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This article was published 05/11/2022 (1390 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Has there been a better time to be a Philadelphia sports fan?

Probably not.

In 1960, when the pre-merger Eagles won their third NFL championship, the then-Syracuse Nationals were a regular contender in the NBA, making the division final in both 1959 and 1961. Not bad.

The mid-70s were pretty good, too, what with the Flyers winning back-to-back Stanley Cups and the Phillies contesting the NLCS in three straight seasons. In 1977, when the baseball club lost in four games to the Dodgers, the 76ers made the NBA Finals and the Flyers reached the NHL semifinals.

Then there was 1980, when the Phillies won the World Series, the 76ers lost the NBA Finals to the Lakers, the Flyers lost the Stanley Cup final to the Islanders, and the Eagles were defeated by the Raiders in Super Bowl XV.

All four teams in their respective league finals? Amazing. Going one for four? Still good — but that’s a lot of disappointment. Which brings us to the present.

How would it sound if both the Phillies and Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union were crowned champions in 2022? Pretty good, right? Now, what if they managed to lift their trophies in the same month? That’d be pretty cool. Okay, but — wait for it — what if they did it this weekend? Both of them. Within about 30 hours of each other.

Granted, the Phillies have some work to do, but it’d be a can’t-miss party on Broad Street. (And if the 8-0 Eagles won the Super Bowl in February? Fine, maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves … just a bit.)

The Union are hoping to kick off the celebration.

Today, at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, they’ll face hosts Los Angeles Football Club in the 27th MLS Cup (3 p.m., TSN 4 & DAZN). It’ll be their first appearance in the title match, and win or lose, will mark the high point of a trajectory that began its ascent in 2018.

Prior to that, the club had enjoyed the goalscoring exploits of cult striker Sebastien Le Toux, but little else. In 2017, having failed to make the playoffs for the fifth time in six years, and exiting the U.S. Open Cup at the round of 16, they hit rock bottom — a place their fellow Philadelphia teams have been familiar with, too.

But this is a city whose sports franchises make gods of the figures who lead them well (think Wilt Chamberlain, Ron Jaworski, Bobby Clarke, and now, Bryce Harper), and in Jim Curtin they seem to have another on his way to the pantheon.

Hailing from nearby Springfield Township, Curtin, by right of birth, already has a sort of untouchable, “one of us” status. He also played his college soccer at Villanova, and when MLS expanded to Philadelphia in 2010 he got in at the ground floor, working in the academy.

Initially appointed as interim manager in 2014, the 43-year-old has coached the club ever since — though sometimes with the knife hanging right over his head. He was given the dreaded vote of confidence after that disastrous 2017 campaign, and in 2019 he was handed a tenuous one-year extension to his contract by new sporting director Ernst Tanner.

Tanner, as it happens, is someone else deserving of adoration by Union fans.

Snatched from the modern prospect mine that is the RB Salzburg academy, and with a CV of impressive work from his time at Bundesliga development factory Hoffenheim, the 56-year-old German arrived in Philadelphia in 2018 to take up the challenge of building a contender on a limited budget.

His acquisition might have seemed like a coup, but in truth Tanner was weary of the European transfer system and eager to test himself under a salary cap and rules-driven infrastructure. He was keen on the change, and the Union haven’t missed the playoffs since he got off the plane.

In 2020 they won their first trophy when they finished atop the MLS standings; a year later they advanced as far as the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Champions League. And now, MLS Cup.

The Philadelphia team that takes the pitch in Southern California this afternoon will be smudged with Tanner’s fingerprints.

Daniel Gazdag, for example, is already proving to be one of the league’s better-value signings, what with 22 goals in his first full MLS season following a modest €1.64 million move from legendary Hungarian club Honved. That’s 22 goals as a midfielder, by the way — six more than Cristian Arango, the leading scorer of offense-obsessed LAFC.

Then there is the striking tandem of Mikael Uhre and Julian Carranza—a masterpiece of Tanner ingenuity. He flexed some rare financial muscle in nabbing Uhre, a Denmark international, from Brondby in January, and mid-season he used less than half the allocation money earned from Kacper Przybylko’s switch to Chicago Fire to land Julian Carranza from Inter Miami on a permanent deal. Brilliant.

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All told, eight of the Union’s likely starting XI against LAFC will be Tanner signings. Which is remarkable, really. And guiding them, as he has done at this club in one way or another since its inception, will be Curtin, the local lad.

It hasn’t always been easy, but today is the payoff for Union supporters. There has never been a better, more satisfying time to be a fan of the club.

Now, if only the Phillies can do their bit…

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @JerradPeters