“We haven’t had a bad, flat performance like that all season,” Jim Curtin said at the start of his post-match comments. Indeed, the Union were outplayed in nearly every facet of the game when they traveled to Rio Tinto Stadium. The structure, organization, and match control that have marked their games all season were missing, and the home side pressed well to keep a rhythm from developing.
Curtin summed up how the team would grow from the match succintly: Sometimes you use a loss to grow and sometimes you have to turn the page as soon as possible. “We’ll watch the film,” Curtin began, before pausing. “Actually, we might burn the film, move on to next week.”
The Union never looked cohesive or coherent in the match, a far cry from the focused team that has dominated the Eastern Conference for much of the 2019 season.
“We have to forget,” Fabinho said after making his 2019 MLS regular season debut. “For me, I'm gonna have to forget this game today because today we lost our minds sometimes on the field.” Many of the principles Ernst Tanner believes in and Jim Curtin has successfully instilled in his side were missing on Saturday night: The organized pressing, the control of second balls, and the dominance in the center of the pitch failed to materialize. Kacper Przybylko, after a run of hot form, barely saw the ball and Marco Fabian was unable to make a mark on the game the way RSL’s DP attacker, Jefferson Savarino was. Savarino’s goals were viciously taken but his ability to get them off was the result of lapses from the visitors.
“I think that we will regroup from that loss,” debutant Andrew Wooten said. “Tough loss, but we will come back stronger and hopefully we can have the three points at home.”
The Union’s next match is against CJ Sapong and CHicago Fire at Talen Energy Stadium on Saturday, July 20 at 7:30 p.m. ET.
