Last year in Orlando, the Purple Lions came back at the death to even the scoreline.
Philadelphia did the same thing at home on Sunday afternoon.
Marco Fabián and Kacper Przybylko scored at the start and end of the match but Orlando City got a pair of set piece goals to steal a point on the road.
“In this league, if you let teams hang around, you don't do your job on restarts, you can get punished,” Curtin admitted. “It's one that we are very disappointed about. I know the players are upset about. We found a way to drop two points.”
The idea that you dropped two points after scoring a goal in the 90th minute isn’t straightforward, but it reflects the first place mindset Curtin has asked his players to develop this season. The Union remain atop the Eastern Conference, but teams around them have games in hand so Curtin doesn’t want his side to get complacent.
“We’re not happy about it,” the head coach continued. “It wasn’t a sign of a first place team and this league has a way of humbling you when you get a little too high.
“I think we will learn from it, I think overall perspective-wise it has been a good stretch of games. The three tough road games that we had, some good performances in there to take points, but today we kind of let ourselves down.”
Set pieces were an issue for the Union on a day when they dominated open play, and Curtin thought his side had to learn how to control the small moments of a match when they had the majority of the ball.
“You can’t let teams hang around because, again, we commit a silly foul after we run 60 yards with a guy, Nani plays in a good ball and we don’t do well; we don’t do well on the corner kick and guys losing assignments.” Curtin said of the two Orlando goals. “ It was a night we needed to do all the simple things perfect, and we did not do that. That's what we talked about in the pregame and we came up a little bit short.”
Anthony Fontana and Matt Real made an impact off the bench for Curtin, but the head coach still wanted more focus from his homegrown players. I thought [Real] and Anthony [Fontana] both left a mark on the game and Kacper [Przybylko] came to life there and finishes the play off for us,” the head coach noted.
But putting together the passes to set up a goal is only part of the duties a player must perform to earn their spot in the lineup, and the Union want to be more than a team that simply competes: They want to dominate opponents. “We’re still in first place, which is good, but we should be a little more greedy right now and I think we weren’t,” Curtin continued.
Now the Union prepare for a difficult trip out to Salt Lake City where they will try to take down a Real Salt Lake side on the fringes of the playoffs and coming off a heartbreaking loss to San Jose Earthquakes.
The Union and RSL go head to head at 10:00 p.m. ET with the match streamed on PhiladelphiaUnion.com and on the LiveWell Network on television.
