After a brutally short offseason, the Union are ready to kick off a new year

When the Union kick off their 2024 season Tuesday night in the Concacaf Champions Cup, it will have been just 87 days since their last game.

It was just 50 days from the end of their playoff run last year to the start of this year’s preseason.

If it feels like the Union didn’t really have an offseason, that’s because they didn’t. They lost a game, stopped working for five weeks, then came back. And if they had reached the MLS Cup final, their “offseason” would have been an achingly short 36 days.

It’s not healthy, but it’s the way things are in soccer now — here and worldwide. There are more games, more travel, more of just about everything except time to properly rest. (And roster spots and salary-cap space in MLS, because those would cost money.)

Not only was the offseason short, but the Union have to start this year fast: the Concacaf series opener at Costa Rica’s Saprissa (10 p.m., FS2, TUDN), Saturday’s regular-season opener at home vs. Chicago (7:30 p.m., Apple TV), then Saprissa at home next Tuesday (8:15 p.m.).

That’s not all. The following Saturday, March 2, there’s a visit to Sporting Kansas City. And if the Union beat Saprissa, they’ll play Mexico’s Pachuca in the next round on March 5 (home) and 12 (away), amid a March 9 home game vs. mighty Seattle and a March 16 visit to Austin.

» READ MORE: An analysis of the Union’s roster at the start of the 2024 season

You’re welcome to feel like that’s a crazy way to start a year. But playing in the Champions Cup is both a burden and a privilege of being one of MLS’s best teams.

In fact, Concacaf’s continent-wide club ranking — based on an ELO computer formula, like what college sports use — has the Union at No. 4 overall. That’s easily the best of any MLS team, with reigning champion Columbus at No. 8. (The top three are Mexico’s superpowers Monterrey, Club América, and Tigres.)

Right now, though, only one question matters: Are the Union ready to go?

“The guys, physically, are in a really good spot,” manager Jim Curtin said Monday in a news conference from Costa Rica. “You always still have concern going into your first 90 minutes, though, with getting that intensity just right. So we have to have an approach that is disciplined, is intelligent, but also recognize the reality is it’s our first test.”

Curtin — who wore an eye-catching all-black suit from an endorsement deal with a Center City tailor — put the burden on himself as much as his players.

“As we get later into the game, and the fatigue starts to set in, can we keep our concentration?” he said. “Can we maybe make a change a little earlier than we would to get fresh legs on the field? Every guy has to be willing to do their job for 90 minutes — some will be called upon for 60 minutes, some will be called upon to close the game out for one minute, but every guy has to execute.”

» READ MORE: The Union are running it back again. Will it work this time?

The Union have played Saprissa in Concacaf’s top club tournament before. In 2021, the Union’s first year in continental competition, they swept a two-game series in the round of 16, including by 4-0 at home.

That made the Union just the second American team to win a Concacaf game at Saprissa’s fabled bandbox of a stadium. The Columbus Crew were the first, in 2009, with a squad including future Union stalwart Brian Carroll. (The U.S. men infamously never won a World Cup qualifier there, with seven losses and a tie from 1985-2009.)

There’s a big caveat, though, and it’s not that the teams are different. The stands were empty when the Union last visited because of the pandemic. This time, the stands will be full. And the fans will probably be in a bad mood because Costa Rica’s most famous club is in third place instead of its usual first.

“It’s an honor to be one of those teams, but I’m also smart enough to recognize when we won in this stadium, it was COVID and it was empty,” Curtin said. “So it will be a totally different animal [on Tuesday].”

Saprissa’s roster has many familiar faces who used to play in MLS: midfielders Ulises Segura (D.C.), Luis Díaz (Columbus and Colorado), and David Guzmán (Portland and Columbus), and centerbacks Fidel Escobar (New York Red Bulls) and Kendall Waston (Cincinnati and Vancouver).

» READ MORE: The Union’s new jersey features a throwback style that pays tribute to their very first kit

With that in mind, Curtin hinted that he’ll turn to veterans for his starting lineup, players “that have been through these types of games at a high level in Concacaf, both with their national team and then with their club team.”

There will be plenty of time in the rest of the year for the young players that so many people want to see.

“That experience,” Curtin said, “is something you have to, I’ll just say, lean on heavily in these types of games and in these atmospheres.”

The veteran group includes Kai Wagner, who’ll be in a big spotlight in his first game since a three-game suspension for using racist language in last year’s playoffs. The ban only applied to MLS games, so he was eligible to play vs. Saprissa.

On Monday, the league rescinded the last game of the ban, crediting Wagner for good behavior in the league’s restorative practices program. That means he’s now clear for the regular-season opener, too.

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