 |
| So close and yet, etc. |
The Philadelphia Union have reached three U.S. Open and lost them all. That feels like good framing.
In the grand timeline of MLS expansion, the Philadelphia Union arrived fairly early – a couple seasons after Toronto FC, one after the Seattle Sounders, and one before my Portland Timbers, aka, 2010. You can pull a couple threads out of that, but Philly did better than many MLS team using that time to sort out a reliable approach to team building. Not perfectly, by any means, but still pretty fucking well. Keeping that path linear requires a little willful amnesia, not to mention looking past at least one recent warning signs (see below). As expansion teams are wont to do, they hit the biggest rocks at the beginning, i.e., they missed the playoffs in six of their first eight seasons. Their first roster looked a lot like what it was: a Frankenstein’s monster built of scraps they reclaimed from the Expansion Draft, plus a couple hyped SuperDraftees (Jack McInerney and that season’s number one pick, Danny Mwanga) and the odd exotic signing stapled onto it (which one is it? Don't recall). As the limits of that approach became apparent, Philly put more effort into signing game-changing players – e.g., Conor Casey, Maurice Edu, and, arguably the biggest swing of those first attempts, Cristian Maidana – but those players came and went before Philly’s dry spell in the playoffs ended. While it wasn’t the Union’s first trip to the post-season (viva 2011!), 2019 constituted a turning point in their history (for now; everything’s contingent, people) Until…rather recently, the Union made the playoffs every season since; better, they won the Supporters’ Shield…if in the weird season (i.e., 2020), and strolled to a clash against Los Angeles FC in MLS Cup 2022, where they came out on the wrong side of the consensus best-ever finals in league history. The best argument for things staying sunny in Philadelphia follows from the quality of the cream they can skim from their academy system – think Derrick Jones, Auston Trusty, Brendan Aaronson, Jack McGlynn and Nathan Harriel. Players like that don’t grow on trees and that’s a luxury the Union has that (many?) other MLS teams don’t. With that foundation beneath them, Philly only needed to improve at signing impact foreign players – particularly when they had a good, steady coach staff (who think Jim Curtin will be unemployed for long?). Things didn’t really turn around for the Union until they signed players like Alejandro Bedoya (2016-present), Jack Elliott (2017-2024; [UPDATE: Just got word Elliott was a SuperDraftee; good get for Philly.]), Jamiro Monteiro (2019-2021), personal favorite, Jose Martinez (No. 6s and 8s are my people), and, more recently, a (once?) league-elite defender like Jakob Glesnes, and smart attacking pieces like Daniel Gazdag and Julian Carranza. Those two factors have helped keep the Union at, or at least close to, the top teams in MLS…until somewhat recently. This one’s tricky…
Total Joy Points: 13
How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
Supporters’ Shield: 2020
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2022
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2021
MLS Playoffs/Quarterfinals: 2011, 2019, 2023
CCL Semifinals: 2021, 2023
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2014, 2015, 2018
Long-Term Tendencies
Philly have historically had respectable defenses and muddled attacks, but their recent, nearly unbroken succession of just…really balanced teams in the seasons between (roughly) 2019 and 2023 was something to behold. Even in the one season where their attack broke down – i.e., 2021, when they only matched the league average for goals scored (but backed it with a rock-star defense) – the Union fielded one capable and competitive team after another; hell, the 2022 team had the balance of Oregon’s finest pinot noir. All the way up to the end of 2023, it was easy to believe they’d found the formula that eluded many an MLS team, FC Dallas most of all. You can see where this is going…
 |
| Dad attempting table-talk, Mom missing it. |
For anyone looking for the likeliest suspect in the Union’s early demise in the 2024 season, I’d point them to the area that has rarely been the Achilles’ heel for Philly, i.e., the defense. It’s also entirely possible I’m stretching that argument because the Union’s goals-allowed numbers only slipped just over the league average (53.5, for the record). That shouldn’t have been the problem it ultimately proved to be, not with the attack in its third straight season of scoring comfortably above the league average (they kicked ass in their Supporters’ Shield-winning 2020 season as well), but, as they say in any card game involving tricks (e.g., Hearts, Spades, Euchre, Contract Bridge), nothing fucks up a winnable hand like poor distribution. Because picking up just one win between mid-April and mid-July tends to hurt a team’s chances, Philly had a mountain to climb by the time they came out of the Leagues Cup and into the home stretch. While they started that stretch strong enough – hello, road wins at the Red Bulls and NYCFC (by many goals, fwiw), plus a demolition at home versus DC – Philly ran out of oxygen over the season’s final three games, all of them losses. Winning the last of them, a home game against FC Cincinnati, was probably the most-winniest of the bunch, but they face-planted instead and that’s how a marginal team ducks under the (again, and I’ll never stop protesting this) stupidly low bar that MLS sets for reaching the post-season.
Questions for Their 2025 Season
Apart from the biggest moves of their off-season – letting go of Jim Curtin – Philadelphia hasn’t made all that many moves and, honestly, the bones still look good, so why would they? As noted above, they got reliable production out of their attacking core – Gazdag and Mikael Uhre (didn’t even notice they lost Julian Carranza at the end of last June…yikes!) - and they’ll get a full season out of Tai Baribo (right?). They’ll still have quality players feeding them – e.g., Kai Wagner and Quinn Sullivan provided 24 assists between them – so, apart from the Great Big Question Mark (see below), what they do to rebuild the defense, writ large, feels like the big open questions for me. I don’t see a clear replacement for Jose Martinez, who was let go (to Brazil) in August 2024, so that stands out (is it Jesus Bueno? Leon Flach appears to be no more). The biggest move on the backline involved replacing Jack Elliott (released to Chicago as a free agent) with a young (23) CB named Ian Glavinovich from Argentina’s Newell’s Old Boys. While I don’t know Glavinovich from Adam, getting Glesnes back to his old self feels like another big issue because the main thing I remember about him from 2024 was the disappointed look on his face. All the above brings things back to Bradley Carnell, Philly’s new head coach. Carnell didn’t last long with St. Louis CITY FC, but he did have one hell of an inaugural season. Can’t say I loved his style (I think pressing is ugly), but defending higher up the field is one way to keep pressure off the backline and there’s probably enough energy and talent among all of those young midfielders to make Carnell’s system work...but will it be enough for them to finally lift a trophy that isn't a Shield?
No comments:
Post a Comment