The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Draws not an overwhelming concern for Curtin
CHESTER » A week ago, in the wee hours of Sunday morning from Los Angeles, Jim Curtin and his Union players puzzled over a 2-2 scoreline in a clash of the top teams in each conference. What did they see as they gazed at that draw? Two leads squandered, the long road trip, all the complex dimensions packed into 90 minutes left it open to interpretation.
Saturday night at Subaru Park, the same process repeated. Only now, the body of work has expanded. It wasn’t just about the 1-1 draw with the New York Red Bulls, a game in which they held a lead early in the second half and went up a man on a 55th-minute red card yet couldn’t close out three points.
Instead, it’s time to stretch the view, if not to the 11 completed games that constitute a third of the MLS season than at least to this latest fivegame stretch. In the time, the Union have led six times … while going 0-1-4.
So is it a team that is wasting its chances? Or is it a team putting itself in good positions but not following through? Are the draws positive steps toward a playoff spot or obstacles on the way to a trophy?
“The little breaks aren’t going our way right now,” Curtin said. “I’m a big believer that it’s not a lack of effort and work; they work so hard, they work tirelessly. They put a ton into the game, they’re as disappointed as anybody. We feel like we dropped two points tonight. I think we’re all aware of that. It hurts right now, but at the same time, we have to find ways when we have opportunities to kill games off and end them and kind of put your foot on the opponents’ throat, you have to take advantage of it.”
Context is important before flying into full-blown panic. The Union (5-1-5, 20 points) have endured this winless stretch in one of the most difficult patches of the schedule. Montreal is the hottest team in the East. Nashville, likely among the West’s elite, was opening its new stadium. LAFC still leads the West. The Red Bulls entered Saturday second to the Union in the East.
Curtin, in his long-view appraisal, points out that the Union won early in the season while not playing well. The pendulum has swung to where they’re playing well but not getting wins. Part of that is the logically unsatisfying notion of luck, part of it regression to the mean.
Of the five results, Curtin called the second half against Montreal on April 23 “garbage,” and the one performance he’s truly unhappy with: “I’ll own that one.” Otherwise, he’s generally happy if not fully satisfied in drawing the last four games.
For every positive, there’s a much less positive flipside. Being beaten just once in 11? Great. Winning five of 11? Not so much. The Union have scored in every game this season (great), but they’ve yet to score more than twice in a game (problem).
Even when they get the breaks Curtin has lamented — like Dylan Nealis’ second yellow card in the 55th for a studs-up challenge on Sergio Santos — they haven’t cashed in. They need look no further than what the Red Bulls did, equalizing while down a man via Luquinhas on one of the few run-ofplay chances they created, for an example of what was missing.
“We’re up a man and they’re able to get that one chance, in the run of play at least, and they scored on that one chance,” captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “They were killers. They did what they had to do with that one chance, and we didn’t do enough with our chances.”
“A little bit more quality and sharpness in front of goal,” Curtin said, “would’ve made the difference (Saturday).”
There are two bright sides to glean from all this. First, the Union are not finishing enough. That’s not a secret. In fact, it was the exact argument made in the offseason overhaul of the forward position. One of additions, Julian Carranza, has proven to be an outstanding acquisition. He netted what briefly looked like the go-ahead goal Saturday before it was correctly whistled offsides. The other pickup, Michael Uhre, has been slowed by a quad issue and hasn’t had a chance to prove he’s the missing piece. But Carranza and Daniel Gazdag, who scored his sixth goal of the season, have both proven to be great fits, which should raise the optimism that the Union picked the right guy in Uhre.
Second, Curtin’s messaging sounds an awful lot like what he said last year. Then, the Union struggled to finish games early in the season, dividing their attention with CONCACAF Champions League. When they put it all together in the fall, they rattled off a 6-1-3 finish.
Curtin doesn’t want his team peaking in May; as nice as a franchise-best five-game winning streak in April was to create space above the playoff-jockeying fray, it’s not the part of the calendar where it pays to be the best team.
In years past, the Union have taken positive signs from early in the season and assembled them into a polished whole. Positives exists now, and it may be just a matter of time before they all coalesce.
“The game is honest,” Curtin said. “Over the course of the season, we might get a few bounces go our way if we continue to do the right thing. … I think we’re what our record says we are.”