Jim Curtin defends not rotating the Union’s lineup ahead of visiting the Red Bulls

Union manager Jim Curtin has taken a fair amount of heat over the years for not rotating his lineup enough during three-game weeks.

Heading into Saturday’s road game against the New York Red Bulls (7 p.m., PHL17), which wraps up the last three-game week of the year, the subject came up again — and Curtin went on the defensive.

“Everyone loves to say squad rotation — the best teams in the world play the same core guys,” he said during a news conference Friday. “The core plays together every game. Three games a week is nothing in Europe. We act like it’s the biggest deal in the world here, when we play three games occasionally and everyone jumps on me when I don’t rotate.”

It is easier to stand on that ground when your team is successful, as Curtin’s has been this year and for the last few years.

“For the most part, we win games, and I’m happy when we do,” he said. “But that is down to the players and them staying healthy and on the field.”

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Curtin invoked former NFL coach Bill Parcells, a timely coincidence with the Union going up to northern New Jersey this weekend. And while Curtin’s quoting of the former Giants and Jets coach wasn’t quite accurate, he got his point across.

“Sometimes durability is more important than ability, and I do believe in that,” Curtin said. “We stay healthy and we stay together, and it’s a really, really important piece to our success through the years.”

For the record, the Parcells one-liner was “The best ability is availability,” and it’s not clear whether he or someone else came up with it. Some years before, former Minnesota Vikings coach — and Eagles player in the 1950s — Bud Grant was known for saying “durability trumps ability.”

That all said, there will be at least one lineup change Saturday night: Nathan Harriel will start at right back instead of Olivier Mbaizo. Curtin admitted that on Wednesday after Harriel came in as a substitute when Mbaizo took a hard hit. Mbaizo was fine, it turned out, and is still fine.

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Saturday’s game is likely to be ugly, as Union-Red Bulls matchups often are. The two teams’ pressing styles have historically neutralized each other for long stretches of play.

“It might not be the beautiful game in the first 15-20 minutes as we feel each other out, and the ball might be out of bounds, a lot of stoppages, a lot of fouls and different things,” Curtin said. “You have two tired groups, but the word tired can’t enter into our mind when we’re playing against Red Bull. Because if you don’t, at a minimum, match their intensity, you’re in big trouble.”

The first-place Union (16-4-9, 57 points) have shown recently that they’ve improved at keeping the ball and playing well with it. But it’s easier to do so when you have a big lead, as they have often in their current run of good form.

Curtin doesn’t expect his players to have such freedom on Saturday against a Red Bulls team that’s third in the Eastern Conference (13-8-8, 47 points) and aiming to lock down a first-round playoff home game.

“It’s a game where we can’t play 3- and 4- and 5-yard passes that don’t really get us anywhere, because their pressing cues are to really prey on them and turn them into attacks,” Curtin said. “With Red Bull, I think you have to be a little bit more direct, you have to hit long diagonals that maybe break their pressure. So you won’t see a lot of short passes, because that sets up and plays into their game and allows them to do what they do really well, which is turn you over and turn it into a transition.”