Union owner Jay Sugarman and sporting director Ernst Tanner spoke to media on Monday morning for the first time since Jim Curtin’s firing. Spanning 30 minutes, Sugarman spoke at length on sweeping, macro-level concepts, while Tanner added his very-German bluntness to the discourse. The result was a mixed bag of questions and answers that suggest we’re going to see a lot of same moving forward, which is youth development and controlled spending wrapped into a Moneyball approach. My takeaways:

  1. Ernst gave it away right off the bat when he said in his opening that “over the course of let’s say, last year, we felt that we aren’t really aligned in what we are doing here.” The relationship between Tanner and Curtin was not in a good place. Tanner wanted to see more time for the young players and more development in that area. Curtin was loyal to veteran players like Alejandro Bedoya. After some time, the view on how to operate dissolved and the two weren’t on the same page.
  2. Tanner said straight up that he would have fired Curtin earlier in the year if this was Europe. He mentioned the losing streak as a reason for that. I’m not sure it would have been justified considering all of the international absences and injuries, and the fact that you’d be dissing a veteran and respected coach by dumping him halfway through the year.
  3. Tanner seemed miffed at the idea that the squad was lacking depth, and gave away another clue when he said “we had a little bit of dispute with our team in particular with all the players as I’m always hearing the young ones are not ready to play.. I tell you I don’t know if they are ready to play because we didn’t try it.” There’s some truth to this, but Curtin is the same guy who kept playing Chris Donovan when Tai Baribo was right there. I don’t know how many first team minutes were justified for Cavan Sullivan, Jeremy Rafanello, and Markus Anderson, but we’re talking about the same Curtin who gave more than 2,000 minutes to Quinn Sullivan, Jack McGlynn, and Nate Harriel, and previously played guys like Auston Trusty, Brenden Aaronson, Mark McKenzie, and Anthony Fontana. What’s the right number of kids that need to get playing time? 3? 4? 5? 11? 12? Fans don’t give a flying fuck about any of this. You put the best players out there, whether they’re 14 years old or 40.
  4. Sugarman – “Our core beliefs are not going to change, but we have to adapt as the league adapts.” What adaptation is he talking about? It’s great that they are spending/have spent $75 million dollars (his words) to build out this top-down academy model, with the new facilities and the school and all of that, but we all know this team doesn’t spend on big DPs or transfer fees, and successful, trophy-winning MLS teams are indeed doing that in 2024.
  5. Sugarman contradicted Tanner when he said this squad lacked depth. They both seemed to be in a general sense of denial in thinking that they could just run it back for the second-straight year and rip off what, 15 wins? And challenge for a trophy? This roster was bang average and it was naive to think the core wouldn’t regress.
  6. Not sure about you, but if I hear the word “development” one more time, my eyes are gonna roll out the back of my head. You look around the world at the greatest development academies in soccer and those corresponding 1st teams are always complemented by players who came from elsewhere. I always use the example of 1999 Manchester United, which produced David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, the Neville brothers, and Ryan Giggs. But they also went out and signed guys like Dennis Irwin, Jaap Stam, Andy Cole, and Roy Keane. Case in point, when the Union went to MLS Cup in 2022, only one homegrown player was in the starting XI, and that’s because Bedoya was injured, or else it would have been 0. That team featured several Ernst Moneyball signings, yes (Flach, Carranza, Wagner), but the academy contributed little that season after producing two players were a big reason for the 2020 Shield triumph.
  7. I didn’t hate Sugarman’s response to the “do you care more about development or winning?” question. They are committed to the academy, fine, but as stated above, “development” cannot be a core roster building strategy. The way the MLS system works, with the soft cap and various quirky rules, do you think we’re ever gonna see an Ajax or Benfica in North America? Develop, win, feed big clubs at the same time? I really don’t know. I see them becoming Salzburg, but without the trophies.
  8. Sugarman pointing to the playoffs and saying “it’s hard to win” was myopic. Columbus and Miami got bounced in the first round, sure, but they also won the Leagues Cup and Supporters Shield. The former spent money on Cucho Hernandez and Diego Rossi and the latter went out and signed four former Barcelona superstars. The Union, meantime, went out and pulled Anderson from the Spanish third division.
  9. Ernst is very German, so I appreciate his bluntness. When he talks about “development” not being restricted to homegrown players, he is correct, but that’s such an open-ended thought. Of course you coach players to improve, regardless of where they came from. But which of those players were you expecting more from? Leon Flach? Olivier Mbaizo? Andres Perea? Joaquin Torres? Maybe these players already hit a relatively-low ceiling, or were just average to begin with. And even then, who gets credit for Julian Carranza and Kai Wagner? Jim Curtin? Ernst Tanner? The coaching staff at large? What kind of development did someone like Jakob Glesnes require when he came over here?
  10. I would have preferred hearing much less of Jay and much more of Ernst. Jay is a nice man, and honest, but he’s been saying the same thing for a decade now. Ernst at least gives you something. We need more blunt Germans in Philadelphia sports.