Despite COVID-19, Philadelphia Union celebrates a successful year with Catapult
The difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic still persist today, with many athletes, coaches and other performance staff forced to adapt and find new ways in which to prepare and perform for games.
Philadelphia Union have been using Catapult’s solutions since 2014 and, despite the difficulty faced, they turned last season into their most successful season ever. The Union picked up their first-ever trophy, the 2020 Supporters’ Shield with a league-best 14-4-5 record and, throughout the season, averaged 2.04 points per game to finish top of the league, and conceded a league-low of 20 goals.
Spearheading this success was Head Coach Jim Curtin, who was named the MLS Coach of the Year. Curtin won nearly 44% of the total vote in which MLS team technical staff, athletes, and the media voted. Curtin is a highly-regarded coach in the MLS and this award solidified the effort Curtin and the rest of this team expended during a season that was more difficult than most.
Accrediting much of this performance success to cultivating talent through the club’s academy, shrewd signings and efficiently using the club’s performance staff and infrastructure to achieve on-pitch competitive advantages, Curtin tells us more about how important monitoring his athletes with Catapult has been over this past season.
For more insight from staff at Philadelphia Union, click here.
By his very nature, Curtin is naturally curious about technology, its application in soccer and the benefits for team and athlete performance. Through using Catapult’s solutions, the head coach is able to acquire an extensive range of objective performance data.
“I’m an organic coach where I need as much information as possible, I want to have that in front of me, and I also want to adapt to new things,” explains Curtin. “The Catapult system lets us know exactly where they [athletes] are in terms of their load for the week. We monitor it very closely, it’s active, it’s on the field and to the second, we’re getting the feedback needed.”
With this data and feedback, Curtin and his staff are able to keep ahead of their competition and be first to the latest soccer-specific analytics and innovations.
“We need to stay at the cutting edge in terms of innovation and the Catapult system is one that’s been a perfect fit for us.”
For more information on Catapult’s solutions, their application in soccer and the benefits they provide teams, click here.
// More content that will be of interest to you:
- Learn more about athlete monitoring and how best to support your team’s performance objectives by downloading our eBook, Five steps to success in athlete monitoring
- Cutting edge soccer-specific analytics: Movement Profile
- The Athletic: From coaching toddlers to MLS Coach of the Year: Jim Curtin’s journey with Union
- Toronto FC monitoring athletes remotely during COVID-19: Part one