Tuesday's rescheduled match against Seattle Sounders brought about another uncharacteristic home loss for the Philadelphia Union. Though the team fought hard to minimize a daunting first half deficit, they came up just short, finishing the night with a 3-2 scoreline. After the match, Head Coach Jim Curtin met with the media, recapping all that unfolded at Subaru Park that night.
First half woes
Philadelphia Union entered the locker room at halftime down 3-0, but when they emerged, they quickly claimed two goals by way of Jack McGlynn and Daniel Gazdag, decreasing the deficit to just one. They weren't able to overcome to gap, but they injected energy back into Subaru Park, and Curtin opened his press conference with a message for the fans who stuck with the team admidst the action.
"Apologies to the fans for the first half. That was one of our games in hand and we let ourselves down with that performance. I said at halftime, I can live with mistakes. The mistakes on the first goal, mistake on a penalty kick, I can live with mistakes. But I can't live with being out competed and that was the case," Curtin said.
"It's a Seattle team that was desperate for points, that has a lot of experience, a lot of great players, and we didn't match their intensity for the first half. Challenged the guys to try to get the first goal in the second half and I think they showed a strong response and did some good things, but it was a little bit short on the night. When you put yourself behind by that many goals in our building, which should never happen, it makes it very difficult."
Come-from-behind results have been common for this year's Union squad, but Curtin ensured it's not a habit he wants his team to fall victim to.
"They show a ton of character and heart, but it's very emotionally draining, physically draining to chase a game from behind. We need to play with leads, we need to find a way to score first, and not concede, what anyone who's watched soccer would say are silly, silly goals. Really silly goals, and we have to clean that up," Curtin said.
Second half subs
Curtin made three changes before the second half began, sending in Jack McGlynn, Alejandro Bedoya, and Kai Wagner for the remaining 45 minutes. Shortly coming off the bench, McGlynn scored his team's first goal of the match in the 55th minute off a pass from Bedoya, rallying the team to push for the remainder of their battle.
When speaking about his team's strengths and what they can do to prevent early goals from their opponents, Curtin pointed to personnel consistency.
"I think what you see is the importance of consistency of a lineup. Consistency of team playing together. We've had a lot of changes in goal in-game in that continuity goes a little bit. We've had a lot of backline adjustments and tweaks because of a lot of different reasons, sometimes injury, sometimes congested schedule, sometimes a restart of a game on a Tuesday night. You see when a back four doesn't play together consistently with the same person in goal and the same group in front of them, I'll just say there can be more mistakes. I think our strength over the years is we have zero injuries, usually, and we have that continuity and consistency of lineup," Curtin said.
"You saw the guys that came into the game today. They're good, they changed the game. Bedoya came in and was was excellent. I thought McGlynn came in and showed why he's earned to be a starter on our team and in our league. And Kai, obviously, he came in and helped us as well. You guys know the guys. We have to choose from that group and get them playing together at their max, because the margins are tight in this league. We have to be almost perfect to get wins and we haven't been consistently."
