CHESTER – The point in the Union’s upward curve in MLS has come to where there are teams the club is just superior to, ones they should easily handle at home.
So it was Saturday night, a promise on which the Union uneventfully delivered.
Goals by Cory Burke and Daniel Gazdag on either side of halftime extended the Union’s unbeaten run to three games to start the season, a 2-0 win over San Jose Earthquakes that marked Jim Curtin’s 100th MLS win.
Curtin is as good a place to start as any, given the drudgery that was the 90 minutes. He’s the 13th coach in MLS history to reach the century-mark and ninth to do so with one team (with Sigi Schmid hitting 100 with two teams). In typical Curtin fashion, he turned the post-match question about his accolade as a chance to praise his former assistant, Pat Noonan, for his first win as a head coach with FC Cincinnati. The players presented him a plaque and commemorative jersey for the occasions.
“It just means I’ve had good players throughout the years,” Curtin said. “Individual accolades are nice, I say this to my players all the time. But when the team wins and the team has success, that’s when the individual accolades come. I’m very grateful to the players for all that they give me.”
Against San Jose and its Jackson Pollock-esque tactics, the Union could’ve taken whatever they wanted. They got two goals and could’ve had several more on a day when arguably their top two strikers missed out, Julian Carranza on a red-card suspension and Mikael Uhre with a quad strain from a week of heavy training. The Union took a conservative tack with the Danish striker, opting not to tax him any further and relying on Sergio Santos and Burke to get the job done.
Despite San Jose (0-2-1, 1 point) having 68.3 percent of the possessions, they could scarcely have been more useless with it. They completed 80.7 percent of their passes on a fast road to nowhere, yielded one shot on goal, a barely memorable Cristian Espinoza shot from 30 yards out that two hopped into the gloves of Andre Blake.
It’s the third straight game in which the Union (2-0-1, 7 points) have won the expected goals battle. It’s the first clean sheet of the season, the club coping with the unconventional Quakes attack.
“It’s a little bit different,” said Nathan Harriel, who started a second straight game at right back. “The week was a little strange but at the same time, we knew we needed to focus on us and make us a priority. We knew if we executed, we’d get a result, which we did tonight.”
The upshot for all that possession in coach Matias Almeyda’s chaotic man-marking scheme was a defense opened up time and again. Santos did the damage in the 23rd minute, torching Jackson Yueill, allegedly playing as a center back. Santos squared the ball to Burke, who was wide open in front of net to bury his second goal of the season.
Santos was a particular danger, going 90 minutes for just the third time in an MLS game (plus one in CONCACAF Champions League and once in the playoffs). Though he didn’t get a goal for it, he changed the game in a way San Jose had no answer for.
“He certainly got a lot of looks at goal tonight,” Curtin said of the Brazilian. “He’s hard on himself, and he knows he could’ve finished a lot of those plays off tonight. But credit to him on the first goal. It’s something we worked on all week. When he does get isolated against the center backs, he’s faster than all of them, so he can turn the corner and make a play. And he did that, and Cory got a good goal out of it.”
Yueill was unlucky to have a ball, on a frigid and windy night, kick up off his arm in the box in the 56th. Gazdag stepped to the spot, burying a cheeky panenka to the left of goalie J.T. Marcinkowski.
The San Jose goalie was quick off his line to make sure it wasn’t worse. Santos missed a chance in the 31st minute, firing over the cage with Marcinkowski making himself big. Santos fired over in the 40th minute, Gazdag setting him up with a golden opportunity. He also had a tight-angle drive late in the 90 minutes, but he couldn’t get his hips around it.
Even when San Jose chased a man, they created precious little. It left the Union regretting only that the victory wasn’t by a more lopsided margin.
“We’re in an early stage of the season,” Curtin said. “Overall it’s still a strong start to the year, but I think we recognize as a team we can do more, we can do better.”
