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 »

Yeah, Andre Blake and Jack Elliott, there's been a lot of that lately
for the Union. (Times File)

There is, mathematically speaking, a possibility the Philadelphia Union could win Saturday against Montreal. Odd things happen in MLS all the time.

On the off chance that that occurs (and that’s the last bit of snark for this post), the Union would banish their winless streak that has covered the last 14 meaningful games. So without qualifiers or the mudslinging that seems to popular online, let’s lay out what exactly this streak of futility has entailed.

- The Union have lost 14 games in all competitions – the last seven of the 2016 regular season, the playoff game to Toronto and six straight to open 2017. In that stretch, they are 0-10-4. That’s a return of four points out of a possible 42 points or 0.29 points per game.

- Exclude the playoff game, and the Union have endured 13 straight regular-season games sans victory. Should that stretch to 14 (and 15 overall) with anything but three points against Montreal, they enter ignominious company in MLS history (from the league’s Facts and Record Book):

Should the Union fail to win Saturday vs. Montreal, it would be 14 straight regular season games w/o a W, tied for 9th most in MLS history pic.twitter.com/OiQrvUD9TW

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) April 19, 2017

- The Union have allowed 28 goals, a tidy average of two per contest. They’ve scored just 11 goals.

- On the concession side, the Union have kept just one clean sheet. More worrying, they’ve allowed multiple goals in 11 outings. Yet they haven’t allowed more than three goals in a game, that one breakdown that skews the numbers, indicating a steady stream of goals each week.

- Home field has been no refuge. The Union are 0-4-2 in home games, having allowed 12 goals (again, right at two per game) and scored just four. A loss or tie this weekend ties the franchise record for the longest home winless streak at seven, set from March 15-July 12, 2014. That run involved five draws at least, though it spanned the firing of John Hackworth. 
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This late season stumble by Andre Blake and the Union
at the hands of Montreal's Matteo Mancosu has become the norm
for the club in recent years. (AP)

There’s an exclusive club that the Philadelphia Union belong to, one they’d love to graduate from, one whose membership dues are being paid again this fall in accordance with a familiar and dispiriting pattern.

In MLS history, two clubs have never won more than 12 games in a season. One is Orlando City, which won 12 games in its inaugural season of 2015 and guaranteed in Saturday night’s drubbing by D.C. United that it will miss the mark for another year, sitting at seven wins with four matches to play.

The other is the Union, and the odds of the club escaping that miasma even in this resurgent season are getting slimmer with every passing non-win, even if Saturday's 1-1 draw in Toronto is objectively a positive result.

The Union’s season-best for wins ominously endures at 12, set not in the playoff season of 2011 but in 2013, when the Union accumulated 46 points yet finished seventh in the East (they could end up fourth this year and in the playoffs with fewer points, but that’s another story).

Looking at wins historically in MLS is fraught, given past practices like the shootout and vacillating schedule lengths. But if we narrow the scope to the parity-riddled expansion era of 34-game schedules since 2011, the Union’s lack of wins still resonates. Minus Orlando City and the Union, the other 18 extant MLS teams have not only won at least 13 games in a season at least once; they’ve all done so within the last four seasons. The longest such drought, beyond the Union, is Chicago and Colorado, each of whom won 14 games in 2013 and have struggled since.

That means 16 clubs have authored a better season in the last three years – including this in-progress campaign – than the Union ever have. (And by the way, MLS’s three extinct franchises – Miami, Tampa Bay and Chivas – all have at least one season of 13 wins or more.)

That may seem like piling on an undistinguished Union resume that needs no tarnishing. Edmund Burke never wrote about soccer, but the pertinence of this look back isn’t just trivial measurements. It’s the troubling trend it illustrates: The Union, as we’re seeing now, are atrocious at finishing seasons.
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Back in 2012, a youthful Brian Carroll helped the Union navigate
a late-summer rough patch akin to the one they've just endured.
(AP)

The sky was never quite falling in on the Philadelphia Union in the last month or so, even as they won one MLS game in seven and slid from jockeying for first place in the Eastern Conference to fifth. But it was a certified rough patch as the club came to terms with its early success and was forced to adjust, no longer able to take teams by surprise.

The causes for that tumble are myriad and not entirely cured by Saturday’s 4-0 thrashing of New England, though that road result goes a long way in augmenting players’ intangible confidence category.

Using history as a guide, though, there wasn’t much reason to panic, and Saturday’s result more affirms that the Union can turn things around rather than providing the outright proof.

The Union’s past is limited; instances where they have been in playoff position as they are now are even scarcer. Time and again this season, I’ve returned to the 2011 season as the blueprint of a playoff campaign, the only time the Union have qualified for the postseason. And while the seasons are vastly different in construction and approach, the ebb and flow of a playoff chase in a marathon season remains applicable. And through that lens, the Union from late June on have merely been ticking off another box on the 2011 replication checklist.

Travel back to that summer, and you may recall the dreadful stretch the Union endured, an eight-game winless run (0-3-5) from late July to mid-September that threatened to derail their playoff hopes. Read more »

On many fronts this season, Keegan Rosenberry, right,
and the Union are markedly better than last year's bunch. (AP)

Believe it or not, the Philadelphia Union are a third of the way through the MLS season. By the time the league breaks for Copa America in just two weeks, we’ll essentially be halfway home on the 34-game season.

As such, the time for talking about starts to the season is near its end. The targets of what teams are and what they aspire to be have a little more time to resolve into one distinct point. But the cost of the weeks spent in that quest for self-discovery are compounding with each turn of the schedule.

It’s too early to draw definitive conclusions about most teams, and the league’s playoff structure doesn’t require teams with championship ambitions to perform at their peaks in May. Even for the Union’s bright 10-game salvo, christening Jim Curtin’s team as anything more concrete than encouraging is problematic.

What we can say with absolute certainty is this: The Union of 2015 (and 2014, and 2013…) were afflicted by myriad problems. The 2016 team has made demonstrable progress on many of those fronts. In a number of categories, the Union have been vastly improved from failed seasons past.

Here are four areas in which the Union are proving this season to be different:

‘Keeping things steady

So once or twice in the past, some people on the Internet may have poked a little fun at the Union’s goalkeeping situation. In their defense, it’s only because the Union have consistently produced such ineptitude at the position that it does boggle the mind.

As long as Andre Blake is healthy, though, the goalkeeping ghosts remain silent. Blake has gotten plenty of attention this season, for the quality of his saves and his potential at Copa America with Jamaica. He’s on the path to being an elite goalkeeper, and it won’t be long before a club in Europe comes calling for the 25-year-old.

What’s important for now, according to the Union’s past, is that Blake is providing better goalkeeping than the Union has ever gotten.

For starters, Blake’s 33 saves already constitutes the sixth-best total in a season in Union history. And he’s had only 10 games:

Player, Season	GP	Saves	GAA	Sv %	CS
Zac MacMath, 2013	34	101	1.29	68.7	12
Zac MacMath, 2012	32	93	1.34	66.9	8
Zac MacMath, 2014	29	77	1.55	61.6	5
Chris Seitz, 2010	23	68	1.86	59.6	0
Faryd Mondragon, 2011	27	49	1.04	62.0	7
Andre Blake, 2016	10	33	1.10	75.0	2

Obviously, Blake requires time to catch his predecessors in most of those categories. But with the exception of Faryd Mondragon in 2011, Blake has the lowest goals-against average. He’s also way above anyone else in save percentage. Some of those metrics are independent of Blake as a goalie (for instance, Blake has little control over how many and how dangerous of shots he faces). But he’s doing a job within the confines of a team structure, and that’s leading to results.

Two’s company
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Union manager Jim Curtin, seen coaching in Seattle
last week, would move into the club lead for wins
in all competitions with his next victory. (AP)

Philadelphia Union manager Jim Curtin has often been blunt this season about his only full campaign in charge. ‘We weren’t good last year,’ has been Curtin’s message about 2015, paraphrased though its many uttered variations.

While no one’s lining up to argue that, the manager in his third season is approaching a piece of significant history: With his next win, Curtin will become the Union’s franchise leader in coaching victories. It’s possible that could come at home, with the Union embarking on a season-long, three-game homestand starting with Saturday’s game with New York City FC.

Curtin has managed 67 competitive matches for the Union (MLS and U.S. Open Cup). He carries a record of 25-26-17 in those games, even on wins with his predecessor, John Hackworth.

Hackworth went 25-32-20 in 77 matches. Peter Nowak, who oversaw a franchise-best 81 games, posted a 23-33-25 record and is already in Curtin's rearview mirror. (Updated: I neglected to include Nowak's two playoff games, both losses to Houston, in his record. Anyone else forget those?)

A major driver is Curtin’s record in the U.S. Open Cup. Over the last two seasons, the Union are 5-1-4 in the competition. (Technically, winning by penalty kicks is regarded as a draw, but it we want to get qualitative, Curtin’s team has advanced in eight of 10 matches.)

Curtin’s next MLS win will be his 21st, tying him with Nowak for second-most all-time and putting him two behind Hackworth.

Nowak, signed before the club’s inception, was in charge for two and a half seasons from the inaugural game in 2010 to June 13, 2012. Hackworth took over then and coached for three days shy of two years, when Curtin took over on an interim basis June 10, 2014 and was made full-time in October of that year.

The obvious difference between the coaches becomes obvious on points per game (in MLS play):

Coach	GP	W	L	D	Pts	PPG
Peter Nowak	75	21	30	23	87	1.16
John Hackworth	73	23	30	20	89	1.22
Jim Curtin	57	20	25	13	73	1.28

Curtin is well ahead of either of his forebears in that all-important ppg category. Barring a drop to last season’s 1.0 ppg levels or unforeseen circumstances, Curtin should top his predecessors this summer. And he has the potential to do it in many fewer games.

To add in the Open Cup component for total wins, Peter Nowak went 2-1-1 in the competition (including the qualification bracket in 2010 and 2011), both of his wins coming in the weeks before his dismissal in 2012. Hackworth won one game in 2012 and one in 2013 for a 2-2-0 record.

The Union bid farewell to Homegrown player Zach Pfeffer
after five seasons Friday in a deal with Colorado. (Times File)

An era ended Friday for the Philadelphia Union.

It wasn’t directly related to coaches or management or anything like that.

What ended Friday was the age of affixing outsized significance to the on-field actions of Zach Pfeffer on his narrow shoulders.

A bunch of other switches flipped with the trade of the 21-year-old midfielder to Colorado as the player to be named in the deal that landed the Union the No. 2 pick in Thursday’s SuperDraft and defender Joshua Yaro.

Pfeffer’s departure marks a clear end of what we can call the Nowak/Hackworth era of Homegrown signings, Pfeffer joining fellow honorees Jimmy McLaughlin and Cristhian Hernandez in the hallowed ranks of former Union members in a campaign that has been an unabashed failure. Pfeffer’s trade kicks out the crutch that often buckled under the weight of the Nick Sakiewicz regime that trumpeted commitment to Homegrown players out of one side of its mouth and whose only recourse was to point to Pfeffer in a desperate act of HG tokenism. (“See, we’re committed to Homegrowns. Look how Zach Pfeffer almost played last week.”)
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Union manager Jim Curtin has joined some undistinguished
Union coaching company with the slow start to 2015.
(Times Staff/Rick Kauffman)

The Philadelphia Union are struggling. That isn’t in much question, certainly not after last Saturday’s 1-0 loss to Toronto FC, which sealed the Union’s worst 10-game start to a season in terms of points.

Some of this alarming trend has already been explained by my colleague Kevin Kinkead in a recent post, but it’s worth digging a little bit deeper to put numbers to the overarching measure of the Union’s futility, which includes just two wins in the last 17 matches.

First off, the Union are 1-6-3 through the first 10 games. How does that compare to previous years? Not well:

2015: 1-6-3, 6 points
2014: 1-4-5, 8 points
2013: 4-3-3, 15 points
2012: 2-6-2, 8 points
2011: 5-3-2, 17 points
2010: 2-7-1, 7 points

The Union aren’t generally quick starters, but this is sluggish even by their standards. There’s a clear delineation between the season in which they made the playoffs (2011), the season in which they contended for the playoffs into the fall (2013) and the rest of the disastrous campaigns.

But the numbers are even grimmer than that. Not only is this the Union’s worst 10-game start to a season; it ties the worst 10-game stretch in franchise history. It joins the run from the April 5, 2014 draw with Chicago to the May 25 loss to L.A. Galaxy as the lowest points total over 10 matches. (That was also a 1-6-3 stretch.) The consideration of 10-game streaks includes ones that bridge the gap between multiple seasons.

Perhaps most alarming for manager Jim Curtin is this: Each of the last two managers of the Union was axed after a slow start. Then again, “slow” is a relative term:

Peter Nowak, 2012: Fired after 11 games, 2-7-2 record, 8 points, 0.72 points per game
John Hackworth, 2014: Fired after 15 games, 3-6-6, 15 points, 0.94 ppg 
Curtin, 2015: Through 10 games, 1-6-3, 6 points, 0.60 ppg

It’s important to stress that each of these situations is vastly, vastly different, and the numbers are no guarantee.

But as they stack up, Curtin needs some wins quickly to catch up to the pace of his predecessors. He needs a win against Vancouver Saturday to better Nowak’s ill-fated past, and it’ll take pretty close to a result in every game (over a very tough schedule) in the next three to improve on Hackworth’s record.

Rene Meulensteen, seen here with Fulham last year,
is happy to be working with the Union. (AP)

It’s possible that Friday could be looked at as a seminal moment for the Philadelphia Union, a watershed day in which their structures and hierarchy begins to take the shape required by the rigors of the new MLS (2.0 or 3.0 or whatever.0).

Announcements of such gravity –the contracting of Rene Meulensteen as a consultant, the formal declaration that a sporting director will be sought and the first public comments made by majority owner Jay Sugarman – provided plenty of food for thought and a lot of information to sift through.

So let’s distill it into a few important points from today’s press conference.

1. Jay Sugarman is not a silent owner.

It’s easy to have thought differently given his muted public presence, which fostered the notion among some fans that Sugarman was just the money and little else. There’s no doubt the enormity of investment that he’s put into this club, but his involvement (which I’m going to explore in a little more detail later) doesn’t entail writing checks and then ignoring how the funds are spent. Through co-owner Richie Graham, he’s had a hand in the creation of the Union Academy. Sugarman is an enormously successful businessman, and he got that way by identifying talent and allowing those people to do their jobs. And now, being less than satisfied by how those jobs have been done, he’s stepping in to put into practice his time learning about the team, the league and the American sports market.

2. Nick Sakiewicz is no longer involved in football operations.

In the assignment of duties Friday, one of the first was that Sakiewicz “and his team will focus on building the business and have the resources to compete as our league gets stronger and stronger,” according to Sugarman. Implicit in that statement, which Sugarman repeated later in the press conference, is that Sakiewicz will have limited to no hand in soccer operational decisions moving forward. That follows with Sakiewicz’s public statements of late (and depending on your perspective, has been the paradigm all along), and it dispels any misinformation to the contrary in concrete terms.

3. Rene Meulensteen is a temporary remedy.
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It’s been a busy week for the Philadelphia Union, and that’s just the club’s participation in the rumor mill.

Rumors have been swirling particularly swiftly this week over the possible appointment of a new coach full-time. First, there was this report by Soccerly.com’s Kevin Kinkead about a possibly imminent hire:

I'm hearing more rumblings that Rene Meulensteen will be the next head coach in Philadelphia. @MLSTransfers @UnionRumors

— Kevin Kinkead (@KevinKCBS3) September 9, 2014

Then there was Union CEO and Operating Partner Nick Sakiewicz quickly distancing himself from those reports to ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle, adding the name of Rene Meulensteen to the list of potential replacements on the record for the first time:

Sakiewicz confirms Meulensteen candidacy, but says "no decision has been made" about next Union manager: http://t.co/1mEkaGZaCf #DOOP #mls

— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) September 10, 2014

(It should be noted that Meulenesteen’s visit(s) to PPL Park had been reported prior to Sakiewicz’s confirmation. This would also be a good time to point out my column on the matter, as published last week.)

The topic obviously came up in interim manager Jim Curtin’s weekly press conference on two occasions Thursday. Read more »

Jim Curtin, alongside Nick Sakiewicz, took the podium for the first time as the Union manager Thursday morning and patiently addressed a number of topics for the better part of an hour. This is hardly the whole thing, but allowed me to post a few of the highlights. (Note: There are plenty of less-than-relevant asides in here that, for the sake of brevity and sanity, I didn't transcribe. I've tried to preserve the context here as best possible.

Opening statement (yes, it's this long):
First, I’d like to thank Jay Sugarman and Nick Sakiewicz for giving me this opportunity. It’s one I’m very excited about, one I’ll take with great pride, being from this city, it means a lot to me. I’d also like to thank John Hackworth and Rob Vartughian. Those are two guys that were able to give me my chance in the game with this club. Those are two guys that put in a lot of years here and left the club better than when they started. …
To the team, I’d say to put it simply, we’ve had a bunch of very good players have poor first halves of the season. We have 18 games left; that’s the good news. We have 18 games to get this ship right. We have the U.S. Open Cup, which we’re going to take very seriously. This club needs a trophy. There’s only two that you can lift, and that’s one of them, so we’re going to take that very seriously.
The big thing with me, the results haven’t been there this year. We all know that. We only have three wins in 16 games, so the results haven’t been here. But the resources are here to win. I’m confident in my staff that’s being formed right now, it’s getting pieced together, it’s a very strong one, it’s one that I trust. As an assistant coach, I have Mike Sorber, a guy who I respect a great deal, I’ve connected with very quickly, I’ve known from the past, times in Chicago. He’s a guy in a lot of ways who is more qualified as an assistant than anyone in MLS right now. He’s a guy that has World Cup experience. He’s a guy that’s played in a World Cup, so again a guy I’m going to lean on heavily. I also have a bright young technical director who’s very progressive in Chris Albright, a guy that I have a great relationship with. Again, has done everything that you can do in this game, an all-Star, he’s played in a World Cup, He is a guy that I’m going to lean on heavily to make decisions personnel wise, along with Nick….
On to the players, right up the middle, you talk about a Conor Casey who right now is in very good form, scoring four goals in his past two games. He’s a guy that just needed a run of games, and now he’s got that and he’s going to get that with me. He’s a guy I trust. We have a Vincent Nogueira right up the middle again, a guy that every coach in this league wants on his team. He’s special. We have Maurice Edu, who in my mind should be in Brazil right now, but he’s not. Has it been tough for him mentally? Yes it has, but we’re going to get him going the way we know he can be, and he’s a special player, one of the top players in this country and one of the top players in this league. When we talk about the things behind the scenes that are going on with this club, we talk about the resources that we had, the little things that you might not see – again I said the results might not be here, but the resources are. ...
We have the most passionate fans in the league, I believe. I’m a Philly fan as well. ... I know the passion that the fans have, I know the emotions that they have, and I know that the thing that they want is winning. That’s what this is about. We need to win. And we’re going to do it with accountability, accountability from the players on and off the field. That sounds like a simple message. I could sit up here and talk tactics and formations and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, what matters in this town is winning, that’s what I believe.
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Apologies for being a little delayed in posting this, but I wanted to make sure I went over it a couple of times to iron out a few slightly confusing details. You'll also find a bit of redundancy, which I can't really control. Here you go.

On the decision to fire John Hackworth:
Yeah, it’s tough. It’s always tough when you have a lot of respect for a person. John’s a great guy, first-class, been with us a long time. But I just felt at this point in the season, halfway through, we needed to make a change. We needed to make a change because first and foremost, I don’t know if any of you were at the game on Saturday, but it was an amazing environment, our biggest crowd of the season and we just had the best fans. And our fans deserve better results on the field. Unfortunately for John, he knows that it’s about results and this is a tough, tough business and you’ve got to make tough decisions. But really we have to go out and we’ve got to find a top, top-class manager that’s going to be able to deliver the results that our fans deserved.

On how long the search will take:
I don’t know. I know that the resumes are flooding in from all over the world. There’s a lot of people that love big markets and love to coach in Major League Soccer, so we’re going to be very careful and deliberate. Very strategic. And the most important thing is to find the right guy who can take this group of players, which frankly I still think is pretty good. I mean this is a team that a few games ago beat the defending champion in their home park. So let’s not lose sight of the fact that there’s a pretty good group of players here that need some direction and need some motivation to win a bunch of games in the remaining part of the year. But beyond that, we need a coach that is going to be able to take this team to an MLS championship.

On the timing during the World Cup break:
Well it certainly gives Jim Curtin a little breathing room and a little time to assess the situation and make whatever adjustments he needs to make. Jim’s been with the organization a long time. He knows our culture. He knows what we’re trying to do. He knows our fanbase. He’s a Philly guy. And he’s got sharp teeth. So I imagine he’s going to put together a plan and this time gives him that opportunity to do that.

On an audition for Curtin:
Pretty much every coach is an interim coach, isn’t he? If you really think about it in any sport. Jim knows what he’s getting into. He’s got an advantage over the many résumés that we’re going to look at, the many people we’re going to talk to, and Jim will have a solid kick at the can for this job.
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For the second time in the club’s history, the Philadelphia Union have announced a coaching change Tuesday, heading in a different direction from John Hackworth’s so-so two years, punctuated by a disastrous first half of the 2014 season. In steps Jim Curtin, who is regarded as having the knowhow for the job even at a young age (34). Given the fact that Hackworth was hired from within two years ago, it’s no surprise that Curtin will get a definite shot at the job and be vetted appropriately. A “serious global search,” in the words of CEO and Operating Partner Nick Sakiewicz, is currently underway for a long-term replacement.

Former Union player Veljko Paunovic, seen here in 2011,
has become a successful coach in the Serbian youth ranks. (AP)

Who that could be is an open question, and there’s no obvious name that jumps off the page. With the downward trajectory of Hackworth’s last four months, the window has long been open for speculation, and some of that preliminary work has been done by my colleagues over at PSP. But let’s float a few names out there.

Jesse Marsch: Like Hackworth, the 40-year-old did a stint as a U.S. national team assistant before a less-than-stellar turn with the Montreal Impact in 2012 in which he went 12-17-7 in the team’s first MLS season. What should’ve been sufficient for a second season in charge led to an ostensibly amicable split with the club that was likely less than amiable. A veteran of over 300 MLS games, Marsch is the solid, MLS-savvy option.

Veljko Paunovic: There was a fair amount of questions when the well-traveled Serbian midfielder ended a three-year retirement to play for the Union in 2011. However that term is regarded, Paunovic has parlayed it into a successful coaching career, piloting the Serbian youth teams since 2012. Having played nearly 300 games in Spain as well as other top European leagues, Paunovic presents a more international option, and he’s about the closest thing to hiring from within beyond Curtin.

Martin Rennie: The options for recycled, recently-fired MLS managers are slim. I would assume Robert Warzycha’s similarities to Peter Nowak (fairly or otherwise) would lessen his chances. Former New England coach Steve Nicol doesn’t seem quite right for the role (plus he’s well entrenched with ESPN), nor does Montreal’s hotheaded Swiss ex-manager Marco Schallibaum. Richie Williams, given his ties to New York during Sakiewicz’s days there, is intriguing and a name that was floated after Nowak’s axing. Rennie is a young manager who was dismissed by Vancouver last year against the popular wishes of the fanbase, and the Scot could invigorate a youthful Union squad.

In three weeks or so, the tenor of the Union’s position on summer reinforcements for the forward line has gone from no to maybe to specifics on who and what they’re looking for, a shift which constitutes warp speed for the club.

Kenny Miller might be too pricy an option
at forward for the Union. (AP)

It’s becoming blatantly obvious that something has to change quickly. The Union’s center forwards have five goals this season, four (excluding Jack McInerney’s one) from players still on the roster, and two of those were from the penalty spot. The club endured a stretch where no Union player scored from open play in five matches, a major contributing factor to the club’s franchise-record nine-game winless streak.

Those aren’t even the bleakest stats. Consider this: Conor Casey has two shots on goal this season in eight appearances (300 minutes). Antione Hoppenot has two shots, none on target, in 10 short yet increasingly futile substitute appearances.

The answer to the Union’s offensive woes must come from somewhere, and last Tuesday prior to the trip to Kansas City, manager John Hackworth had plenty to say about what he’s looking for.

Among the critical points from Hackworth are that:

- The club is looking within MLS and abroad.
- The club can’t afford to bring home another national teamer via allocation.
- The club is looking for someone to make an impact.

The push and pull of looking domestically or abroad is obvious. Hackworth admitted that the Union are unlikely to be able to pry a player of the quality they want away from their current MLS club, while eliciting international help would mean that reinforcements would be delayed until July 15, six games down the road.

This Wednesday, Hackworth added a new wrinkle to the discussion in broaching the topic of where the money and roster room would come from.
Read more »

Apologies if this sounds familiar, but until things significantly change at PPL Park, the tenor of the questions and answers is likely to be the same for a while. A few wrinkles are in there today, but otherwise, more of the same.

On the challenge of a West Coast swing:
We take this as an opportunity. You’ve got two games on the West Coast. When you’re planning these things out, it’s much easier to have two flights rather than four. You’d lose two days of travel if you came back and forth. So it makes sense to stay out there during this time, especially playing on a Sunday then the following Saturday. I think it’s good that our guys are going to be together full-time. That’s important because I think when you’re in these moments where things are not going your way, you’ve got to stick together and you’ve got to fight through it, so we’ll try to do that. But we still are playing the LA Galaxy on Sunday, which is a huge challenge and a game that we feel like we need to get a result in.

On righting the ship:
I think we have to look at the positives from our Kansas City game. I think we also have to look at all the positives from the games early in the year where we played really good soccer and had mistakes here or there. We continue to think that we are a good soccer team. The results are not showing that right now, so we have to go out there and make sure we do everything possible, maybe adjust some things tactically to give ourselves a better chance to be successful in those games. Saturday, for me, was not a really good indication because I think that game could’ve been much different. You have to give New England credit. We did not play very well in some moments, but I think that game could’ve been different in a lot of ways. We’ve just got to go back to it, believe in ourselves and see if we can get results. Honestly, this two-game road swing on the West Coast is not an ideal time to say that you have to get results, but that’s in fact where we are. We have to do that.
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The Union skipper didn't say a whole lot Tuesday as his team prepares to travel to Sporting Kansas City, but there's enough in there to be interesting. Here we go...

On feeling the pressure from the fans:
I certainly heard the fans on Saturday. It’s impossible not to hear a lot of the talk. I’ve told you guys before, and I’ve tried to be very diligent about staying away from reading stuff in the press lately. The reality is that it’s impossible not to be affected by it, and I wouldn’t say me as much as maybe what it does for the players. I think with this position, you have to understand that ti’s going to be part of the business. For the players, though, it’s an entirely different thing because it can certainly have a negative impact on them, and to be honest, I think it has.

On his job security:
I can’t answer that. All I can do is come to work every day and try to continue the plan that we’ve had for a long time to put this team in a position where we can be successful. That’s my sole purpose and goal, and really to try to alleviate any pressure or negative backlash the players might be feeling. I know from Nick Sakiewicz and our front office, I feel like I’m supported. But that’s a question for them more so than me.

On the team atmosphere:
I just think that we have a good locker room, we have a good team. I think the players believe in what we’re doing, and when I say they’ve been negatively impacted, I mean it’s hard for them to be in that stadium and have their total concentration be on putting their best performance when I think it’s a distraction. That’s just my own personal opinion by the way. Again, I’m trying to make sure that they do that. That is not a concern at all on my end. It will be alright either way. The focus has to be on them and their performance.

On if he still thinks this is a playoff team:
Certainly, again, the reality is that we have a big hill to climb to put us back in that position. I think it is absolutely possible. More importantly, I think this is a team – and in any organization or sport – I think you have to have time and patience to really build something the way that we’re trying to do it. I know that’s not something I can ask of the fans, so I’m not even going to try. But I absolutely believe in the guys in the locker room. I believe there’s a lot of quality there that can be very successful in the long run.
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Simple answers, not to mention win No. 2, continue to elude John Hackworth and his Union side. Here's what he had to say Wednesday about his team's loss to Seattle last week and its pivotal visit from D.C. United this week.

On the building pressure:
I think there’s always pressure, in particular you have the string of results that we’ve had. It builds. There’s no getting around that. But at the same time, when you have a team that you believe in and that you think is capable of scoring goals and you look at some of the stats of how many chances we’re creating, ti gives me some hope that we’re going to get out of that. And once we do, I think there’s a string of good performance and a lot more goals that will follow.

On Zac MacMath's performance in Seattle:
We just need to build off performances like Zac’s. He kept us in a game, a really high-level game on Saturday night. It was an excellent save, and he’s had a very good year. We need other guys to feed off him and have those kinds of performances so that collectively as a team we are more consistent and we’re playing from the first whistle to the last whistle.

On preparing for D.C. and Eddie Johnson:
You look at D.C.’s front four, and Eddie, while he has not gotten on the scoresheet yet, he is a major influence on that team and them having a successful early part to the season. So we know that for the second consecutive week that we’re going to face a pair of forwards in Fabian Espindola and Eddie that are in really great form. They’re combining well. It’s going to be a really tough task for us, but I think we’re up to the challenge. Hopefully we can do as good a job containing them as we did Dempsey and Martins for the most part.
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In a lot of ways, it feels like through the first two months of the 2014 season, I've written and re-written many of the same motifs over and over again. So why not let Philadelphia Union manager John Hackworth tell you the story by rehashing many of the same quotes over and over again? Here are some of the highlights from his weekly presser Tuesday.


Opening statement:
Our team is not satisfied at all with where we are. The fact that we are not getting the results that we want is unacceptable to all of us. I can’t emphasize enough that as players and coaches, that is first and foremost on our minds. At the same time, we continue to play at a level that we all believe if we do it, that the shots are going to start to fall for us, the ball is going to start to bounce our way. There will be some luck that comes with it and we will see a turn in these results. That hasn’t happened for us, and we’re all very frustrated with that. But we’re all very much of the mindset that we have done a lot of good things and we have to keep grinding away and go after it.

On the players' response:
The players have responded well. They’re all frustrated. They all know that to each one of them, they are capable of making a play when called upon. The reality is that we haven’t had guys make that play, and they all take responsibility for that. But I think there’s a belief within that locker room that they do have the capability to do it, so I think the response from them, albeit very frustrated and looking very deep inside themselves and at how we do things and what we do, there’s still a confidence that those guys are capable of making that final play, pulling off the final execution that we’re all looking for.
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Austin Berry, here jumping against Portland's Diego Valeri in the season opener,
finds himself on the bench behind Aaron Wheeler in the Union's
center-back pecking order. (AP)

John Hackworth is generally not one for grand declarations or illuminating insights into his coaching process as it pertains to players. That close-to-the-vest demeanor makes his open proclamation that Aaron Wheeler is his first-choice center back at the moment in favor of a healthy-again Austin Berry all the more poignant.

In full (asides and all), here is the answer Hackworth gave when I asked the question of the pecking order between Wheeler and Berry:

“I don’t think there’s a definitive answer for that because you have Aaron Wheeler, who’s played well. Being very honest – and I told Aaron this during the first half against Houston – he needed to be more aggressive. He needed to assert himself more. And he did a great job of that toward the end of the first half, and he continued to do that in the second half. You get a shutout as a team, and deal with an opponent in Houston who kind of like us came away from their previous game against New England, just they were going to go out and take shots from everywhere. And we defended pretty well as a group.

“My point is thought that Aaron has done well in the minutes that he’s played, and because we’ve had a positive result like getting a shutout and doing it against a team like Houston that was going to come out firing, I think Aaron is still the first choice. And Austin, and there’s other guys like Ethan White, who need to continue to work hard in training to see if they get that opportunity.”

So there you have it: Wheeler is the Union’s first-choice center back until further notice. The fact that in 2012, Wheeler was a forward in the Finnish second division while Berry was MLS rookie of the year as a central defender in Chicago is of no consequence in the debate, however interesting the sentence might read.

What is important for the Union and Hackworth is how they’ve stacked up this season. From what we’ve seen, there’s little separating the two. Wheeler has started five games, including the last two and five of the last six, while Berry has gotten three starts, finishing each game but the New England match, in which Wheeler spelled him for what goes a split clean sheet between them, I suppose. (Wheeler also played the final three minutes of the Portland game in a pseudo-defensive capacity; we’ll ignore that for this evaluation.)

So here are the raw numbers this season:
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John Hackworth had plenty to talk about today at his weekly press address, more than I have space to cover in print today. Some of the highlights:

On facing Jack McInerney: It’s going to be interesting. I know personally I’ll look forward to seeing him. There’s no ill will between us. In this game in particular, our whole goal will be to deny not only Jack but (Marco) Di Vaio and the rest of their attacking players the time and space they need to do what they do best, and he’s an opponent right now. But I’m sure after the game we’ll have a word and wish him well until we see him next time when he’s the enemy again."

On fixing wastefulness in front of goal:
All we can do is continue to train and do a lot of reps and train on those specific areas, both in how we attack the goal area and execute in front of it. There’s different aspects where we feel we did a good job in past games, and clearly if we look back to Saturday, we didn’t execute those moments. Some of them, we didn’t even get opportunities in terms of shots or shots on goal, but had some relay good plays there. We’re trying to make sure our guys know we want them to take those opportunities, then it comes down to execution. We’re trying to put numbers in dangerous spots and have good reactions to anything that happens in the box. When you look back at the game Saturday, we were really unlucky not to have scored a goal or two.

On the Union's point accumulation through the early season:
Obviously, we are not happy with where we are in the standings right now. We legitimately feel as though we should’ve won five of our eight games for sure at a minimum. However, you can’t take away your opponents and the game of soccer itself is just not that predictable in terms of where you play well and you get opportunities. That’s why it’s sometimes so amazing and frustrating and why people are so passionate about it. What I will say though is that within our team, we’re very confident about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. And my experiences as a coach is that the more you continue to play that way, the chances will turn. The tide will turn and we will see the results start to come our way. We’ve been doing a lot as a staff trying to analyze where we were successful and where we weren’t, where our opponents have gotten the better of us. The metrics that we look at, it’s pretty astounding the way we’ve played these eight games in terms of just putting the ball in a dangerous area. I think there’s a stat out there that a lot of people look at in soccer, and I don’t think it’s a good win. It’s shots, or shots on goal. It’s a terrible stat in soccer. I think the more important stat is how many penalty-area entries you get or how many final-third entries you have, how many successful passes you have, how many of those are forward. When you break down those metrics, we’ve been a really, really good team. Our thought is that we just need to continue to do that, and at the end of the day, at the end of the season, we’re going to be on the good side of that and it’s going to come out in our favor.
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