CHESTER, Pa. — As Sporting Kansas City players popped champagne and cheered loudly in the next room, Jim Curtin sounded as dejected as he ever had before.
The Union head coach wasn’t upset at his team’s performance in Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup final. Or by any of the numerous questionable refereeing decisions on the night. Or that his bold decision to bring in a new goalkeeper for penalty kicks didn’t pan out as he hoped.
He was simply upset that things once again didn’t go his team’s way on another night where the Union rose to the occasion in a U.S. Open Cup final, largely outplayed a superior team for vast stretches of the game and still walked away with only a silver medal to show for it.
“Our fans were amazing,” Curtin said. “They stuck with us like they always do. The atmosphere was all we could’ve asked for. All I can say is sorry for not delivering.”
Perhaps the saddest part of Philly’s shootout loss to Sporting Kansas City isn’t that the Union earned the dubious honor of becoming the first team to lose back-to-back Open Cup finals since New York Inter-Giuliana in 1975-76, or that they missed out on a golden opportunity to earn a CONCACAF Champions League berth and at least partially salvage another season in which they’re almost certainly going to miss the MLS playoffs.
It’s that, as Curtin correctly pointed out after the game, so many players had “really good days that no one will remember.”
There was Sebastien Le Toux, the all-time leading scorer in the modern era of the Open Cup and the all-time leading scorer in the history of the Union, poetically scoring the game’s first goal in front of his adoring fans.
Philadelphia Union
There was Vincent Nogueira, the best player on the field in last year’s title-game loss to the Seattle Sounders, making an astounding pass to set up his fellow Frenchman for the goal.
There was Tranquillo Barnetta, the prized summer transfer window signing, running like crazy and getting manhandled for 120 minutes of what Curtin called “special” soccer.
There was Fabinho, so often maligned by the Union fan base, twisting World Cup veteran Graham Zusi into a pretzel along the sideline time and again.
There was Michael Lahoud, who’s battled injuries for much of his Union tenure, chasing down loose balls, slowing down MVP candidate Benny Feilhaber and burying the sixth PK in the shootout just like he’d later tell reporters he dreamed about the night before.
Only in Lahoud’s dream, his penalty kick was the winner, and not a footnote of a shootout in which SKC buried seven of its eight attempts to ruin everything the Union had done so well to that point.
“I say this very professionally: We kicked their butts,” Lahoud said. “On a different day, we embarrass Kansas City. But today was their day.”
Although maybe overstating his team’s case, Lahoud is not necessarily wrong. The Union did outplay Kansas City, especially in the first half.
But, see, that’s the thing with the Union. Even on a night when so many of their players had standout performances, they still couldn't hold a lead and close the door.
Like always, this franchise just can’t seem to get over the hump.
It happened on Wednesday, and it happened in last year’s Open Cup final when the Union went toe-to-toe with a Seattle Sounders team that Curtin has called one of the best in MLS history before losing in extra time.
It happened in countless other games over the last six years, especially this one, when the Union lost leads in the second half, often in the cruelest and unluckiest of ways.
It happened in 2013 and 2014, when they just missed out on the playoffs.
You can even say it happened in 2011, when they cruised into the playoffs before being promptly swept out and then dismantling the roster.
If there’s been any common thread to the Union’s six years of existence, it’s that the team is often close but never good enough. When the Union plays as well as they possibly can, they still can’t find it in them to take down the league’s best teams. And when they don’t play well, they don't have nearly enough talent to grind out ugly wins like, say, a Sporting Kansas City. Instead, you get some ugly results and an explanation for the team’s 66-79-58 all-time regular-season record, including a 9-15-7 mark this year that has it on the verge of playoff elimination.
So what does that mean as the Union soon embark on what will be another crucial offseason? The roster doesn’t need to be blown up and Curtin should not be fired because the constant turnover this franchise has undergone has done more harm than good. Curtin and technical director Chris Albright have a plan in place, and they know they need to upgrade certain spots and acquire more high-caliber players like Barnetta. That’s going to happen.
But Curtin also knows that, at some point, this team has to learn how to win, to not crumble when holding a lead, to not spoil great performances with brief lapses.
Sporting Kansas City knows how to win. The core of their team has won three major trophies in four years, all on penalty kicks. The Union are still looking for their first, and as close as they’ve been to capturing it these last two years, sometimes it seems like they’re so far away still.