Union analysis: Jim Curtin promises he’ll rotate the lineup more, but will he actually do it this time?

Union manager Jim Curtin has said it year after year, and he said it again this week.

“I need to do a better job of utilizing the full squad, of rotating in the right moments,” is how it went this time. “And I will do that, and I’ll work to improve that.”

He even sounded at times as if he meant it.

“It’s a team that’s going to push for every trophy that we possibly can,” Curtin said. “It starts with me needing to do a better job, and utilizing the full squad so we can avoid injuries and be at our maximum when the playoffs come around.”

But he has sounded as if he meant it before, and it didn’t happen enough. Although Curtin has many strengths as a manager — he wouldn’t be seriously in the U.S. national team discussion if he didn’t — his stubbornness when it comes to not rotating his lineup enough is his biggest weakness.

The Champions League semifinal series against Los Angeles FC was a crystal-clear example. In the first game, LAFC manager Steve Cherundolo made three substitutions before Curtin made his first. In the second, Curtin made one after Cherundolo’s first, by force because of Olivier Mbaizo’s red card. But the series’ aggregate score was 2-1 to LAFC at that point, meaning just one Union goal would have swung everything in their favor.

Cherundolo made two more subs before Curtin made his next move. One of the arrivals, Kwadwo Opoku, went on to score the goal that upped the aggregate to 3-1. The other, José Cifuentes, assisted on LAFC’s final tally of the night.

» READ MORE: Jim Curtin was too conservative at LAFC, and he was outcoached

Teams are allowed five substitutions per game. The Union have played 15 games across all competitions this year, the most of any MLS team, and Curtin has made five substitutions in just three of them. He has made four subs in a game on only four other occasions.

Now things get even harder.

There are seven games to come in the rest of May. The first is Saturday at the rival New York Red Bulls (7:30 p.m., Apple TV+, paywalled). The second is a U.S. Open Cup round of 32 contest on Tuesday at Minnesota United (8:30 p.m., YouTube).

Beat the Loons and a round of 16 game gets added to the schedule on May 23 or 24. The quarterfinals are set for June 6 and 7, right after the Union host CF Montréal on June 3. That would make for 10 games in 36 days from now until a June 10 visit to the San Jose Earthquakes.

Then, finally, there will be a 17-day break for Concacaf’s Nations League semifinals and the start of the Gold Cup.

“To put the amount of mileage on your body, physically and mentally, it’s tough,” Union midfielder and captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “How do you avoid burnout? It’s just trying to stay mentally strong, and physically doing the right things: watching what you’re eating, making sure you get enough sleep — which is tough on these long flights — and then also just making sure you’re getting treatment.”

» READ MORE: The Union’s José Andrés Martínez is recovering from a hamstring injury, but not ready to play yet

It also might require Bedoya to willingly play two games in a week instead of three. He has rarely taken — or been given — a game off in his eight years with the Union. And he laughed when the question came up, because he knew he’d walked right into it.

“I’m a competitor, you know, so I’m ready to play whenever,” he said. “That type of stuff is not my decision, but of course, we will probably talk about it. You look at the numbers and data, I’m still the guy that covers the most ground every game and puts the work in.”

Meanwhile, Andrés Perea and Joaquín Torres wait their turns. They were signed to be exactly this kind of depth. But Perea has played just 225 minutes over seven games this year, and Torres has played 352 minutes over nine games. His two-minute cameo at LAFC was useless for himself and the team.

“Believe me when I say they’re going to be getting minutes in these coming games,” Curtin said. “Both of them have had glimpses of really showing well in a lot of their minutes. … They’re also in a new environment, a new team, and still getting completely up to speed on things on the defensive side of the ball. I think you’ve seen great offensive output from them.”

There, finally, was the answer: Curtin doesn’t fully trust their defensive acumen.

This has also been one of Curtin’s weaknesses: an unwillingness to sacrifice a little defense for more offense. It bit him in the home game vs. LAFC, when the Union should have gone for more than a 1-0 win; and it bit him in Los Angeles, when his team had to score to advance but played too conservatively.

» READ MORE: Union vs. LAFC is a ‘healthy’ rivalry, Jim Curtin says, but it’s been one-sided in big games

On top of all this, FIFA’s under-20 World Cup takes place from mid-May to mid-June in Argentina. Club teams aren’t required to release their players, and some MLS teams won’t. But the Union will send Jack McGlynn, Quinn Sullivan, and Brandan Craig, and they’ll do so without flinching.

“It’s who we are,” Curtin said. “We’re not going to lie and say we’re one thing and then completely change it now — we’d be hypocrites. This is what we’ve believed in when this club was founded, this is what we’ve believed in since I’ve been here.”

And he was ready for his critics.

“We’re not Spain, we’re not Germany, we’re not Argentina, we’ve never won a [men’s] World Cup ever,” Curtin said. “So let’s try to win every competition at the youth level and show that we have great players — because we do. … This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for kids that they may never get back again. So to prevent them from playing in a U-20 World Cup, I’m sorry, I don’t agree with it.”

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