Philadelphia Union Find Extra Motivation In Anonymous Quote
The popular pick to win the Eastern Conference & MLS Cup had some extra motivational help on Saturday.
CHESTER - The Philadelphia Union love to find motivation.
The question we all had going into the 2023 Major League Soccer season is what exactly that motivation would be.
The obvious answer would be coming up short in MLS Cup. The Union used their 2021 Eastern Conference final loss as fuel for the entire 2022 campaign.
But then an unlikely source of motivation emerged from the start-of-season anonymous survey from The Athletic.
The now famous quote from anonymous executive was put forth.
“The thing is, they’re not even that f—ing good,” one executive said. “It kind of hurts me to pick them. All they do is kick the s— out of you. They’re always ready to play, that’s great, that’s good coaching, all that stuff. But they’re just not great. They have a way of doing things and they’re consistent, but it’s not like the quality is amazing. So it hurts me to pick them, but they’ve kind of earned it.”
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Union manager Jim Curtin used the anonymous quote as motivation for his team’s regular-season opener against the Columbus Crew on Saturday.
Curtin was very annoyed when the quote was brought up in the post-match press conference after the 4-1 win.
“Anonymous quotes are for cowards,” Curtin said. “People are very brave when they make anonymous quotes. I went through all the people it possibly could’ve been. There’s like two or three where it would come off as a loving quote and kind of an appreciative quote. That could possibly be it. There’s a couple that if it’s them, I would love to find out who said it. We did use it in the film session yesterday. I reminded the guys that “Yes, everyone is in love with us right now and picking us to win the Eastern Conference, but championships aren’t won on paper. Paper means nothing, so we still have a doubter out there in whoever made that quote.” It always motivates the guys, but again, I will go on record and say people that give anonymous quotes are cowards.”
Union captain Alejandro Bedoya made it known in the locker room that he shared the same sentiment as his head coach.
Bedoya was not interviewed postgame, but he told reporters that we can put it on the record that he thought anonymous quotes are for cowards too.
So now a consensus top-two team in MLS has something it didn’t have all preseason long.
We all wondered how the Union would deal with the burden of expectation. They are no longer the underdog in anyone’s eyes and they are expected to be elite.
We witnessed how elite the Union can be on Saturday, when they piled on the Crew once they made a mistake.
Athletes at that level have a different mindset than you and I. They will find any ounce of doubt and turn that into motivation. It’s what makes them different from all of us.
Once this all dies down and we make some T-shirts and social media posts off it, I’m going to say out loud what I’m pondering late on the first match night of the year.
Do the Union really need any extra motivation? If you ask Curtin, he will probably say yes because that’s how he’ll get the team going.
But what if the Union are just THAT good this year. What if they are leaps and bounds better than everyone else in the East, and the final 50-60 minutes on Saturday are just the start of things to come in MLS play.
Columbus, to Curtin’s own admission, will be a really good team this year. Wilfried Nancy is a top-five head coach in MLS and he has more talent at his disposal than he did at CF Montreal.
The Union scored the most goals of any team on Opening Night, and the highlight of the night came from Joaquin Torres, one of the three in-league additions made via trades. We’ll see more of Damion Lowe and Andres Perea, as well as other depth pieces, in the coming weeks.
So what if 4-1, or 3-0, or 3-1-type scores are just the norm around Chester now. The Union put up four goals without Mikael Uhre making a massive impact, and you could make the case they should have scored two or three more non-penalty goals.
Of course, the Union will find motivation because that’s what they are good at, but what if Saturday is the start of the Union being bleeping great, not just good, or very good, like Curtin implored at the start of this successful run.
Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Union.