A scoreless tie could have a positive impact for the Union in the long run

Union manager Jim Curtin hoped to get more than one win and two ties from his team’s four games without the quartet of players on the U.S. under-20 team.

But after Sunday’s scoreless tie in Columbus — another night where you could see exactly where those missing players would fit to spark the attack — Curtin chose to look on the bright side.

“Yes, maybe we sacrificed a point or two in the league here,” Curtin said. “But I think for the U.S. to achieve what they did, for our guys to get the exposure they did, for the amount of articles that are to come on the success of what those guys meant to that team, I think their stocks skyrocketed, which is also important. … We did good enough here to keep things stable.”

Argue if you want, but check your retirement fund first. Wall Street would blush at the bullish stocks of the Union youngsters who just helped the U.S. return to the Olympics for the first time since 2008. And for as much ugly soccer as the Union have played lately, the team remains second in the Eastern Conference, two points behind the New York Red Bulls with a game in hand.

So before the articles on Paxten Aaronson, Quinn Sullivan, Jack McGlynn, and Brandan Craig start piling up, let’s look back at Sunday’s game.

Curtin knew how much duct tape and elbow grease he threw into the unusual starting lineup he put together. But he also knew that the 5-3-2 setup showed promise.

» READ MORE: Four Union players led the U.S. men’s soccer team to end its 16-year Olympics drought

“I call it a 3-4-1-2, if we’re getting into semantics of formations,” Curtin said, “which I know you guys love.”

One doesn’t need to be a soccer tactics hipster to get the idea. After putting three centerbacks on the field, a 5-3-2, a 3-4-1-2, and a 3-5-2 are essentially the same thing. The only differences are occasional shifts in who plays the wide roles, and what the words say with the lineup graphics on TV and social media.

What really mattered to Curtin was figuring out a new way to balance width in attack with defensive solidity while José Andrés Martínez was suspended. He did that by putting Leon Flach and Alejandro Bedoya behind Dániel Gazdag in midfield, and having Jakob Glesnes backstop Olivier Mbaizo.

The midfield had to hold on for dear life at the end, because the only options on the bench were reserves Cole Turner and Jesús Bueno. But the Glesnes-Mbaizo part of the field freed Mbaizo to have a very good game. He completed 14-of-18 passes, won 3-of-6 duels, and pitched in 4 recoveries, 1 interception, and 1 block.

“In the first half you saw a cross from Olivier and Kai [Wagner] is on the receiving end of it — that’s something you don’t see much from us when we’re in the diamond,” Curtin said. “It allows them to be a little more aggressive, because you have good centerbacks behind them defending and protecting. You have two holding guys in Leon and Ale that will do the dirty running.”

The combination, Curtin said “complements a lot of guys’ skill sets, and it certainly gets Olivier higher up the field, it gets Kai a lot higher of the field, and lets them do some of the things that they’re really strong at offensively.”

» READ MORE: Union do just enough to earn scoreless tie at Columbus Crew

It also gets Mbaizo on the field in the first place, which he and the Union would like. Yes, the Cameroonian right back is not as good of a defender as Harriel, but Curtin wants to find ways to play a guy who could become the first active Union player to play at a World Cup.

“He needs games; he wants to be playing,” Curtin said. “He gave a good performance, the staff was very happy with him. But certainly, he has an outside motivation to be on the field, because he wants to be part of Cameroon at the World Cup, which is a good thing.”

Put everything together and it was no surprise that Curtin mused about how he could deploy the formation again in the future.

“It’s certainly something that we can talk about,” Curtin said. “Could you tweak it even more to get a Paxten [Aaronson] out there as a second 10, to get a Quinn Sullivan or a [Jack] McGlynn? Yeah. I think it could help with some of the personnel that will be coming back.”

While it’s a new setup for the Union, it’s not new to Mbaizo, who has played in it with Cameroon — albeit as the right centerback, which didn’t go too well.

Just as importantly, it’s not new to Mikael Uhre. He played in a 3-5-2 for nearly two seasons at Denmark’s Brøndby before coming here. So he knows what the spacing between players is supposed to look like, which is a big help.

“Of course when you change the system, there will always be small mistakes and small misunderstandings,” he said. “But yeah, I think it was a decent formation and I like to play in it.”

The league’s futures market is on notice.