On Thursday, the Philadelphia Union parted ways with head coach Jim Curtin.
Curtin was the second-longest tenured coach in MLS, only behind Peter Vermes (Sporting Kansas City). The two-time Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year had led Philadelphia since 2014.
During Curtin's tenure, the Union won the 2020 Supporters' Shield and made the 2022 MLS Cup final. They were also three-time US Open Cup finalists and twice made the Concacaf Champions Cup semifinals.
In 2024, Philadelphia finished 12th in the Eastern Conference standings and missed the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2017. In 11 seasons, Curtin posted a 170W-90L-134D record across all competitions.
Okay, so why are we talking about a guy that just got canned from his head coaching job?
Simple, FC Dallas is still without a full-time head coach as they have yet to announce who will be taking over the post for the 2025 season.
We learned a few weeks back that the team had narrowed things down to three finalists, who they would be interviewing again in the following weeks to determine who the next head coach would be. One of those finalists is interim manager Peter Luccin.
While we have yet to learn the identity of the other two finalists, we do know that based on the comments from both FC Dallas president Dan Hunt and technical director Andre Zanotta, the other finalists have a lot of familiarity with how things work and operate in Major League Soccer.
After Thursday, I believe the club needs to take a quick detour in their coaching search to interview Curtin. With St. Louis and Atlanta United also in the hunt for a coach, the time is now to get in front of things with Curtin before those two clubs get to him.
Here are three reasons why I believe Curtin would be an excellent fit for FC Dallas.
