Thoughts on the the Union’s current situation and the “protest” by Union fans
It was a steamy evening in Chester on Saturday, July 6th. The usual pregame festivities were going on, including the Sons of Ben tailgate and Union Yards being open. The difference that day, however, was the imminent protest that was planned for the game to let ownership know they need to do more to support the team. The vibe has been, at least from what I have gathered, that most people seem to blame ownership for not spending money to bring in high quality players who can make an impact right away. Not projects or teenagers, but players who can be difference-makers. There have also been small pockets of people who have taken to social media to blame Coach Jim Curtin for the disappointing season so far.
Our man on the streets, Kyle, ventured to get some commentary from fans during the tailgate. What are fans really feeling right now? You hear plenty from the outspoken people online who can hide behind their keyboards, or the faceless, anonymous people who won’t put their name or photo on their accounts- but do those people really echo what the average fan is thinking? What, in their opinion, is the issue right now? Is Jim to blame and is his job jeopardy, or do they place blame elsewhere? And finally, what are their thoughts on the protest? That was the mission: get some real talk. Several people were interviewed for this piece, and to really let them speak their minds, no identifying information is being included.
Fan #1
Kyle: What are your overall thoughts on the season, making sense of all this?
Fan #1:To make sense of all of it is… very ill equipped. We all knew this was coming with all the players leaving early. We knew we’d lose players to the Euros, Copa America, Olympics and the front office declined to add depth. The kids are great, bring up the kids, but there comes a point the kids are too much. You shouldn’t have a bench of U2 players. We should have a bench of seasoned professionals, not an amateur team but professional players.
Kyle: So even if Union II’s killing it right now… what are your thoughts on MLS Next Pro?
Fan #1. There’s a gap of talent, gap of skill level they’re going up against. Give a couple of them the call up, but that shouldn’t be your primary source of players.
Kyle: Do you think, do you think blame is more on… We’re hearing the owners, Jay, Ernst, we’re hearing “close the Curtin” is back again- though some will say it never went away. Where are you at with this?
Fan #1: I think I’d say the blame is on everyone, right? The blame can be on Jim. I think he takes a part in the blame but he can only coach what he’s given. I think his tactics are OK. He still struggles with subs but then again he’s bringing off teenagers on the bench. I think the blame shifts towards the front office and it shifts towards not only player development, but just keeping a pipeline of useful substitutes coming through because that’s been our biggest downfall is we can throw in a decent product from the starting 11, but then when you need that game changer, we haven’t had one since Ilsinho, we’ve never filled that gap, having someone come off the bench so it comes down to scouting people for that role and not scouting people to maybe be that role.
Fan #2
Kyle: So what is the issue?
Fan #2: It’s a multitude of issues. Our spine has either been sold or seemed to have aged out or got too injured. Need new center backs, might need a new number six if Brujo can’t get back into form. Our forwards are a mess. Shouldn’t be playing Quinn out of position. We’re playing a diamond, and we really arguably don’t have any ace that can progress the ball up on the field. It sounds really grim, like everything’s broken, you know? But if you fix the couple of those things, you’re somewhere.
Kyle: It’s an incomplete team right now.
Fan #2: Yeah, you have to do a rebuild and you have to wait for people to come off their contracts. Glesnes making, what, third or fourth most on the team? Elliott’s making that. They can’t defend how they’ve been defending and make the amount of money they made. It’s not even the amount of money. The ranking of where they make salary wise on our team. You can’t be a TAM guy and give that up- they’re both TAM guys. For whatever reason, they just can’t defend. With the midfield, it could be that McGlynn and Quinn don’t offer enough defense on the outside of the diamond and that leads back to why are we still playing the diamond? We have to play people out of position just to maintain this thing.
Kyle: So where do you think the blame is? Is it ownership, front office…?
Fan #2: I mean, obviously the ownership has the money and that’s part of it. The big problem is that we haven’t nailed a signing. Maybe it’s unfair to expect our GM to hit, you know, roll 10s every single time? You haven’t really hit anything except ones or twos the past four or five transfer windows. Every one that we bring in that doesn’t work, we have to loan out.
Fan #3
Kyle: What are your thoughts on the season?
Fan #3: It’s 2014-2015 all over again. We suck. Hey, we will make the Open Cup next year if they keep the same formatting. This year was like the bottom teams getting in. Yeah, I’m like, if we get a couple of winter signings we might actually do well in that tournament. It will be the 2014-2015, we live for that tournament. Regular season could go hang.
Kyle: Do you think we get any signings though?
Fan #3: Oh f*** no. I mean like listen, a man can dream, right?
Kyle: Honestly, do you think Jim gets fired off of this? Is this another Andy Reid situation?
Fan #3: I think this season, if they don’t find a way to turn around and have some sort of positive direction? Like now, here’s the other thing, if they have a good Leagues Cup which I do not predict because Charlotte and Cruz Azul will wipe the floor with us. If they have a good Leagues Cup, that might save his job, but if he gets back to like the semifinals and like we squeak to a third place win again. Then we’ve made the Champions League. That could save his job, but I’m also like, that is such a long shot. It’s like Smarty Jones winning the Triple Crown and it’s like we can dream. It’s not gonna happen.
Kyle: Is it more him or ownership?
Fan #3: Ownership didn’t give him a lot of pieces, but Jim knew we were gonna have a player crunch at this point of the season. And then early in the year you literally ran Bedoya into the ground. Glesnes is struggling. Instead of rotating in guys, he just ran the guys into the ground and now they’re all tired and bad. He needs to be better with substitutions. I get that we don’t have the deepest bench, but he has two guys he puts on. It’s Antoine Hoppenot all over again. We have a super sub who’s not French.
Fan #4
Kyle: What are your thoughts on how the protest was handled?
Fan #4: So I get it right, people want something to be done. But I also think that just talking to the board and the capos doesn’t give you the whole picture, especially when you think about the fact that only three hundred, a little over 300 people voted in the election and we have 1,000 members this year. So that’s only like a third of the vote that, like, actually counts and that people are like, you know…
Kyle: So it’s really only a small sample size.
Fan #4: It’s like, yeah incredibly small sample size. And we’ve done town halls before, so I’m a little confused why we didn’t put a town hall together.
Kyle: So how can Sons of Ben make this an effective protest?
Fan #4: I think we need to do a town hall, we need to get as many ideas as possible and then work from there. But getting together on a Monday for a Saturday game, it doesn’t work. Again, I can tell you from being in the meeting, it was about 30 minutes left in the meeting [and it was still] what is the game plan like? How can we move forward? And that’s how the meeting ended up going, I think 30 minutes over because we only had 30 minutes to figure out what what we’re doing.
Kyle: It sounds to me, and correct me if I’m wrong, it needs to be a more structured conversation rather than… just that statement today.
Fan #4: A lot of the Sons of Ben needs to be restructured and reorganized, and I think a lot of the cracks that we’ve had have been hidden from the team doing well, but now that the team is not doing well, all of those cracks are out in the open and we have a very short period of time to fix it.
Kyle also talked to several other people who spoke off the record, but similar sentiments were echoed. Most of the blame was placed on ownership, while small percentages of the blame could be on the coaching staff and players. Some also felt that people are freaking out a little too much and that it can be, and has been, way worse. This was definitely in the minority, however.
The Sons of Ben board and ownership are supposed to meet at some point, so we will see what happens. Some questions remain that I have heard conflicting reports on, such as why was the “Help Wanted” tifo left out on the ground in the SOB lot? Was it the Union folks not allowing it, or was it an SOB decision? I think the protest would have certainly had more “teeth” had that tifo been brought in and displayed. One thing is for certain, change is needed because the status quo is not going to cut it.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments, or on our social media outlets.
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