In this inauspicious moment in Union history I would like to remind you of a pivotal figure whose leadership we may miss.

Jim Curtin was fired after the Union’s worst season in recent memory. The Union missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years. This was with a team that had won the Shield two years previous, and was fresh off taking the MLS Championship all the way to penalties. Rumors had swirled through the year about Curtin’s fractious relationship with Ernst Tanner.

Tanner, it was said, was unhappy that Curtin was not playing the young talent enough. The season ended not with a bang but a whimper, and Curtin was fired. Fans were underwhelmed by the season and no one was surprised by the news. Bradley Carnell came in and the Union returned to winning ways, and the tall ginger haired coach was forgotten.

Not by me. Probably a lot of us are thinking of him these days.

I myself am a fan of the guy. I followed the news after his firing hoping to see that Curtin had been hired somewhere else, but as the months have ticked by, I have heard nothing. I like to think that like the Roman general Cincinnatus, Curtin was here for his city when it needed him, and now, his duties done, he has gone back to his family to focus on things which are even more important than soccer (is this possible?).

Cincinnatus, the legend goes, was working at his plow when the Roman Senate summoned him to guide the country through a war. He did this, leading the armies for a period of one year, before leaving the capitol and returning to his farm. He grabbed the plow and continued the furrow.

But we are talking about a Philadelphia guy here, Jim Curtin. A guy who left on a low note, and, unlike Cincinnatus, not of his own free will. I do not know how long you have followed the Union, so I’d like to put Jim Curtin in the larger context of franchise history.

A long time ago, in 2010, the Union was founded. The finishing touches were being put on what was then PPL park and the Union played their first few games at the Linc. Our coach of the time was Piotr Nowak, a Polish soccer player who had played in the Bundesliga and for the Chicago Fire. The Union did not make the playoffs that year even though the majority of the teams did.

The following year the team made the playoffs and played poorly in a two-game series against Houston. The following year, Nowak was fired. There were allegations that he  physically abused his players and that he and the head of player recruitment had been defrauding some of the Latin American players of their wages.

One of our favorite players of that era was Danny Califf, a centerback who made a last ditch tackle to save a goal while blood leaked across his face from a flying elbow caught at the other end. He and Nowak fell out a month before all the allegations blew up, and he was traded across the country. If you think losing games is bad, how about having a losing team, and then watching the players that still made you happy to watch get traded because they were speaking up?

The Union did what a lot of mid-level clubs do when they have to get rid of a manager mid-season and hired the assistant, John Hackworth\, who seemed to be a nice enough guy, although Nowak set a pretty low bar.

Then came the Great Goalie Debacle of 2014. The Union had picked a young Andre Blake first in the MLS Superdraft and Zac MacMath was playing well. They were both vying for the starting spot. Needing greater offensive talent, Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz ( formerly a pro goalkeeper) went and hired Rais Mbohli, who had just had a terrific World Cup for Algeria. Ignoring Mbohli’s unimpressive history as a journeyman GK who had been with 11 clubs in as many years, Sakiewicz boasted that we had three of the best keepers in MLS, a brag which commenters on this site found great joy in ripping to shreds. In short, why was the Union spending money in a position where we were good, when we had many in which we could use improvement?

Rais Mbohli was terrible in more ways than one, the U went 10-12-12 in 2014 and before the season ended the Union fired Hackworth.  Before 2015 was over, Mbohli was shipped to Turkey and Sakiewicz was sacked.

We were in the playoffs once from 2010-2015. All along we fans knew that David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Lionel Messi were never coming here. We could always compare our club’s salary expenditures and see that almost all the other clubs outspent us. We rejoiced in our wins, which were rare. The talent we had disappointed us or left us. It was hard to see how we would ever have a different story.

The Union lacked money; we were mismanaged. Commentators on this site enjoined one another to camp together on the Cliff of Despair, and found it helpful
to abbreviate, “We suck so much,” to “WSSM.”

Jim Curtin had been on staff as an assistant to Hackworth, and in what was an underwhelming move at the time, the Union handed him the head coach job. Once again, we brought on an unknown assistant. One thing most of us noted with some hope was that Curtin was a Philly guy. He was from Oreland and had played for Bishop McDevitt High School.

The team continued to regress in  2015 to a 10-17-7 record. But Curtin had a solid message about how the team would play. He preached a style of play that started from organized defense. His rhetoric about this was deeply Philly: hard work, fighting through, and being tough. He was humble and willing to admit when he saw his own mistakes.

In 2016 we made the playoffs and lost our first game. In 2017, with the same record, but yet another altered playoff structure, we did not make the postseason. In 2018 the Union made the playoffs, but lost 3-1 to NYCFC in our first game. Another deep run in the Open Cup saw the team lose in the final to Houston.

In 2019 the Union dug out its first MLS Playoff win against NYRed Bull, a thrilling come-from-behind 4-3 victory, in which an injured Bedoya gave everything
to score once and assist once, conjuring the spirit of Allen Iverson for a hoarse (at least this fan was) home crowd.

A steady progression was visible. We were no longer a team that the Eastern conference looked forward to playing against. Some credit goes to the front office, but a lot goes to a coach that had forged an identity and changed the culture and belief. He was a coach that we sensed the players trusted: a massive upgrade from what had come before.

Under Curtin, the Union had become a team of which we could be proud. Our boys won. They did it without aging talent from Europe. Instead, our club harnessed fresh energy and developed youthful talent. We saw our players get sold on, but we knew new ones would be coming. We got to watch Jack McGlynn ping perfect passes. We saw Quinn Sullivan slalom forward. We caught the concussed pigeons that Nate Harriel smacked out of the sky when he went up to find a header: this kind of possibility was par for the course with Curtin’s Union.

Realize this: Curtin brought up a quarter of the players in close contention for spots on the US national team: Mark McKenzie, Auston Trusty, Brenden Aaronson, Jack McGlynn, Nathan Harriel, Matt Freese, and Paxten Aaronson. We are the Borussia Dortmund of MLS: young talent will come here because there is an open door into the profession from this team.

We made three Open Cup finals and if you want an old Union fan to groan, ask about those finals. Remember the little French guy, Vincent Noguiera? In the 2020 covid year, we won the Supporter’s Shield. MLS robbed us of a final when all of our starters fell sick with the disease of the year, forcing a semi-finals in which we were missing eight starters.

In 2022 the Union would advance relentlessly through the playoffs and play in the MLS Cup Final. Against a star studded LAFC, our team took the game to penalties.
In 2024, we were no longer that good. Yet it should be said that it was a year that saw the team sell Julian Carranza, our best goal scorer, and Josef Martinez, one of my favorites and an undeniably talented defensive midfielder. How do you compete when your best players are being sold?

Curtin brought the team from being one of the worst in MLS to one that for years looked on games with New England, Toronto, and Red Bull as probable wins. I can tell you that there was a time when I couldn’t imagine seeing our boys in blue winning against Red Bull, with the energizer bunny Dax McCarty darting around the midfield and the work horse Bradley Wright-Phillips getting on the end of crosses and bundling goals past one of the best three keepers in MLS.

To close out my thoughts: in this low moment in Union history, I salute Jim Curtin: the coach who forged this team into something of which we could all be proud. He coached strategically, winning more with less money. He did it in a Philly way: with humility and hard work, and a commitment to fighting for every inch.

I do hope that eleven-year stint was not our final Curtin.