Jim Curtin spoke to the media about his team’s performance after the Union flattened New York City FC 2-0 Saturday evening.
Getting the ball back in a hurry
“I think the best thing tonight was how quickly we were able to win the ball back when we did make a mistake,” Curtin said. Philly’s relentless workrate allowed them to control the midfield against NYC’s highly rated Maxi Moralez and Alex Ring. “Listen, soccer is a game of mistakes,” Curtin continued, “Whether it's the premier league, whether it's Germany, whether it's Italy, there's tons of mistakes during the course of 90 minutes. How you react to those mistakes is most important and our guys were really up for that tonight to win it back quickly.”
Sapong the story
When asked about what CJ Sapong brought to his wide role the past two games, Curtin had a quick answer. “The physicality,” he said. The Union fed Sapong through the air to bypass NYC’s pressure and the big attacker beat Ben Sweat in the air over and over. “The ability to win aerial duels, to win flicks to have Cory [Burke] to run into the channel,” Curtin expanded. “Ale [Bedoya] ran off of him a bunch. The tackles that he goes into where you could tell that New York City guys were kind of limping off the field at the end of the game there.”
Beating the big boys
Jim Curtin has previous spoken about his team’s need to knock off top teams, and tonight they did it. “Haris was saying it right before we came out of the tunnel,” Curtin revealed, “‘Let’s see us against a top team.’”
NYCFC have been one of the best in the league all season, but they were humbled by the Union. “Before the game we challenged the group to raise their level,” the Union head man continued. “They’re starting to ask a lot of each other, which is powerful. We knew that this game would be against the strongest opponent that we’ve played in quite some time. And it would be a real challenge for us to raise our intensity, to raise our focus, our discipline, our pressing.
“And I thought that the guys executed exactly what we asked of them.”
Curtin’s men will have another chance to execute next Saturday when they welcome New England Revolution to Talen Energy Stadium.
