Medunjanin fitting in quickly in midfield

CHESTER » It doesn’t take long into a conversation with Haris Medunjanin to see the attraction between he and Earnie Stewart.

The Bosnian midfielder speaks with a profound self-assurance of his considerable soccer gifts and a nuanced conception of the soccer field, imbued by years in the Dutch youth soccer systems and honed by years playing across the globe. Smoothly, in just a matter of weeks, he seems to have blended his sensibilities with the demands of the Philadelphia Union’s shape and philosophy.

“It’s still early. I’m just here two weeks with the team, and you need some time,” Medunjanin said Wednesday. “But I hope that I

can manage that quick and settle down here in Philly.”

A season ago, the Union adopted a rigid understanding of their midfield roles, from the ball-winning No. 6 in the Brian Carroll/Warren Creavalle mold to the passing of Vincent Nogueira in the No. 8.

Medunjanin is different, distributing from a deep-lying role in what the Italians call a regista, essentially the distribution of a No. 8 from the withdrawn position of a No. 6. He doesn’t do the defensive work of the No. 6, nor the box-to-box industriousness of a No. 8, but he possesses the passing prowess to compensate and mandate others around him adjust.

“You learn quickly that Haris is a guy that you can give the ball to with a defender near him,” manager Jim Curtin said. “He’s very composed and calm in those situations. He’s a guy we want to start all of our attacks. He’s our best passer. That’s clear to everyone after two days maybe of training, they all saw that. There is a learning curve of everyone getting used to each other’s strengths.”

Medunjanin is also crystal clear on where his strengths lie.

“I’m not a defender. I know that of myself,” he said. “I know my quality. But if I have one guy next to me, it’s a lot easier. And if we defend with 11 men and play compact so you don’t need to be a defender, that’s what I think about. But when the space is getting bigger, it’s more difficult for me. So that’s why I hope I can keep everybody together and when we move, we need to move together.”

Medunjanin’s touch on the ball is abundantly obvious, cultivated over a decade in high levels of Europe and 54 caps for

Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the preseason, he’s entered from Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv and wowed with his penchant for spraying passes across the field, requiring constant vigilance from teammates. Whether or not a fellow Union player has seen the lane open up yet, they need be ready for a ball to come hurtling in their direction.

“Haris doesn’t have to be directly looking at you or making eye contact to make a pass,” Curtin said. “He sees things without looking. It’s almost a situation where our guys have to be programmed now to take off and trust that he’s going to find them, because he will.”

In that respect, Medunjanin is the heir apparent to Nogueira, a player whose passing the Union never adequately replaced when he returned to France last June. Medunjanin’s introduction necessitates some shifting of roles, adjustments that owe to other alterations in the team. Alejandro Bedoya won’t be the creative No. 10 that Tranquillo Barnetta was, but then Medunjanin will offer more attacking verve than Carroll and Creavalle did a season ago.

“I know my quality,” Medunjanin said. “I cannot take the ball and give it back to our center backs. That is not my job. Everybody can do that. My quality is to take the ball and create the space to make it difficult for the other opponent or to make my teammates more in a good position so he can turn and attack the goal.”

It’s a process Medunjanin appears to have a grasp on. He speaks often of space, a topic broached more often in conversations with coaches than players. He views the game in terms of where players will be more so than where they are, and from his position, he can conduct how the Union move as a team and orient their shape, remaining compact defensively and exploiting fissures in opponents’ formations. With the amount of touches he’ll demand, Medunjanin will be the metronome in midfield keeping the Union in time.

Early in his tenure, the acclimation process has centered on establishing relationships — with Bedoya, whom Curtin designated as his preseason roommate in Florida, and with Derrick Jones, who appears poised to start next to him in Vancouver in Sunday’s season opener.

Medunjanin and Bedoya in particular could comprise the spiritual axis of the Union’s evolving identity. Two players in their primes, with World Cup experience and distinguished club pedigrees, they’ll drive the Union on the field and in a larger sense in building on last year’s resurgent season.

“They’ve played the game at the highest level, at big clubs,” Curtin said. “Their experience speaks for itself. It’s things like how to manage games, in the hard part where games get sped up, they don’t have any panic in them. They are guys that have been through these wars.”

“They’ve played the game at the highest level, at big clubs. Their experience speaks for itself. It’s things like how to manage games, in the hard part where games get sped up, they don’t have any panic in them. They are guys that have been through these wars.” — Union manager Jim Curtin