Curtin knows Union’s season comes down to playoff test
Union will be ultimately judged by success in postseason
CHESTER >> The most damning indictment that can be levied against a coach of a Philadelphia sports team is that he doesn’t get it. That he doesn’t understand where on the sporting globe fate has landed him, doesn’t grasp what matters and what doesn’t in this peculiar and passionate corner of the world.
Jim Curtin isn’t guilty of that. Since Day 1 with the Union, as a born-andbred Philadelphian, he understands the demands of his job, the pressure riding on the prospect of failure and (eventually) the joyous payoff for victory.
The Bishop McDevitt and Villanova grad comprehends the landscape well enough to know, as he prepares to lead the Union next week to their third try at playoff victory in four seasons, how much of that context is helpful and how much is not.
“Pressure’s everywhere,” Curtin was saying Wednesday, with a grin. “I understand. Look, there’s pressure in every game, every experience that you have.”
There’s a dichotomy that Curtin and the Union carry into their 2019 MLS Cup playoff opener Oct. 20 against the New York Red Bulls. The pressure put on by fans extends nine playoff-win-less years. The responsibility for that futility doesn’t fully fall on Curtin or his players. And if the weight of history impedes them from attaining that elusive victory against the Red Bulls, then Curtin is ready to shed it.
First, the bare facts. That Union are in their 10th season. That time has included zero playoff wins. The team is 0-4 in playoff games, and next Sunday’s affair will be the first postseason affair in Chester since 2011.
Add an 0-3 mark in U.S. Open Cup finals, most recently last year’s debacle in Houston, and that’s 0-7 in games of consequence.
Those numbers weigh on fans, and understandably so, Curtin would add. But the past is the past, and no amount of goals scored against the Red Bulls can undo previous results.
While the desire to fling blame is understandable, the targets for it are less logical. Curtin has been at the helm of all three Open Cup finals and two playoff contests. He’s one of the few around long enough to be culpable in those losses.
Take the 2016 playoff loss to Toronto. Three years doesn’t seem a long time; in MLS years, it’s an eternity. Of the Union’s starting XI that night, only two — Alejandro Bedoya and Andre Blake — remain starters. Warren Creavalle is a reserve, Fabinho a deep reserve. The other seven starters (and four of seven reserves) are squarely in the Union’s past. Only 11 of the 18 players who lost to the Dynamo in last year’s Open Cup final remain. And when the Union lost to Houston in 2011, the majority of their important Homegrown contingent was in middle school. Brenden Aaronson was a newly minted fifth-grader.
So to think that the players are encumbered by history in the same way as fans is incorrect.
“The good news with the young players is they aren’t part of the past,” Curtin said. “It’s all new to them. One of the great qualities with great players is they have no fear.”
That young corps isn’t naïve, though. The Union have had a dastardly run to the end of the regular season, with five of their last seven games against playoff opposition. The Union went 3-3-1 in those games, which included playoff-caliber contests against Atlanta, Los Angeles FC and New York City FC at home, and at the Red Bulls. Those games form the body of many players’ playofflevel experience, not the ghosts that haunt many in the stands.
The matter is a little more complicated for Curtin. No one felt the defeats as severely as he did, emotionally or professionally. But his desire to rehash history is limited only to practical purposes. One is in pointing out that this Red Bulls game is, relative to the other seven playoff/ final outings, the only time that the Union can reasonably be called the favorite.
In a league where homefield advantage is critical, the third seed in the East is important. So is the seven-month body of work that earned the Union that status.
“The past is just that. It is the past,” Curtin said. “I get that everybody feels a little bit of that weight and that pressure. That’s natural for sure. But until you break down a barrier like not winning a playoff game, that’s all everyone is going to talk about. It’s on us now, in our home stadium. We recognize that.”
The flip side to pressure is consequences, and Curtin isn’t afraid to court those, either. The regular season is a mere prologue in determining the success or failure of the Union’s season. Club records for goals scored, wins and points are meaningful plot points. As is finishing third in the East, tied for the best finish in franchise history, and fifth in the full MLS table, a franchise-best. With 31 wins, the Union are sixth in MLS since the start of 2018. The list of clubs that have made the playoffs at least three of the last four seasons includes the Union, Sporting KC, D.C. United, FC Dallas, Portland and Real Salt Lake. The Union are the only member of that group without a trophy in the last decade.
If this is merely another token playoff appearance, then Curtin knows the season won’t be deemed a success. Only beating the Red Bulls — a Philly-New York rivalry that Curtin appreciates as extra spice — can get this season to where Curtin wants it.
“You can use statistics to paint whatever picture you want, you can use whatever you want,” he said. “But the reality is, this game will dictate what people will think about when they think about 2019. That’s the great thing about pro sports. We could win and add to the lore of the greatest Union team ever. Or we could lose and still be talked about as, we couldn’t win in the tough moment, we couldn’t get the job done.”
Curtin understands the stakes. That in itself is worth plenty.