The Philadelphia Union’s 2024 season begins next week in Costa Rica, and they’ll be running it back with the team they just ran it back with.

They upgraded 0 starting positions this offseason, re-signed two of their own guys, and only added around the fringes with young players who might not even play for the first team.

In typical Union fashion, these prospects will either become shoe-in starters and MLS All Stars, or they’ll never sniff the field. Feast or famine. That’s how it typically goes with Ernst Tanner executing Jay Sugarman’s moneyball, a strategy that has gotten them very close to multiple trophies since winning the 2020 Supporters Shield.

Yet no additional hardware has found its way to the cabinet.

You go into every offseason as a fan or media member asking some version of a simple question –

What did this team do to improve? 

Answer: not much. Close to nothing, actually.

Last year, when the Union decided to run it back with the 2022 squad that scored 72 goals and went to MLS Cup, they added Damion Lowe, Joaquin Torres, and Andres Perea, and we sold ourselves on the idea of adding depth to the best team to ever wear the shirt. Nobody had any problem with this. It wasn’t dissimilar from what the Phillies are doing this season, which is trying once again for the World Series with a team that’s already damn good. Outside of starting pitching and probably the bullpen, there’s not much that needs upgrading.

In Union hindsight, it was naive to think that the half-dozen guys who had career years in 2022 would be able to replicate that in 2023, playing a bloated and ridiculous schedule that included Champions League, U.S. Open Cup, Leagues Cup, and the MLS regular season while performing internationally as well. Jim Curtin still squeezed a ton out of that squad, which finished 4th in the East with 55 points and went to the semifinals of both the CCL and Leagues Cup.

The problem is that they exited those competitions with a THUD. It’s one thing to reach the ceiling, but in this case the ceiling was made of fortified adamantium, like if you took Wolverine’s claws, melted them down, and reshaped them into an impassable soccer roof. The Union were run off the field in the second leg of the LAFC series and played scared at home against Lionel Messi and Inter Miami, which was the most disappointing game this franchise has given us in many years (and there have been many stinkers).

Naturally, you’d want to try to upgrade a team that’s right on the cusp, but just needs a little bit of help. That’s what makes this most frustrating, because the Union are literally on the doorstep. They have consistently done more with less, and if ownership made that final piece of investment, and/or recognized that the time to go for it is right the fuck now, then you’d have an army of rabid fans lining up for season tickets and ready to blow the figurative roof off of Subaru Park.

Instead, we got the following offseason transactions:

Out:

  • D – Anton Sorenson (option declined)
  • GK – Joe Bendik (out of contract)
  • MF – Andres Perea (traded to NYC)
  • FWD – Nelson Pierre (loaned to Swedish 2nd division)

In:

  • LB – Kai Wagner (re-signed)
  • MF – Alejandro Bedoya (re-signed)
  • D – Isaiah LeFlore (signed from Houston 2nd team, tore ACL in preseason)
  • MF – Nick Pariano (homegrown signing)
  • MF – Sanders Ngabo (signed from Denmark)
  • D – Jamir Berdecio (on loan from Bolivian team)
  • FWD – Markus Anderson (signed from Spanish 3rd division)
  • GK – Oliver Semmle (signed from the USL)

They can continue to add, but this is what they’re starting with. It’s going to be the same starting XI – Mikael Uhre, Julian Carranza, Daniel Gazdag, Jose Martinez, Alejandro Bedoya, Jack McGlynn, Kai Wagner, Jack Elliott, Jakob Glesnes, the Olivier Mbaizo/Nate Harriel platoon, and Andre Blake in goal. There are some slight variations, with Leon Flach coming in and out of the diamond over the past year or so, sometimes because McGlynn was the better choice and sometimes because of injury. But the base rollout has not changed very much. They shuffled in a 3-5-2 in 2023 but their bread and butter has been the compact 4-4-2 with that same core of players.

So when the improvement is not external, we look inside for emergence. Who are the candidates for advancement and regression? Certainly McGlynn is going to be counted on to take the next step. Bedoya’s career is nearing an end, so we’ll probably see a platoon with Jesus Bueno on the right side. Harriel will only get better at right fullback (and should never play on the left) and Uhre absolutely has to be better this season. There’s more for Gazdag to provide from open play, in my opinion, and Lowe, who was the best of last year’s additions, is going to be counted on in the CB rotation.

I don’t see much to be excited about otherwise. Do Chris Donovan and Quinn Sullivan find that next gear? Is Tai Baribo settled and ready to contribute? Does Torres figure it out? This remains a top-heavy team and the depth drops off rather quickly. Mind you, the schedule is largely similar to what it was last year. They’ve got the CCC to start, then the regular season kicks right in, and next thing you know they’ll be slogging right through. One of these guys is really going to have to find that next gear and be a consistent bench contributor.

In truth, I’ve got zero juice for this team right now, which is tough to admit since I’ve been one of the Philly media’s biggest Union proponents over the years. This is a blue collar team that punches above its weight and has quality players who are also good people. They’re easy to root for. They grind and work and smother on the defensive end, blah blah, you know, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” And looking through a more distant lens, they’ve come so far in such a short amount of time, from irrelevant to a respectable franchise with a loyal fanbase, if still relatively small. The MLS Cup appearance and Leagues Cup semifinal got some attention from the four-for-four crowd, who otherwise didn’t give a shit over the years.

But you can’t lose momentum, and that’s what’s happening here. Things are getting stale. It’s hard enough that the league put these games behind the Apple TV double paywall, which iced out the casuals, but the front office and ownership aren’t doing enough to improve the squad and continue the multi-season run. They aren’t putting in that extra first-team investment and they aren’t forcing/marketing their way into the larger Philadelphia sports scene. It’s business as usual, with a mustiness wafting, which is disappointing to smell because this team still has a lot of great players and the potential to really throttle most of the opponents they’ll face this year.

You just ask yourself if they’ve done what’s necessary to get over the hump, and answer feels like a resounding no. Does anyone think otherwise?