Union’s Curtin confident ahead of MLS’ return
The insight, like so many nuggets of wisdom from Jim Curtin, came slightly off-topic. Even as the thought branched into offshoots, the tense that held it together was telling.
The Philadelphia Union boss was deep into his weekly videoconference with reporters a week ago, addressing the knowns and unknowns of the scheduling oddity known as the MLS Is Back Tournament that starts July 8. The subject meandered to 18-year-old Homegrown Jack de Vries, whom Curtin had volunteered as one of the recent standouts in training, and what areas he needed to work on.
Soon, that entailed an exceptionally succinct distillation of the Union’s identity … and the reason why the club can be considered a contender in Florida.
“When the Philadelphia Union is playing well, it’s not because we’re stringing 60 passes together and scoring a goal,” Curtin was saying. “It’s because we’re working really hard, cohesively, together to turn a team over in a bad spot and turn that turnover into an attack. We’re at our best when we’re defending really, really well as a group.”
Not all of the 25 other MLS clubs will travel to Orlando with such a coherent playing identity. Few will state it so declaratively, in the present tense, without need for the subjunctive.
Curtin knows what the Union are. Not many clubs can make the claim. And in the swirling maelstrom of fresh bafflement that is every day in a global pandemic, that seems as good an anchor as any to some claim of soccer success.
There’s not exactly a blueprint for the World Cup-style event, which features three round-robin games to qualify for a 16-team knockout tournament. Curtin is on record denoting the 12-game mark or thereabout as when a team becomes what they are; thanks to COVID-19, MLS clubs are trying to approximate that off of two games then a three-month hiatus then a hasty second training camp. All that can be said for certain is with such a small amount of games at the Wide World of Sports Complex, any slipups are costly.
So in assessing each team’s chances in Orlando, what can be relied upon? There’s no form to judge. MLS is effectively at the beginning of its season, and the first month of a normal season is hardly recognizable from the eighth month of the marathon. Calling it a crapshoot would seem generously optimistic.
About all that leaves are teams’ cornerstones. There’s talent, of which the Union have plenty, if not elite stocks. There’s luck, which could prove decisive in such a small sample. And there’s self-assurance, knowing how you want to approach a game. That’s something the Union have in abundance.
The Union’s tactical evolution has taken place over a number of years. Curtin has gone from an arch-pragmatist in his early days, thanks in large part to inferior resources, to a coach with more flexibility. The 4-23-1 of the Earnie Stewart era has given way to the 4-4-2 diamond of Ernst Tanner. Last year, the diamond was the default, though the Union sometimes relied on the 4-2-3-1 in times of trouble (read: when Ilsinho needed to bail them out). With personnel changes that allowed players more suited to the 4-2-3-1 (Fafa Picault, Marco Fabian, Haris Medunjanin) to leave and the addition of players better adapted to the high-pressing style, that frame will change. Now, the Union can toggle between a default diamond with 3-5-2 and 4-2-2-2 variations. (Side note: Doesn’t it feel great to talk about formations again?)
Curtin has lately presented those options as “if … then” statements. Those kinds of strategies are rare for the Union’s history and rare in MLS. And if the uncertainty of the MLS Is Back competition ends up favoring stability, then the Union are in a good place.
Curtin, who was hired six years ago this month, is the third-longest tenured coach in MLS, a league where almost half of the active coaches were hired in the last 18 months, seven since the calendar year began. Four of the other five teams in the Union’s Group A have new head coaches. (The fifth is Nashville SC, which hired coach Gary Smith at the inception of its USL existence in 2017.)
The continuity is put in particularly sharp relief with the Union facing two expansion teams in group play – Nashville July 14 and Inter Miami July 19. Neither team has an MLS win in their first two outings. The novelty leaves them crafting an existence de novo. While the Union team that had its most successful season ever in 2019 wasn’t preserved intact, it has the luxury of incorporating new pieces into an existing identity.
That could be particularly relevant as it pertains to depth in the tournament. If the Union make the final, they’ll play seven games in 32 days, a massive workload, especially given the long layoff. With five substitutions available, more players will contribute. The cultivation of depth over multiple years, of players who can step off the bench and slot seamlessly into a cohesive whole, is another possible edge.
“It is a lot of games in a short period of time,” Curtin said. “We have three games in pretty quick succession where, let’s be honest, no team is at midseason strength in terms of the load they can handle. I think we need to be smart and strategic with how we utilize players.”
In jest last week, Curtin gave a glimpse into the soccer thoughts filling his idle three months of quarantine. He specifically referenced de Vries, whose position within a setup like the 4-4-2 is somewhat nebulous. But again, he offered a window into what is more important.
“I’m fading away from position, man,” Curtin said. “I’m starting to fall away from positions and more just toward principles and what we do with those principles during the course of the 90 minutes.”
The grasp of those principles might be the ultimate measure of how far the Union go in Orlando.