Edu likely headed back to midfield

The question pertained to such a thinly-veiled secret that the ever-confident Maurice Edu at first wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Minutes earlier Thursday at Philadelphia Union media day, manager Jim Curtin had disclosed what most watchers of the team had long suspected, from reading between the lines on offseason transaction reports to subtle yet barely-masked hints: Edu, at least to start the season, will play in midfield.

So when Edu was confronted with a query he’s tried to diplomatically handle for most of his two seasons in Philadelphia, he paused before offering a novel approach

“To be honest, I think that the year before last, if you would’ve asked me that question, I would’ve said, ‘yeah,’” to preferring midfield, Edu said at Talen Energy Stadium. “I think over the last season, I played a lot in the back and I got a lot more comfortable in that role and it’s something that I started to grow in.

“At the end of last season, I had a talk with Jim about it, and he and I talked about positions and I told him that I’m open to playing either. I just want to win games. Wherever I can be a bigger asset on the pitch, I want to play.”

The coda to that answer is substantially the same as Edu’s usual response. (For that matter, it’s essentially the same reply produced by midfielder/defender Amobi Okugo as the positional conundrum haunted his five seasons with the Union.) But the nuance reflects the altered realities of this year’s squad.

Edu in the midfield is contingent on certain conditions. It presupposes that some combination of Josh Yaro, Richie Marquez and Anderson Conceicao prove capable of holding down central defense. It reflects a renewed commitment to possession and passing out of the back that seems beyond the skillsets of other holdingmidfield candidates, Brian Carroll or the loaned-out Michael Lahoud.

The past has conclusively proved that Edu is willing to occupy whatever role Curtin requires. For evidence, look no further than Edu’s dedication to grit his way through the U.S. Open Cup final at less than 100 percent. Assessing Edu at either position must consider the players around him, and the hope is that a rising tide of quality and cohesion this season will lift all ships.

“He’s been a soldier for the club in terms of doing whatever the team needs,” Curtin said. “When we were leaking goals, we thought maybe against certain teams we’d put him in the back. There were injuries that led to him going to the back. And he’s done whatever we’ve asked.”

Also noteworthy from the Union captain is an update on his status with the U.S. National Team. The 28-year-old said he’d had contact with coach Jurgen Klinsmann, starting after last summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup. Per Edu, that has included interest in joining several national team camps, including the January get together, but Edu’s injury status — after sports hernia surgery in mid-October and a leg injury dogging him in the weeks preceding that — have precluded his participation.

••• On paper, the Union’s roster sits at 20 players, well short of the maximum 28. But there’s two caveats to that math that Earnie Stewart wished to share Thursday.

The first is that 28 is not a hard and fast number, and the Union’s sporting director doesn’t subscribe to the idea that more is necessarily better. The second qualifier is that while other teams are busy importing players, his club will wait for the right, rather than the most expedient, transactions.

“It’s not to fill every spot,” Stewart said on the former point. “We have to make sure that we have a competitive group together. Our goal is to have good players at every position. Having said that, that means that you’re not going to fill every roster spot that there is. It’s not so much the numbers game when it comes to, you have to fill those. As long as there’s quality and they make sure they raise the level of all the other players, that’s the choice you make.”

One mitigating aspect of the offseason agenda is Bethlehem Steel. Flexibility is preferable for the Union to be able to promote high achievers or based on need from Steel. You can expect one or two roster spots left vacant specifically for that consideration.

Then there’s timing. Stewart entered his position in December with a long-term mandate, so it behooves him to build thoughtfully and on the order of years, not months. Leaping for impulse buys like Scottish forward James McFadden — whose arrival looks unlikely despite various proclamations from the player’s camp on the other side of the pond — isn’t his style. Constructing a foundation via promising young defenders through the SuperDraft as he did two weeks ago is.

So it stands to reason that Stewart is willing to wait to get the right guy rather than the Union’s previous mindsets, which was to assemble a hodgepodge of acquisitions to give the illusion of busyness rather than progress.

“The ideal thing is before the first practice that Jim has all of his players in and we’re fixed and we’re set for the season, except it never works out that way,” Stewart said. “You can’t let time rush you, because you’ll overpay here and there, and that’s not the intention. So you want to make sure you’re cautious in the process and you bring in the right players for the right prices. You have to be smart, and rushing is never the right way to go.”