Putting the shortcomings of the 2017 Union into context,
it's a complex task. (DFM/Mikey Reeves)

Often the conversation surrounding the Philadelphia Union, particularly among members of the media contingent striving to make sense of the how and why of another playoff-free season, devolves into a declaration of, ‘they’re just not good enough.’

The standings can tell you that, for sure, but that’s unsatisfactory for the scientific part of my brain. And particularly given the last week, where the Union have squandered four points in stoppage time to resolve the mystery of if there’s a last gasp of intrigue remaining, the questions seem more salient.

So if I may, I’ll offer two explanations, one qualitative, one quantitative.

The “too much effort” explanation

This issue reared its ugly head way back in April when Portland came to town: The talent gulf between the Union and most opponents is vast. In terms of pure talent to start the season, I would’ve pegged the Union between eight- and 10th-best in the Eastern Conference. After the summer shopping, and the Union’s lack thereof, drop them a spot or two.

When you’re always at a collective disadvantage, you’re always playing catchup. Since John Hackworth was in charge, the prevailing mantra has always been that the Union can play with anyone. And that’s true, though in a parity-driven league, every MLS team is designed to be able to compete with anyone.

But when you expound so much effort trying to work back to level talent terms, you get these coin-flip games. The Union spend so much energy trying to stay within a goal of Montreal two weeks ago, then a pin prick pops the balloon and the release is a 3-0 loss. They work so hard against San Jose, then the late penalty kick deflates them. The talent gulf deprives them of ever starting at a position of power, which magnifies mistakes and lumps pressure on a young core.

Manager Jim Curtin is correct in saying that the Toronto loss last week is one of the few times they’ve been outclassed. But the Union are so often edged by small margins in a system of discreet point yields that it’s unsustainable over the span of a season. It doesn’t matter that their performance in San Jose was objectively worthy of two points; they get one or three, and the late mistake decided that.

That entails an inescapable conclusion that Curtin now owns but that has been obvious since March.

“I think we do recognize that a difference maker is something we need to add and increase,” Curtin said Wednesday in his off-week press conference. “We have a good group that creates enough chances in most games. We have to finish chances and do a good job of preventing them at the end of games.”

That game of catchup in the squad – of important depth ballast without that big over-the-top player – is mirrored in the way the results happen.

“Just not good enough” in numbers
Read more »

UNION (4-2-3-1) 

Blake 

Rosenberry-Yaro-Elliott-Wijnaldum 

Bedoya-Medunjanin 

Picault-Alberg-Pontius 

Sapong 

Bench: McCarthy, Marquez, Gaddis, Creavalle, Epps, Ilsinho, Simpson

Atlanta (4-2-3-1) 

Guzan 

Walkes-Parkhurst-Gonzalez Pirez-Garza 

Larentowicz-McCann 

Villalba-Almiron-Asad 

Martinez 

Bench: Reynish, Mears, Kratz, Ambrose, Gressel, Vazquez, Peterson 

- It’s three changes on the backline for the Union today, with Jack Elliott the lone holdover. Josh Yaro is in for Oguchi Onyewu, which makes sense given the matchup and the Wednesday-Saturday turnaround. Keegan Rosenberry makes his first start since April 14. This is this most squad rotation I can recall from Jim Curtin, particularly at the back. Sticking with his preferred guys in the past hasn’t worked, so let’s see how this does.

- It’s the full complement for Atlanta in its first meeting with the Union, making only one change in central midfield with Chris McCann in central midfield. Other than that, the front four of Miguel Almiron, Yamil Asad, Josef Martinez and Hector Villalba up top. Atlanta is coming off a tough 1-0 loss to D.C. Wednesday, so they could be hungry for a result with a glut of home games upcoming.

- The matchup at the back for the Union is logical, but will be testing. Yaro makes sense as the guy today for his speed. But increasingly, his positional awareness seems lacking. And he’ll be tested by a passel of MLS’s most dynamic attackers today from Atlanta. How Yaro prevents the backline from being torn and distorted by the motion of Almiron and Villalba is going to be vital in the Union’s quest to get a home result.

For John McCarthy and the Union, the last year hasn't been great. (AP)

On this weekend a year ago, the Philadelphia Union was flying high. They had just handled Sporting Kansas City, 2-0 at home. With a record of 11-9-7, their 40 points were situated third in the Eastern Conference, three points from leaders Toronto and soaring over the red line for playoff qualification.

The question had ceased to be if the Union would end a playoff drought or even if they would break the franchise record for points in a season; needing just eight points from seven games, the Union would certainly blast through the 48 points they tallied in 2011 with even mediocre form.

Then the roof caved in. Seven winless to end 2016. Ninety minutes being comprehensively outclassed in Toronto on a Wednesday night in a gone-before-you-knew-it playoff berth. Then eight winless to start 2017 at so great a disadvantage that now, officially, has been deemed insurmountable.

For all the oddities of the MLS calendar, the schedule makers offer the Union symmetry. Saturday’s visit from Atlanta United marks the 34th regular-season game since that night 364 days ago against SKC.

Through all the ups and downs, what has this 33-game snapshot of Union existence shown? In short, it’s not good.

In that 33-game stretch of regular season, starting with the Sept. 3 loss at Chicago, the Union are 8-17-8. That includes the 0-5-2 stretch to end 2016 and the 8-12-6 mark they’ve stumbled to this year.

That’s 32 points in 33 games. There’s no result the Union can achieve Saturday against Atlanta to avoid falling short of the franchise’s lowest tally for a season, set in 2012 at 36.

A win Saturday is required to avoid falling short of the season-low set in the expansion year, when the club played four fewer matches. A loss Saturday would equal the franchise record of 18 set in 2012, which remains in play for the Union this year. (N.B.: I’m comparing this stretch to full calendar seasons, from the Union and other clubs, via MLS' Fact and Record Book. Even I’m not that much of a masochist to parse each team’s worst 34-game stretch across seasons, even if the info was complete enough.)

The Union in the last 33 games have a points per game average of 0.97. The sub-1 realm is where the truly terrible MLS campaigns reside. How bad? Well, bad enough that no Union team has ever been there before – the 2012 team came closest at 1.06 over a calendar season – and the Union have had some atrocious seasons.
Read more »

Fafa Picault and the Union need to keep their eye
on the ball when it comes to getting results
away from home. (DFM/Mikey Reeves)

The complexity of the Philadelphia Union often leads to questions asked at cross purposes. The inquiry of if the Union will make the playoffs is a different query than if they can qualify for the postseason.

For a season that is so drastically divergent between home and away, it seems fitting that its overriding logic should endure such a clean fracture.

Now that the questions have been sorted, let’s attend to the answers?

Can the Union make the playoffs? Yes, Jim Curtin is correct in saying that a path exists. His team has been excellent at home, winning seven of eight and holding serve to maintain a place in a crowded playoff hunt, the latest installment a 3-1 controlling of Western Conference elite FC Dallas. In those eight games, the Union have conceded just four total goals, only two of which have come with 22 players on the field.

That hasn’t translated into road results, for reasons that beguile the Union. And should that trend change – or in the mind of Curtin and others, simply normalize, since the Union are probably more talented than a 1-7-3 away mark indicates – then they could make headway.

Now the next question, will the Union make the playoffs? That’s notably thornier. And it probably would require the Union in the final 12 games of the season nearly matching their win total from the first 22 games (seven). Not impossible, but I wouldn't advise running to Vegas to place bets on it.

But in the first week of August, the path to the playoffs exist, and it’s one in which the Union are endowed with the power to craft their journey.

Curtin mentioned the 12-game mini-season that awaited them starting Saturday. Here goes:

Six home games: Dallas (a win), Montreal, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, Orlando City

Six away games: San Jose, Toronto, Minnesota, Red Bull, Atlanta, Chicago

That’s a daunting path, but not an impossible one. Let me explain. Read more »

Jim Curtin, left, and Earnie Stewart wrapped up the Union season
with a lengthy press conference Wednesday.

For over an hour Wednesday, members of the Philadelphia Union worked either on the field or in the weight room, a coda on a long campaign and a gateway to the offseason. Then coach Jim Curtin and sporting direction Earnie Stewart fielded questions for 30-some minutes, wrapping up a playoff season that was and previewing an offseason of tinkering rather than rebuilding.

Those two, particularly Stewart, discussed a wide range of topics. Some takeaways:

- First, big picture. The Union announced options declined on six players: Loanees Anderson and Matt Jones, plus Cole Missimo, Taylor Washington, Walter Restrepo and Kevin Kratz (more on that later). It’s still mulling decisions on Charlie Davies and Leo Fernandes. Everyone else is back. That is a level of decisiveness and transparency that past squads have lacked.

- Breakup days of seasons past have been helter-skelter affairs – exit interviews, players slinking back to their personal lives, some informal workouts organized. This year, the Union are in Chester for two weeks after the season, working with the staff to prep for the offseason. Captain Brian Carroll indicated that that was a stark departure from the past, emblematic of the changes Stewart has instituted.

- Plenty of fans have opined about Curtin’s future as the coach of the Union. Stewart was unequivocal in assessing his performance:

“Really good, and I say that with a lot of confidence too. The way we set out the start of this season, I was curious in the United States how we go about practicing and do we go out with purpose, and Jim has exceeded those expectations in going out every single day. When we talked about roles and responsibilities as the players, you can go out and play games, or you can put a purpose behind everything that you do in the exercises that we have and in trying to create those moments of, the angled passes that we always talk about, playing forward that we always talk about. You can say it, or you can go out and practice it. I have to say Jim and his technical staff have been excellent in that in what I’ve seen, the level of training. And that’s my form of recognition to seeing how things go. If you see the progress in the beginning of the seasons in our keepaway and if you see the process now of where we are in our keepaway games, that’s a major, major difference and a lot has to do with the coaching staff in that.

“I think the beginning of the season showed that confidence level that we have, the way we can play. Do things happen during the season that we can’t reach that totally? Yeah. Do I feel that there’s open discussions about trying to tweak it left and right within our formation, within our style, within our system in getting better and getting those results? Yeah, they’ve been there. We’ve had open, honest discussions with each other which I think is fantastic and a very good way of working. That evaluation has been really good.”

- The Union adapted to a new training load, with two-a-days and other new tactics. Stewart was adamant that the increased burden didn’t precipitate the late-season swoon. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I do know how it works from a player perspective. That’s my own experience. When you win games, you’re never tired, and when you lose games, you’re very tired. And that’s just it. A human body can do way more than we think, so I don’t believe in that. That’s not an excuse.” Curtin added that per team data, he didn’t see players late in the season failing to reach the physical outputs they did early on. “To put in on fatigue, I don’t buy it,” Curtin said.

- The reasons for the late struggles remained elusive. Some of it was a young roster in the heat of a playoff chase for the first time. Some was untimely injuries. Part of it was the schedule getting tougher, leading to crises in player confidence. Some of it, as Stewart pointed out, is simple perception. Said Curtin: “We are examining and trying to pinpoint exactly what it is, too, and the harder we search and the more we look at the data, the analytics, the games, it comes back that it’s a variety of things.”

- Stewart has said that the club hasn’t received concrete offers for Andre Blake. The goalkeeper, who graduated Generation Adidas Monday, will count on the Union’s salary budget for the first time in his career in 2017. Stewart concurred that Blake has earned that and he would listen to offers for the Jamaican goalie, but they haven’t yet materialized. Stewart: Read more »

What do the futures of Brian Carroll, center, and Warren Creavalle, right,
with the Union look like? The MLS Expansion Draft could provide hints. (AP)

It’s the first week of November, and the stage is ready to discuss how the Philadelphia Union should guard against losses in an upcoming expansion draft. As some things change, others stay the same.

The Expansion Draft to boost the rosters of incoming Atlanta United and Minnesota United will take place Dec. 13. Unlike the last such draft in 2014 to populate New York City FC and Orlando City’s rosters (aside: Do paired expansion teams have to have identical naming structures?), Atlanta and Minnesota will each pick five players from MLS rosters, as opposed to 10 each last time. That lessens the risk of loss for current clubs. There’s also a limit of one players picked per team, as opposed to two last time.

All the rules briefings are here, and I’m not the first to share thoughts on how the Union should approach the expansion draft.

Here’s the list of who I would protect, in no exact order:

1. Alejandro Bedoya
2. Keegan Rosenberry
3. CJ Sapong
4. Chris Pontius
5. Richie Marquez
6. Ilsinho
7. Roland Alberg
8. Warren Creavalle
9. Ray Gaddis
10. Andre Blake
11. Eric Ayuk

Exempt from protection: Fabian Herbers, Josh Yaro (both Generation Adidas), Auston Trusty, Derrick Jones (Homegrowns)

Not protected: Matt Jones, Anderson, Tranquillo Barnetta, Taylor Washington, Cole Missimo, Maurice Edu, Kevin Kratz, John McCarthy, Ken Tribbett, Walter Restrepo, Leo Fernandes, Brian Carroll, Fabinho, Charlie Davies.

That’s all 29 players on the Union roster. Here’s the logic behind it, with players broken up into categories.
Read more »