After his team dispatched New England Revolution over the weekend, Jim Curtin looked ahead to the match against New York City FC this weekend, discussed Ilsinho and Mark McKenzie’s rehab from injuries, and talked about the effectiveness of his attacking options.
The Guardiola Effect
Dome Torrent has NYCFC on a roll with wins in six of his nine games in charge. David Villa returned to the lineup last weekend to help Torrent’s men roll over Toronto FC after Jozy Altidore’s mystifying decision to kick out at an opponent earned him an early shower.
“You can see that they really do a good job in their immediate pressure after they lose the ball,” Curtin suggested when asked about changes under the new NYC head man. “You can see a real commitment in their entire team to win it back. Guardiola effect, I would imagine.”
Torrent, of course, was the long-time right hand man to Pep Guardiola before making the move to take over NYC when Patrick Viera left to coach Nice.
“But I think the defensive side is what always gets neglected in the Guardiola tree, if you will,” Curtin continued. “Their coach has them playing very well right now. They're a dangerous team, and now they get David Villa back. And again, you can look at their schedule and think they do play New York Red Bull on the Wednesday after us, but again, they're so well-coached and so well-disciplined and have so many players that I don't see them looking past us.”
Illsinho and McKenzie healthy again
“He’s back,” Curtin said when asked about Ilsinho, his team’s tricky Brazilian winger. “He'll be available for selection this weekend, barring a major setback. He looked very sharp today. It's fun to see now, because he's been out a little while, you lose track of when you pop him into a training session how the whole quality of it just goes up because he's so good on the ball because he's so good and his decision-making is special.”
Although Curtin was less clear about center back Mark McKenzie’s staff, he was hopeful that his young defender would be available to take on NYC. “He trained today, he got through the passing exercise, he'll push the rest of the week,” Curtin said. “I think he got through that fine today. I'll still talk to the medical staff later, but I think he'll be in the discussion for selection for the weekend, which is a positive.”
Fafa suspended, but CJ shines on the wing
Fafa Picault’s yellow card against New England means he’s out this weekend when NYC comes to town. Curtin said his squad would definitely miss Picault’s hard work, but that he was encouraged by CJ Sapong’s performance out wide against the Revs.
“Overall, we're really happy with CJ for rolling up his sleeves and embracing a different role,” the Union coach said. “Did a good job. A lot of times it did look like two strikers when he would run off of Cory, so a little more flexibility... And again, I thought CJ really emptied his tank. He was cramping up at the end of the game, but we had burned all three subs at that point and he continued to push through it.
“We thought that against New England, on the turf, on a wet night, that it might be a little more about a fight and having that outlet now to play CJ's head. He's as good as anyone in the air. We can run off of him.”
Sapong may get another chance to strut his stuff on the wing when the Union welcome the Sky Blues of NYC to Talen Energy Stadium this Saturday, August 15, at 7:00PM EST.
