CHESTER, Pa. – As a proud born-and-bred Philadelphian, Jim Curtin talks often about hating just about everything that has to do with New York sports.
But he might have to make an exception for first-year New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch.
Throughout much of his soccer life, after all, Curtin has leaned on Marsch as a friend, mentor and confidant. And the two remain very close heading into Sunday’s Eastern Conference matchup at Red Bull Arena that pits Curtin’s Philadelphia Union side against Marsch’s Red Bulls (5 pm ET; FOX Sports 1/FOX Deportes/FOX Sports GO).
“He’s a guy I look up to,” Curtin told MLSsoccer.com. “I have a lot of respect for him, first as a player and now as a coach. We’ve had conversations where we pick each other’s brains on different players, who’s playing well, what ideas we can implement on our teams. He’s a really good guy first and foremost, and also a really good coach.”
Their friendship began in 2001 when Curtin joined the Chicago Fire as a little-known rookie out of Villanova. He was worried at the time that he could have gotten lost on Bob Bradley’s loaded club that featured the likes of Eric Wynalda, Carlos Bocanegra, DaMarcus Beasley and former Union manager Peter Nowak.
But it was Marsch, then in his sixth year in the league, that made sure that never happened, taking the rookie under his wing and, according to Curtin, “giving me that feeling that I belonged.”
Curtin ended up starting 12 games that year, marking the first step of a successful nine-year playing career that was mostly spent with Marsch by his side. Later, the two became teammates at Chivas USA with both ending their playing careers – and starting their coaching careers – following the 2009 season.
“Going back to my rookie year, Jesse was always a guy from my first training session who looked after me, on the field and off,” Curtin said. “He’s a guy I learned a ton from about what it means to be a pro, what it means to compete every day, and, in a lot of ways, with him and Bob Bradley, they contributed a lot to me wanting to be a coach.”
Curtin still keeps an old picture of that 2001 Fire squad handy, pointing out that 13 current or former MLS coaches or executives, as well as two USL coaches, were groomed on that team.
And Curtin thinks a lot of that has to do with Marsch, who he remembers raising everyone’s level at practice every day because of his nasty competitive streak that spilled over into games, too.
“If you talk to a lot of players in the league, they hated playing against Jesse Marsch – that is the one thing they’d all say,” Curtin said. “And if you look at his resume, he’s one of the best winners in our game. Open Cups, MLS Cups – he’s won everywhere he’s been.”
It’s come as no surprise to Curtin, then, that Marsch has the Red Bulls off to a 4-1-5 start – an especially impressive feat considering his arrival in Harrison was shrouded in controversy following New York’s unpopular decision to fire former coach Mike Petke.
“The first thing he did was very Jesse,” Curtin said. “He laid the groundwork out that he wasn’t Mike Petke. He knows what Mike did and he respected what Mike did but he was going to make this team resemble him and his coaching style. … He’s a leader and he gets the most out of his players. You can see they really respect him and they’ve all bought in.”
Of course, Curtin will do his best to deal Marsch just his second loss with the Red Bulls this weekend. But no matter what happens on the field, it will certainly be an interesting experience for him to coach against someone he carpooled with for nine years, shared many laughs with at Cubs games in Chicago and Hermosa Beach in Los Angeles, and remained close friends with even when Marsch was interviewing for the Union job last year while Curtin was still the interim.
And it all goes back to that first season with the Fire.
“It was just an environment where we challenged each other in a positive way,” Curtin said. “We won together. We had success together. We shared a lot of different ideas on how we would do things if we were ever in charge.
“And now here we are.”
Dave Zeitlin covers the Union for MLSsoccer.com. Email him at djzeitlin@gmail.com.
