Union Fire Manager John Hackworth

The Philadelphia Union today fired manager John Hackworth. Philadelphia/Chester’s soccer team, which has only been to the playoffs once in its five seasons, is 3-7-6 this year. The Union average 0.94 points per game, third-worst in all of MLS.

Assistant Jim Curtin will take over for Hackworth. He’s a native of the Philly suburbs, having grown up in Oreland, and played for the Chicago Fire in the early 2000s. He also played soccer for Villanova. He won two MLS Cups as a player.

Hackworth went 23-30-20 in all competitions since taking over for Peter Nowak in the 2012 season. He won 32 percent of his games, which was better than Nowak’s winning percentage (28 percent, per Wikipedia). Also, he did not sue the team — at least not yet — so he has that on Nowak, too.

“We are an ambitious club and although we are just in our fifth season we expect to win and be in the top tier of MLS. We have begun an ambitious and global search for a team manager who will help guide us to our goal of competing to win the MLS Cup,” Philadelphia Union CEO & operating partner Nick Sakiewicz “said” in a press release. “Philadelphia is a major market and we expect that there will be significant interest from a wide variety of qualified candidates to become Philadelphia Union’s team manager. We appreciate the work, time and efforts John Hackworth put into building the club and his influence on our youth academy. He is a first class person and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

[philly.com | Philadelphia Union]