Champions League win latest step up in Union’s evolution
CHESTER » Success in the first two games of Jim Curtin’s coaching career was measured against minor league teams that no longer exist. Seven years later, the Union is stacking itself against the top teams in North and Central America.
The distance traversed, from that 2014 U.S. Open Cup and dispatching teams two divisions down in extra time, to Wednesday’s victory at Subaru Park, is vast.
The Union didn’t just beat Deportivo Saprissa Wednesday night in the CONCACAF Champions League Round of 16 second leg, they steamrolled the Costa Rican champions, a 4-0 dismantling at Subaru Park and 5-0 on aggregate. In their first taste of continental competition, the Union not only won on foreign soil and then advanced, but do so with in emphatic fashion.
The Union’s growth is staggering. The Saprissa matches were the Union’s first since selling Brenden Aaronson and Mark McKenzie to Europe. Never before has the club had players so talented, so never before has it had to learn how to play without them. The fluidity shown by team’s mostly intact core was just as impressive as the score indicated.
In Jamiro Monteiro, who lit up Saprissa for two goals and two assists, the Union have arguably the most complete player in franchise history. In Jose Martinez, they have an underthe-radar signing whose game Curtin termed “violent” and “lovable.”
Though only one Homegrown player started (among three appearing), Anthony Fontana had a goal and drew a penalty.
The club has steadily lifted its talent level year after year. But the whole seems to be exceeding the sum of its parts by widening margins. Despite little experience in two-leg affairs, the Union managed the tie near perfectly. They defended spectacularly in Costa Rica and nicked a goal. They were aggressive but not recklessly so in the first half Wednesday, then turned on the jets for three goals in the first nine minutes of the second.
The Union also navigated the emotions from a brouhaha at the end of the first leg from Ricardo Blanco’s high and hard tackle on Kai Wagner. The players buried the hatchet, exchanging jerseys. And any early on-field tensions Wednesday were diffused by the secondhalf blitz.
“We knew once we scored the first goal, a lot of them were going to quit,” Fontana said. “And that’s what you saw.”
It would be incomplete to overlook the luck factor. The Union caught Saprissa at the club’s historical nadir, winless in 10 matches in all competitions, with an empty stadium in the first leg and a batch of pivotal games looming to avoid a truly catastrophic position with five games left in the season. A handful of regulars missed the trip to Chester, including their captain and two starting center backs, due to injuries, COVID-19 and visa issues.
Yet it was still up to the Union to capitalize. They did that and more.
“There’s games within every game,” Curtin said. “You have a team that is a little desperate in Saprissa, they’re coming off a tough result on the weekend, they’re a little bit undermanned, but they’re still going to give their best punch. They’re champions for a reason.”
What may be most demonstrably different from Curtin’s first games to today is the subjective dimension. Then, finding 18 bodies worthy of MLS action was a challenge. Now, the club has talent, foreign and domestic. It doesn’t just possess stability and an ideology and all those once elusive higher-order manifestations of a club.
And, as Curtin likes to say, when people around MLS utter his team’s name, a distinctive identity springs to mind now. It’s a brand of soccer that is not just effective but attractive and proactive, something fans and pundits alike have responded to.
“It was incredible to have them with us,” Curtin said of the fans. “I know there was only about 5,000 or so but they made a big difference for us, pushed our players on, and I think the product on the field is something that they can be very proud of. Our first Champions League success and moving on in a very different competition into the final eight now.”