Oguchi Onyewu has the second-most caps among Americans
never to play in MLS. The Union looked to end that Monday
by signing the defender. (AP)

A thought occurred at Philadelphia Union training today that inspired a little digging on my part. The club announced the signing of Oguchi Onyewu, whose illustrious career includes stints in France, Belgium, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. His CV includes 69 national team caps from 2004-14 and inclusion in the U.S. roster for both the 2006 and 2010 World Cups.

The glaring omission on Onyewu’s resume is having never played in MLS. His pathway to Europe – growing up in Olney, Maryland; residency at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.; two years at Clemson – is fairly conventional for an American, even if the 34-year-old center back took it to exceptional levels.

In chatting with my colleague, Jonathan Tannenwald of Philly.com, while watching the Union train at Penn Park Tuesday, I wondered where Onyewu ranked among Americans abroad. Did the Union quietly sign the most distinguished American international never to play in MLS?

The answer is, not quite. But the Union got pretty close, and they’ve done this before.

Among American internationals of the modern era, only one player has more caps than Onyewu without playing in MLS. That would be Steve Cherundolo, who earned 87 caps with the U.S. and spent his entire 15-year playing career with German club Hannover 96 (where Cherundolo is now an assistant manager).

Onyewu, though, is second on that list for most caps in the absence of an MLS game, which will be rectified soon, presumably.

Next on that list, at least as of last summer, was Alejandro Bedoya, who secured 53 national team caps before his first MLS game with the Union following his million-dollar transfer from FC Nantes. Bedoya followed a similar trajectory as Onyewu, signing with Swedish club Orebro SK after his career at Boston College.
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 »

UNION (4-2-3-1) 

Blake 

Fabinho -Marquez-Tribbett-Rosenberry 

Creavalle-Bedoya 

Ilsinho-Alberg-Ayuk 

Herbers 

Bench: McCarthy, Gaddis, Trusty, Carroll, Pontius, Sapong, Barnetta 

Red Bulls (4-2-3-1) 

Robles 

Lawrence-Collin-Perrinelle-Duvall 

McCarty-Felipe 

Grella-Kljestan-Muyl 

B.Wright-Phillips 

Bench: Reynish, Zizzo, Zubar, Davis, Damari, Veron, S.Wright-Phillips

Preview 

- Jim Curtin promised changes, and he delivered, at least up top. Eric Ayuk makes his first start of the season after 28 appearances last year. He hasn’t made the bench yet this year for the Union. Ilsinho starts for the first time since Aug. 20. Roland Alberg starts for just the second time since the end of July. A reminder that the Union need to give up fewer than 12 goals, and they have probably the most defense-averse attacking midfield possible. This could get interesting.



- CJ Sapong makes the bench after a concussion. Charlie Davies is the conspicuous absence from the squad.

- The worst news the Union could possibly have also dropped today: Maurice Edu fractured his left fibula in practice Saturday. Reports had surfaced yesterday that he left the field with a non-contact injury, and a Union source confirmed that today. No timetable was offered. Edu has not played in over a year after a sports hernia and a stress fracture in his leg.

- It’s all about the milestones for New York Red Bulls in a full-strength lineup. Bradley Wright-Phillips is in the race for the golden boot with 23 goals. New York City FC’s David Villa can catch him; he’s got 22 goals and starts for NYC at home against Columbus. He can also solidify his record for the best three-year goal-scoring stretch in MLS history (he has 67 since the start of the 2014 season). Sacha Kljestan can get to 20 assists this season, becoming just the second player ever to do that in league history, joining Carlos Valderrama.

Thanks to the MLS Players Union, we can say for sure that Alejandro Bedoya
is the best compensated player in franchise history. (AP)

Do you feel that little nip in the air on a Friday in September? That’s the MLS Players Union letting you know that it’s newest batch of salary information is out. The final numbers for the 2016 season were released Friday, reflective of each teams’ final salary commitments after the roster freeze enacted in mid-September.

The summer’s action has been more intensive than usual for the Philadelphia Union, with the arrival of Alejandro Bedoya, the exit of Vincent Nogueira and Sebastien Le Toux and a couple of other moves. So here’s the Union’s current salary picture (grouped in fives for ease of reading; figures are “base salary/guaranteed compensation”):

Senior roster (20 spots)
Roland Alberg $328,000/$377,250
Fabinho $142,000/$150,008
Eric Ayuk $62,500/$62,500
Tranquillo Barnetta $650,000/$709,100
Alejandro Bedoya $1,100,004/$1,166,254

Brian Carroll $120,000/$128,000
Anderson $150,000/$174,166
Warren Creavalle $118,000/$125,666
Charlie Davies $108,937/$113,315
Maurice Edu $725,000/$793,750

Leo Fernandes $63,000/$63,000
Ray Gaddis $150,000/$152,500
Ilsinho $430,000/$478,333
Matt Jones $75,000/$80,625
Kevin Kratz $62,508/$76,758

Richie Marquez $63,000/$63,000
John McCarthy $79,000/$88,250
Chris Pontius $380,000/$411,000
Walter Restrepo $125,000/$139,500
CJ Sapong $225,000/$225,000

Supplemental Roster (8 spots)
Andre Blake $100,000/$138,000
Fabian Herbers $100,000/$125,500
Josh Yaro $130,000/$194,000
Derrick Jones $51,504/$57,404
Auston Trusty $51,500/$80,604

Ken Tribbett $51,500/$51,500
Taylor Washington $51,500/$51,500
Keegan Rosenberry $62,500/$68,312

Off
Cole Missimo $51,500/$51,500*
* Season-long loan to Bethlehem Steel.

Total salary budget (1-20): $5,156,949/$5,527,975
Total budget (1-28): $5,755,453/$6,294,791
Total expenditure (w/ off-budget): $5,806,953/$6,346,291

Some highlights:
Read more »

At season's end, Tranquillo Barnetta will be headed back to Switzerland.
How might the Union replace his sizeable contributions? (AP)

The Philadelphia Union, in a surprisingly and laudably proactive announcement Tuesday morning, revealed that Tranquillo Barnetta will be leaving at the end of the 2016 season to rejoin the club of his youth, FC St. Gallen in Switzerland.

The possibility was long mooted, with Barnetta’s contract purposefully drawn up at 18 months from last summer to offer both club and player the flexibility to escape and the acquisition of Alejandro Bedoya, a player capable of playing the No. 10 role.

Barnetta will be missed, as he’s been an exemplary player over 37 games (plus whatever’s left this regular/postseason) and ambassador for the club. The “why” of the timing is fairly clear, with Barnetta having achieved his objective of an American experience and wanting to have something left in the tank for St. Gallen, but I’ll leave Barnetta to speak for himself if he’s available after training Wednesday.

I’ll stand by the declaration last summer that he’s the most decorated player the Union have ever acquired, and even with Bedoya, Charlie Davies and Ilsinho since joining, Barnetta retains that title with his wealth of Bundesliga, European Champions League and three World Cups worth of experience.

The conversation shifts as to how to replace Barnetta, a discussion we can have now and then shift to the backburner as the Union’s late-season run plays out. When Bedoya was acquired in August, I posited a Barnetta-less future that would seamlessly integrate Bedoya into the No. 10 role instead of the No. 8 that he’s a less obvious fit for. From the blog:

That’s not to say the Union would move on from Barnetta. But if they can't resign him or wanted to divest themselves of a potentially redundant asset, Barnetta could make sense. Or Bedoya could be the starter with some combination of Alberg and Barnetta as reserves or on the wing. And it allows (Derrick) Jones, hailed as the No. 8 of the future, a chance to grow into the job. What better way for him to do that than sandwiched between Edu and Bedoya?

Let’s alter the thinking somewhat. I’ll follow the lead of my colleague, Kevin Kinkead, in this. If you’re replacing Barnetta and have the $700k or so of salary cap flexibility, what could the Union get?
Read more »

Union manager Jim Curtin lauded new signing Kevin Kratz, center,
for his intelligence and versatility in midfield. (AP)

Sandwiched between a loss in Portland and a daunting trip to Toronto, Jim Curtin addressed plenty of odds and ends Wednesday in his weekly press conference. Here are some highlights:

- Two injury absences from training: Tranquillo Barnetta has some swelling after a knee-to-knee collision with Fanendo Adi last week. He’s getting a scan and sat out the Wednesday morning session, but Curtin said, “I don’t expect him to miss the weekend.” Josh Yaro is underdoing concussion protocols after sustaining a head injury in Portland. With Yaro suspended after “wrongly getting sent off” in Portland, there’s less immediacy to him passing that battery of tests.

- CJ Sapong, as has been written, hasn’t supplied many goals or shots in recent weeks, which seems too narrow a scope on which to criticize for Curtin. Despite Sapong’s lack of tangible statistical contributions, Curtin remains high on the things Sapong does to make those around him better, and it doesn’t sound like rest or a chance for Charlie Davies to start is in the offing. Curtin on Sapong:

“He brings a lot of things to our team. Again, it’s a little deceptive, one shot on target. I guess if you take that as a snapshot and you don’t really look any deeper, he still has created chances. … The margins in our league are very small. He’s still a forward that I very much believe in, a guy that brings a lot of intangibles to every game. He’s a big part of our success and one that we know will get going and get goals. Even if he doesn’t get goals, he’s going contribute and make everyone else’s job easier around him. Still very much a believer in CJ and what he’s about.”

- Given the choice of sitting Sapong or morphing the formation to a 4-4-2 to accommodate minutes for Davies, Curtin seems to favor neither. “We don’t want to get too drastic now,” he said. “We’ve gone through 30 games with one system. We don’t want all of a sudden to completely change. Is it something that you could see if we’re down a goal and chasing a game? I think you could see a second striker in there. … We’re still a 4-2-3-1 team.”

- At field level, the Talen Energy surface is being resodded after last week’s concert. Only the final third in the River End, where the main stage for the Rock Allegiance concert, appears to be getting the facelift.

Resodding underway at Talen Energy Stadium pic.twitter.com/cUzDHuEh63

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) September 21, 2016

Read more »

Something unusual will happen Saturday evening when the Philadelphia Union host Toronto FC at Talen Energy Stadium: Of the 22 players chosen to start the game, nearly half will have experience playing for the U.S. National Team. And for once, the Union will actually contribute significantly to that tally.

The Union’s summer dealings can be characterized by many lenses. But one is the acquisition of players in Alejandro Bedoya and Charlie Davies, who’ve represented the U.S. internationally.

And so Saturday, using the Union and Toronto rosters, you can cobble together a fairly cogent starting XI of fully capped American internationals.



There’s some fudging position-wise. Chris Pontius is included, and while he has never appeared for the U.S., he’s twice been invited to camps and traveled internationally without getting in a game, and it’s reasonable to assume that had he not experienced such bad injury luck, he’d have that cap by now. (Consider this the start of the campaign for Pontius to play the role Ethan Finlay did at January camp and beyond last year.) There’s also no capped goalie, but Alex Bono, the former Reading United player, has played for the U.S. Under-18 team, so he’ll do.

The spine of the team is formidable. It features, when healthy, the U.S.’s top striker for the next World Cup cycle (Jozy Altidore), its captain (Michael Bradley) and arguably one of the first two or three names coach Jurgen Klinsmann pencils into the lineup in Bedoya.

That isn’t a bad team, if you could swap a forward for a truer fullback. It’s certainly a darn good one from a marketing standpoint, and it reveals a point about the Union’s direction.
Read more »

The chemistry between Chris Pontius, left, and Charlie Davies, center,
goes back to their days with D.C. United in 2011. The hope is that it carries
over to the Union. (AP)

The Philadelphia Union were among the most active teams in the last day of the summer transfer window and beyond, with Alejandro Bedoya and Charlie Davies coming in and Sebastien Le Toux heading out, with all manner of MLS financial devices switching hands.

What did all that mean at Union training Thursday? Some reaction from Chester:

- Davies, acquired from New England Thursday morning some eight hours after the close of the transfer window, will arrive late Thursday. He played last week for New England after three months out for what was revealed to be cancer treatment for a disease now in remission and will likely be available for selection Saturday at D.C. United.

- Bedoya, coming in from French club Nantes, will meet the team in D.C. He’s ramping up his fitness from the European preseason, and manager Jim Curtin said Bedoya played 60 minutes in a friendly this week. But the travel calendar makes it unlikely he’ll debut Saturday.

- The Union, Curtin said, are not done in the summer window. Though the MLS secondary window is closed, teams can still add out-of-contract players in the coming weeks ahead of a mid-September roster deadline that is hard and fast. Curtin said, “there are a few trialists that will be coming in for the next few weeks,” primarily on defense. Expect a long-term solution at left back to be one of the top priorities. The Union have one roster spot to play with.

- Both of the Union’s moves were attacking in nature, for a team that has struggled mightily in giving up goals. Here was Curtin’s reaction when that apparent conflict was posed:

“It does need to be said that as you do improve with the ball, the other team can’t score. So we need to improve that part of things. Getting Alejandro, while he is a great attacking player, he will do the defensive running that strengthens our team in that regard. Our breakdowns right now, we are still looking. … We don’t neglect what our weaknesses are. I think we have a good idea what our weaknesses are and what we need to improve.”

Read more »

Charlie Davies, left, playing for New England against Orlando City last week,
is the newest member of the Union after a trade completed Thursday morning.
(AP)

The final move in a hectic final day of the MLS transfer window needed an extra eight hours to clear. But when the dust settled Thursday morning, the Philadelphia Union had achieved clarity on its aim this summer.

The Union capped a flurry of deals by acquiring forward Charlie Davies from New England along with a 2018 third-round SuperDraft pick in exchange for a 2018 first-round SuperDraft pick, general allocation money and targeted allocation money.

Capped with the transfer of designated player Alejandro Bedoya and the departure of Sebastien Le Toux to Colorado, the Union don’t exactly overhaul the roster but put on some important finishing touches for what they hope is a playoff run.

All told, the Union acquired Bedoya, Davies, the third-rounder and GAM from Colorado. They spent GAM, TAM (both to New England and Chicago for the top spot in the allocation order to get Bedoya), a discovery rights swap with Chicago and first-round SuperDraft picks in 2017 and 2018 while also bidding farewell to franchise all-time leading scorer Le Toux.

In Davies, the Union get a workhorse depth forward who brings as much off the field as on, though at a third of the cost of Le Toux and two years younger. Davies, 30, has been limited to just nine games this season as he battled cancer that was recently declared in remission.

He had a breakthrough 2015 season, scoring 10 goals and four assists in 33 games, but he was marginalized in New England with the arrival of Kei Kamara.

Davies, like Bedoya a Boston College grad, spent much of his career in Europe. Like Bedoya, he played in Sweden with Hammarby and France with Sochaux, where he was a teammate of former Union player Vincent Nogueira. He also used a successful loan stint with D.C. United to earn a season-plus in Denmark with Randers.

Davies, who becomes the fifth member of the Union with U.S. National Team caps, has played 17 times for the U.S. from 2007 to 2009, when his career trajectory was infamously altered by a car accident that cost him over a year on the field.

Davies’s cap hit is a shade under $107,000 this year, compared to Le Toux’s $300,000. More important than his role as a reserve forward could be his veteran presence with a young squad, and the wise-beyond-his-years Davies certainly provides a benefit there.

.@NERevolution striker @CharlieDavies9 beats cancer and is ready to take his life back and return to the field. https://t.co/Soq2kOBc1V

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 31, 2016

Union (4-2-3-1)

Blake

Fabinho-Marquez-Tribbett-Rosenberry

Creavalle-Carroll

Ilsinho-Alberg-Pontius

Sapong

Bench: McCarthy, Anderson, Gaddis, Fernandes, Le Toux, Nogueira, Herbers.

New England (4-2-3-1)

Shuttleworth 

Tierney-Goncalves-Farrell-Watson 

Koffie-Caldwell 

Fagundez-Nguyen-Rowe 

Bunbury 

Bench: Knighton, Neumann, Hollinger-Janzen, Barnes, Woodberry, Agudelo, Herivaux

- The Union won with this lineup in Columbus last week, so why not go back to the well? The central midfield pairing of Warren Creavalle and Brian Carroll appears a little conservative, but it should give free reign for Creavalle to get forward. He did score plenty of goals in the preseason, and he’s made some smart runs forward, so let’s see if he can shift the numerical balance in attack.

- Roland Alberg gets his first start with the Union, moving Ilsinho to the wing in place of Leo Fernandes. It’s a good chance to see how those two work together and whether that brings the advanced dynamism that Jim Curtin hopes for.

- All is quiet on the defensive front. Ken Tribbett and Richie Marquez reprise their partnership, while Keegan Rosenberry gets a third straight start. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

- The big change for the Revs is enforced by Charlie Davies’ hamstring injury. He misses out, with Teal Bunbury shifted up top and Kelyn Rowe introduced. It’s not a huge change, and Lee Nguyen and Diego Fagundez are still out there to ease any transition. Juan Agudelo is on the bench in case things don’t work and Jay Heaps can make a change.

(MLSsoccer.com)

How aggressive is Jack McInerney? The other day, the kid took a hit in the goal box that created a shiner. The hit came from his teammate, Amobi Okugo.

"I was behind him, trying to make my run, and my head ran right into the back of his," McInerney said.

McInerney eventually scored a stoppage-time goal that helped the Union dispatch New England. His aggressiveness led to the goal, with McInerney putting one in the back of the net off a header --- not five minutes after getting a shiner.

Still, McInerney's aggressiveness begs the question, 'How much is too much?'

McInerney, second-year man Gabriel Farfan and veteran Freddy Adu each have been booked this season for what a referee has ruled 'simulation.' That's 'diving,' for those who don't speak Soccer-ese. On all three occasions, those players were in the box and -- whether by perceived contact, anticipated contact or actual contact -- went to the turf and picked up a yellow card.

McInerney, in that win last weekend against New England, was dropped in the 57th minute, drawing a foul that led to an Adu penalty-kick tally. Twice this season, in both MLS play and friendly competition, rookie Antoine Hoppenot was tripped up and the Union earned penalty kicks on both.

But when do the negatives (like bookings, or a reputation for taking a dive) outweigh the positives (like the chance to pick up a PK as a result of getting an ankle clipped)?

"I don't think we're going to pull back," McInerney said Wednesday, at PPL Park. "Sometimes if you go down, it's kind of like -- after that -- you want to go down if there's contact. But we're not going to hold anything back or change the way we're playing just because we start to develop a thing around the league."

And that's not to say the Union have. There have been far-more criticized instances (like Charlie Davies and Alvaro Saborio, in the 2011 season) than those whistled as infractions against the Union. Additionally, the Union are 14th in the league in fouls drawn (with 240), while they're 8th in MLS in fouls committed (with 272).

"It's the referee's decision," McInerney said. "If there's a reputation going around the league, there's nothing we can do. We're just playing the way we feel comfortable."

Entering into evidence, Exhibit A:

And Exhibit B:

And finally Exhibit C:


Judge for yourselves, folks. Each one looks like it differs -- with McInerney taking the most contact, Farfan taking some but not nearly enough to result in hitting the deck and Adu didn't take any. He even told the media afterward that he anticipated contact and went down because of it.

In any case, aggressiveness on the attack can lead to goals. It can also lead to bookings and, worse, a negative reputation amongst peers. McInerney is aware of the risks and, as he said, he's not going to change.