CHESTER — Jim Curtin didn’t keep secret who he voted for as MLS Coach of the Year this season. So when his former assistant coach and current FC Cincinnati head man Pat Noonan was awarded the Sigi Schmid Coach of the Year award Tuesday, Curtin had his praise at the ready.
“Everywhere he’s been, he’s been a winner,” Curtin said Tuesday at Union training, ahead of matching wits with his former assistant in Saturday’s Eastern Conference semifinal. “He brought that here to Philadelphia, and now to see him do it in Cincinnati, I’ll just say I’m the least surprised of anybody.”
Noonan, in his second season in charge of FC Cincinnati, led the team to the Supporters’ Shield with a league-best 69 points. He received 41.32 percent of player votes and 56.1 of the club vote. Only in media balloting did he finish second, and only marginally to Bradley Carnell of St. Louis City, 39.88 to 37.57.
Noonan took home 45 percent of the total voting. Carnell, who led St. Louis City to first place in the Western Conference in its expansion season, finished second with 27.78 percent. Third was Columbus’s Wilfried Nancy, who finished second last year with Montreal.
Noonan and FC Cincinnati sporting director Chris Albright, another Union alum, have orchestrated a monumental turnaround in the Queen City. Cincinnati was dead last in MLS in each of its first three seasons. Then Albright and Noonan brought it to the playoffs last year – where it won a first-round game before losing to the Union, 1-0 – then sealed a first piece of hardware with little drama this season.
For perspective on the job Albright and Noonan have done, FC Cincinnati had 60 points combined in its first three seasons (even though 2020 was a shortened schedule). It had 49 last year and 69 this year.
“Incredible season for Pat,” said Curtin, who won Coach of the Year in 2020 and 2022. “In a quick amount of time, you see how great of a leader he is in Cincinnati in really turning that whole franchise around with Chris. They’re a sleeping giant, and I think it starts always at the top with the leadership of Chris. And Pat, now, for him to get the recognition for his team’s success is something that makes me really, really proud. It’s as proud as I get for any of my players. It’s as proud as I get for any victory.”
Noonan played 188 MLS games over a decade with five clubs, mostly New England. The forward was capped 15 times by the U.S. national team. He ended his career with the LA Galaxy in 2012, where he served as an assistant through 2016. After a year as an assistant for the U.S., the Union hired Noonan in 2018. He was with the club through 2021, helping win the Shield in 2020.
Noonan and Curtin will meet in the postseason for the second straight year Saturday when the fourth-seeded Union visit TQL Stadium (8 p.m., AppleTV).
