CHESTER, Pa. – For the Philadelphia Union, Wednesday’s home game against the Seattle Sounders is far from an ordinary inter-conference midweek game (7 pm ET, MLS LIVE).
How could it be, when the last time the Sounders came to PPL Park, they handed the Union a devastating extra-time loss in the 2014 US Open Cup title game? A contest which, it could be argued, still has Philadelphia reeling.
“When we see those green jerseys [Wednesday], that will be the first thing probably that will go through everyone’s mind -- that they have a trophy of ours, you know?” Union head coach Jim Curtin said. “That should motivate the guys for sure.”
Curtin later clarified that he did not mean to imply that the Union outplayed Seattle in last year’s Open Cup final, calling the Sounders’ championship well-deserved. But it still left what he called “an empty feeling” for the Union, who followed that loss by crashing out of the 2014 MLS playoff race and have now sputtered to the midway point of the 2015 season with a 4-10-3 record.
Of those league-high 10 losses, the Union’s most recent was their worst defeat yet, an ugly 5-1 decision at the LA Galaxy on Saturday.
“Obviously that was really disappointing,” Union fullback Sheanon Williams told MLSsoccer.com. “We thought we had taken some positive steps forward. That was not a step we wanted to take. That being said, we’ll leave that out in LA. We talked about it, we’ve gotten over it, and we’re going to move on.”
Wednesday provides a chance to "move on" both from Saturday's humbling loss and from the most crushing loss in club history. But this game against perennial powerhouses Seattle will have a much different feel than last year’s Open Cup championship, with many of the featured players from that game – on both teams – unavailable.
Curtin said none of his injured players, with the exception of teenage winger Eric Ayuk, are likely to return, thereby ruling out top offensive weapons Fernando Aristeguieta, Sebastien Le Toux and Conor Casey.
The Sounders, however, will be hurting even more in the attack, as they will be without two of the league’s top strikers in the suspended Clint Dempsey and the injured Obafemi Martins.
“It’s better for me as a coach to prepare for a team when they’re not on the field,” Curtin said. “When they’re going, the two of them kind of … it almost looks like training-ground stuff, things you’ll see on a five-a-side where they have little combinations between the two of them, they come to life when each other is on the ball. It’s not really worth me talking about them, because they’re not going to be out there for this game, but they’re two special players, and I’m happy they’re not here.”
No matter which players step on the field, the Union head coach expects this encounter to continue in the tradition of several memorable games in the past, from the first game in Union history in 2010, to the first game at PPL Park later that season to last year’s Open Cup championship.
“As a pro athlete and as a pro coach, you want to test yourself against the best and, over the history of their existence, they’re one of the best teams in the league,” Curtin said. “They do things the right way, from top to bottom. Their players are very good, and Sigi Schmid does an amazing job with them – he’s a coach that I look up to. Any chance they do come here, it’s more special, for sure.”
Dave Zeitlin covers the Union for MLSsoccer.com. Email him at djzeitlin@gmail.com.
