In game of inches, Open Cup remains just beyond reach
U.S. OPEN CUP GLANCE
HARRISON, N.J. » The disappointment in Fafa Picault’s voice eventually gave way to resignation.
By most measures, his Union had been the better squad over 120 minutes at Red Bull Arena. They fired 27 shots at the hosts, inflicted damage on themselves in conceding to the Red Bulls in the first half, but battled back.
Picault’s disillusion at the Union’s exit from the competition, 5-3 in penalty kicks in a game that finished 1-1 after extra time, was accompanied by a realization of the very un-clichéd game of inches — literally two, the inch of Ryan Meara’s fingertips that nudged Picault’s PK wide and the inch shy that Union goalie John McCarthy fell of stopping three spot kicks when he guessed correctly.
“That’s just football,” Picault said. “You get unlucky. Sometimes you pay for it. In this case, it’s penalties.”
The fickle fate of PKs may be universal, but Wednesday’s unique strain speaks to a particular issue in the Union’s world, a dichotomy that can engender both hope and concern.
The Union generated 27 shots … but only snuck one past Meara.
Roland Alberg struggled to impact the game for large stretches … then popped up in the 86th minute with a brilliant finish on a well-worked goal.
The Union by and large defended well when the Red Bulls pushed forward early … but a slip up from Josh Yaro gifted possession for Sacha Kljestan to score.
And then there’s Picault, by some distance the most impressive of the 26 field players Wednesday, perpetuating a solid vein of form that had led to four goals in seven matches. He fired a game-high seven shots, three on target … but didn’t find the back of the net, including on a pair of breakaways all alone on Meara where the goalie either stoned him or coaxed a shot wide of the target.
Union manager Jim Curtin’s assessments centered on heart and guts and a number of other bodily signifiers of resilience. But for all the indicators of grit, the final product remains distinctly of the caliber you’d expect from a team mired in the lower rungs of the Eastern Conference.
“It’s tough to come out on the wrong end,” Curtin said. “Penalty kicks, once it goes there, it’s a bit of a crapshoot. Had them on the ropes in their building and just didn’t quite finish them off. Happy with how we played. I think it’s something to build on. If we’re able to bring that intensity, I think the second half of the year we could have a very good team.”
In Curtin’s view, Wednesday provided hope that the trend can be reversed. To those ends, a number of players on the fringe of his squad contributed notably. Adam Najem exhibited poise thrown into central midfield late on. Marcus Epps created chances from the wing, though he wasted a golden chance near the penalty spot set up by Picault in extra time. He added a clinical penalty kick in the fourth round of the shootout with the game on the line. Jack Elliott, who assisted on Alberg’s goal, looked again like the Union’s most steady defender, itself a loaded assessment.
Historically, the Union have endured a tortured relationship with the Open Cup. They’ve been eliminated from the competition in penalty kicks in each of the last three seasons. The last time the Union lost in the run of play was the 2014 final against Seattle, 3-1 after extra time. They haven’t been ousted in 90 minutes since a 2013 trip to the SoccerPlex at the hands of D.C. United.
That close-but-no-cigar fate seems endemic to the Union. For all those wins and all that Open Cup grit, there’s no trophy to show, just a dual dose of finals heartbreak. The margin in one-and-done competitions is maddeningly thin and the sample size too paltry to reliably extrapolate to the rest of the season. And where luck is concerned, the Union did fall on the right side of last year’s playoff line by a similarly slim margin.
They have the chance to do the same this year, and outings like Wednesday indicate that Curtin possesses the pieces for a second postseason run in a crowded East clogged with mediocrity. But as the Union return to MLS play, the challenge is of the moment, uncovering the wherewithal to consistently coax those coin-flip games into their favor.
“You know, you give up a goal it’s never perfect, so there’s definitely a lot of good things I did I think, a lot of good things the team did tonight,” McCarthy said, referring first to himself with a message applicable for the squad. “It just sucks we came out on the wrong end of it.”