A somber but frank Curtin opened the presser by congratulating Pachuca. He went on to state that it was “clear they deserved the victory tonight, beat us in all phases in the attack, defense, transition, restarts, outcompeted us, outworked us, which is uncharacteristic of our group, it hurts because it wasn’t a good representation of the Philadelphia Union and MLS but Pachuca on the night was excellent. They are a very well-coached team, incredibly talented players and if you give them time and space this is what it looks like, it’s not good enough for us.”

Asked about the strategy of the team on the night Curtin said, “It’s disappointing, this wasn’t us, we had a plan in place and conceded a penalty in the fourth minute so the plan went out the window… the goal before halftime was a real mental mistake and it really hurts you because now you have to score twice. Pachuca’s quality showed in the second half they took over and they embarrassed us.”

Union beat reporter José Nuñez asked about the substitution of Jose Martinez. Curtin clarified that “Jose asked to come out at halftime, he was sick and tried to push through and a half was all he could give. Not a planned sub and kind of adapted from there and adjusted.”

A question was asked about the perceived gap or lack thereof between MLS and Liga MX. Curtin pulled no punches in his response, “Tonight it certainly existed, I’ve been involved in MLS for several years, sometimes you think the gap is shrinking but tonight, there’s nights that humble you. This is the reality of football the second you think you’ve made it, and it applies to our team tonight, the second  you think you’re having a good season or a good start to the season if you don’t bring it every night the game tells the truth, that was the result tonight, and certainly Pachuca was a deserving winner… yeah I can’t sit up here and say the gap is getting smaller when I just lost 6-0.”

Jonathan Tannenwald from the Inquirer asked about the future of the Union’s season. Curtin emphasized the team’s renewed focus in MLS, “Disappointing to get eliminated from the Champions Cup we wanted to make a further run. Obviously, our full focus now is on the league, a lot of work to do, a lot to improve on. We have a game coming on the weekend against Austin where we will learn a lot about our group. After that it becomes more of a one game per week but we’ll have things and obstacles like guys going away for the national team and Copa América and international duty and injuries and different things. The season is just starting, we’re two games in, this hurts for sure but we have to regroup and have a good response on the weekend and try to get a win in the league.”

Curtin closed with a response to a question regarding the players standpoint after the defeat saying they were physically okay aside from “injuries to pride.” He went on to reiterate that “[Pachuca] deserves all the credit for humbling us” as well as the fact that it was “a bad result for the Union and bad result for the league.”