost practice time, exacerbated by the time their strikers missed in March. While the Union have scored nine goals in four CCL games, they have just one in three MLS affairs.

“One of the things we pointed to in some of our lack of finishing, especially in the first 20 minutes against Atlanta where we fouled up a lot of 2-on-1s or 3-on-2s from pretty good areas of the field where we’re usually pretty sharp, we were a little off,” Curtin said. “And maybe that is not being able to get the reps in training that we usually do on the hard days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, where you’re training at high intensity and we’re doing these 4-v-3s, 3-v-2s and you get so many repetitions. We haven’t had those. That’s the reality of things with our schedule right now.’

It’s a relatively good problem to have, Curtin allows. It’s also the norm for clubs in Europe regularly engaged in continental competition. And, he’ll point out to his players, it matters not one bit when the final whistle blows Saturday afternoon. There’s no grading on a curve over the 90 minutes.

The Fire are struggling, too, though for hardly the same reasons. After finishing 11th in the East last year, a slow start has coach Raphael Wicky on thin ice. While Curtin defended the Swiss coach and former Chivas USA player, a rare opinion levied on another club’s situation, things are rocky in Chicago.

Curtin hopes he can add to their woes. Both teams are winless, though Chicago has allowed seven goals in three games. The Union lost consecutive games at home for the first time in nearly three years. The last, against New York City FC, owed in part to Jose Martinez’s red card in the 15th minute.

The Union will be without Martinez Saturday, and Curtin said that he is braced for supplemental discipline to be meted out to the Venezuelan, who also missed Tuesday’s game for yellow-card accumulation. Leon Flach excelled in the No. 6 role against Atlanta and is likely to reprise that role.

Whatever time the club has had to practice, Saturday’s challenge is about translating a high level of play into three points for the first time.

“I think we’ve had good performances in the league but performances that haven’t gotten the results we’ve wanted,” Curtin said. “We have to change that and find ways to pick up points on a busy stretch now.”