The easy part of the Union’s schedule is over after just one game

The Union will play six games this month, as many as seven next month, and up to 10 in May. Those demands are why the team built up depth so much in the offseason.

Kai Wagner (center), Dániel Gazdag (right) and the Union won't have too much time to celebrate big moments as the schedule gets busy.Read moreElizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published March 1, 2023, 4:22 p.m. ET

As Julián Carranza capped off the dazzling play that put the Union up, 4-1, over Columbus on Saturday, the celebrations in the crowd at Subaru Park shook the stands. The team was on its way to another rout, piling up goals and proving right all the talking heads who picked them as the best team in MLS.

But down on the bench, Jim Curtin knew it wouldn’t always be so easy. Indeed, he knew it would stop being easy right after that final whistle.

Saturday’s visit to Inter Miami (7:30 p.m., Apple TV, free of charge) will be the first of six games in 22 days this month, four in the league and two in the Concacaf Champions League. The first five of those games are jammed into 15 days: from South Florida to El Salvador for Tuesday’s CCL round-of-16 opener against Alianza, then back home to host Chicago and Alianza in succession, then north to Montréal for its home opener on Olympic Stadium’s turf.

“First and foremost, Miami is the priority right now for sure,” Curtin said. “We do have a plan in place though, and we will really trust our roster. ... It’ll be a very hostile environment in [the] Champions League, the kind of games you want to play in. But we certainly will use the full squad in that [Alianza] game.”

If the Union advance past Alianza, April will be another six-game month: home games vs. Kansas City and star-studded Toronto, road trips to Cincinnati and Chicago, and a Champions League quarterfinal series against Mexico’s Atlas or Honduras’ Olimpia. The home game would be some time from April 4-6, and the road game from April 11-13.

And if the Union win that series, April would become a seven-game month, with the CCL semifinals set to start on April 25.

May would be the worst of all, with as many as 10 games in 31 days. The Champions League semifinal’s second leg is May 2; the final’s first leg is the 31st; there are seven league games; and the Union enter the U.S. Open Cup in its round of 16 on May 23 or 24. Fortunately, the only big road trip for a league game that month is to Colorado; the other road contests are at the New York Red Bulls and NYCFC.

The Union spent their entire offseason preparing for all of this, building the deepest squad they’ve ever had to navigate three competitions at the same time. But we won’t know until it really hits whether the Union have done enough — and whether Curtin is willing to rotate his lineup to a greater degree than he ever has, so everyone can stay fresh.

“Now it gets a little crazy,” Curtin said in his weekly news conference Wednesday, “but we embrace that.”