Midfield rebuild made easier by system, depth
If you step back and defocus your eyes, the Philadelphia Union’s offseason situation might seem familiar.
The squad is more than half-built, even if the senior roster is barely at half capacity, with 12 of 20 spots filled. The number of absences on that list of the first 20 players seems to grow in proportion to the stock of allocation money. And the Union heading into an offseason with two major holes in midfield? Well, that’s not new, is it?
In years past, the Union’s current construction would constitute an existential crisis. December has arrived and the only thing that we know about the players occupying the No. 6 and No. 10 roles on opening day next year is that they’re not members of the Union at the moment. (That’s assuming that Brenden Aaronson starts as one of the outside prongs of the diamond; either way, it’s two starting midfielders.)
But as the Union approach decade No. 2, the question isn’t how much the new arrivals will shape the character of midfield, but how much the midfield scaffold that the team has built around will shape who comes in to occupy those positions. And as the Union’s roster construction under Ernst Tanner progresses, the wealth of options provided by the Academy lessens the consequences of to the search.
Those two components, system and depth, will shape how the Union assembles its midfield this winter.
Of the two, the first is clearly more important. For all his gifts as a distributor, Haris Medunjanin’s deft left foot didn’t outweigh his defensive shortcomings. Soon to be 35, on a salary that would have far exceeded the role he would likely have played in 2020, he wasn’t a fit for Tanner’s blueprint.
The same is true for Fafa Picault, a straight-ahead winger in a 4-4-2 diamond system with no position for one. Ditto Marco Fabian, who for all his pedigree and attacking skill just didn’t fit the bill for a workmanlike No. 10 in Tanner’s high-energy system.
That trio combined for two goals and two assists in the playoff win over the Red Bulls in October, the club’s first postseason victory. But that didn’t automatically make them a fit, in Tanner’s mind, to help win the next playoff game.
The quest will be to find the next pieces — the No. 6 that is better adapted to be a lone backline shield, even if he lacks Medunjanin’s ability on spray passes all over the pitch; the No. 10 who can do the work Fabian couldn’t, even if he lacks the long-range shooting threat the Mexican posed.
“We already made a couple of decisions in the past year,” Tanner said at his year-end press conference in November. “I think we did very good signings last season to add really important pieces and those signings were more made exactly to the style we were describing, and we will continue on that.”
The carryover reserves make it somewhat easier for new signings to settle in, once they arrive. Warren Creavalle was one of the players the Union brought back; after 21 starts on a playoff-bound team in 2016, he’s made just 16 in the last three seasons combined, even as he’s grown as a player. He’s an underutilized asset who could be starting for several MLS teams, and he can do the job for the Union, albeit a more onedimensional, ball-winning role than what was asked of Medunjanin and what will certainly be demanded in his successor.
The midfield needs an infusion of attacking talent, whether or not Ilsinho and Jamiro Monteiro accept their offers to return (or in
Monteiro’s case, parent club FC Metz of France sells him permanently). But the cupboard behind isn’t bare.
Anthony Fontana was limited to 119 MLS minutes but had a goal and an assist … and scored in the U.S. Open Cup and a September friendly with Mexican club Pumas. Already 20, he may not possess Aaronson’s European upside. But he can certainly play a larger role in MLS, and giving him a fair shot to compete with the next No. 10 will likely be a priority this winter.
The two newest Homegrown signees happen to occupy the spots vacated by Medunjanin and Fabian. Cole Turner can play as a center back or a No. 8, but the No. 6 role suits the 6-1, 18-year-old, who arrives with 25 games under his belt with Bethlehem Steel in 2019. Jack de Vries is similarly flexible in terms of his position: Even more so than Aaronson, he fit the outside winger role in the old 4-2-3-1, with a tendency to invert or play centrally. But as de Vries showed with the U.S. Under-17 team, wherever he tends to play, he can impact games.
Both young players have Aaronson’s example to follow, with Aaronson playing 28 games last season and earning a trip to U.S. senior national team camp … just as Aaronson followed the likes of Auston Trusty and Mark McKenzie.
“I think it’s characteristic of the Union that we give our academy players a real chance to step into a professional environment, to let them train and to give them a chance to improve,” Tanner said. “If they take it is dependent on two things: talent and the willingness to work hard on it. Aaronson, Mark McKenzie, all of the guys we are having in our roster, they proved it and they made it. The same chance is (there) for Jack de Vries and Cole Turner.”
They’ll also have the chance to keep moving the Union forward. In 2019, the club made the postseason in consecutive campaigns and won a playoff game for the first time in franchise history, adding club records for wins and points. The more granular roster question isn’t how to return to that level but how to add pieces that will take the Union to the next level, to go from a team that could win a playoff game if they get there to a team that should make the playoffs and could win a championship.
That part of the offseason equation is what should feel new to most fans.