As lone MLS survivor, Curtin asks the Union to be ‘brave’
Jim Curtin wasn’t rooting Wednesday night for the Union to be the last MLS team standing in the CONCACAF Champions League. But with Columbus and Portland losing to Mexican opposition, that’s how it stands.
Of the five MLS quarterfinalists, only the survivor of the first All-American knockout tie in 11 years remains alive. The Union’s re- ward is one of those three Mexican clubs that vanquished MLS foes, Club America.
It’s not just any Liga MX club, either, but what Curtin called “perennially the biggest club on our continent:” The seven-time CCL winner, the most successful club in the tournament’s history. It beat Portland, 3-1, Wednesday for a 4-2 victory on aggregate
over two legs.
“We have to carry the torch as the last remaining team,” Curtin said during a Zoom press conference Thursday. “You look at the gauntlet of talent and quality that the remaining Liga MX teams have, and the ways they can hurt you offensively and defensively, it’s a big ask. But we have to be brave and dream that we can accomplish this, to be the first team to advance and as crazy as it sounds, go to a Club World Cup and play against whoever ends up winning the Champions League in Europe, the champions of South America, just incredible teams and an incredible opportunity.
“We’ll give everything. We have to go there with no fear and be brave.”
The Union have time to prepare. With Liga MX wrapping up its regular season this week, Champions League is on hiatus until the Mexican league restarts in July. The first leg of the semifinal will take place at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City between Aug. 10-12. The Union will host the return leg at Subaru Park in
September.
Liga MX teams match up in the other semi. Monterrey beat Columbus, 3-0, Wednesday to seal a 5-2 aggregate victory. They await Cruz Azul, which handled Toronto FC 4-1 across two legs.
The Union eased into its first semifinals with a 1-1 draw with Atlanta United Tuesday for a 4-1 aggregate result. After the game, Curtin and Atlanta manager Gabriel Heinze had an onfield tiff over the Argentine not shaking Curtin’s hand. Curtin called him, among other things, “a sore loser.” He stood by his comments Thursday.
“I said what I said, it’s in the past, it’s still what I believe and I’d say it again today,” Curtin said. “From a league perspective, I’ll just say a lot of people at very high levels have reached out and agreed with what I said. There’s always going to be the Atlanta fans
who don’t agree with what I said and you can’t make everybody happy. You have to speak your mind and stick up for your team and your players and say what you believe.”
It’s no coincidence that the last MLS team in Champions League is the only one not to have faced Mexican opposition. Curtin knows that, as he knows that Mexican clubs have won every edition since 2006. He’s vying to make the Union the fifth MLS finalist since 2008-09 and the first to win it all.
“It’s a great honor,” Curtin said. “It’s a great challenge,
for sure. It’s one that we wanted when we achieved our goal of getting into the Champions League, and now we need to continue to push. It won’t be easy. There will be times, obviously in Mexico, that we’re going to have to suffer and we’re going to have to survive and rely on Andre (Blake) to make big saves and our backline to make goal-line clearances or whatever it may be because there’s no easy games there. But we have to set ourselves up so that the game in our stadium is a special one and hopefully another night to remember.”