Union

On Depth: Let’s Hope the Union Don’t Squad Rotate Their Way Out of the Supporters’ Shield Race

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Jul 21st, 2025 · 4:00 PM EDT

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“To squad rotate or not to squad rotate?”

That is the question William Shakespeare asked of the Philadelphia Union, who settled for a 1-1 draw in Houston on Saturday night. They were a late VAR decision from earning a penalty and perhaps taking all three points home to Chester, which would have capped off a three-game winning streak ahead of the All-Star break.

As it stands, they’re tied for second in the Supporters’ Shield race and one point behind Cincinnati with 10 games left to play.

But they were leading the Shield race going into Houston and Bradley Carnell heavily rotated a squad playing its third game in seven days, leaving Andre Blake, Olwethu Makhanya, Kai Wagner, Danley Jean-Jacques, Tai Baribo, Quinn Sullivan, and Indiana Vassilev on the bench. He handed starts to Olivier Mbaizo, Andrew Rick, Alejandro Bedoya, Jesus Bueno, and Jeremy Rafanello while pairing Bruno Damiani and Mikael Uhre in attack.

He explained the Blake choice as injury management, while saying this postgame:

“In terms of rotation, Mikael Uhre (is a) DP striker, (Jesus) Bueno a Venezuela national player. What else do we have… you know, Jeremy Rafanello, maybe you would say he’s the only one you would say had limited game time so far. Other than that, these are seasoned pros, and if you had that on a lineup any other day you would say ‘okay,’ it’s a decent lineup by us.”

…

“We’ve built confidence throughout the group, we’ve built competition throughout the group, and we believe in the whole group. I think we’ve shown that on display – how many times have we rotated? Against St. Louis, against multiple teams so far we’ve played different lineups, and we’ve kept teams guessing. Everyone’s come through so far, and if I don’t make these changes, then guys are going to lose hope in training, and then they don’t give maximum effort. Everyone knows that if they train hard they’ll get to play as well. That’s the bargain or deal we have with each other, if someone needs a change, if someone needs a rest, if we have 46 points in the bank and we go away to Houston, which is a tough trip, and we have some All-Stars going away next week, so yeah, I don’t see why we shouldn’t give confidence to the group.”

There’s a bit to unpack there, so we’ll take it one line at a time:

• Uhre is a DP, Bueno plays for Venezuela, etc – No disputing that. The striker group has largely been rotated this season, typically because of injury management and then Baribo getting stuck in Israel. But make no mistake, if Baribo is healthy, he should be starting every game. The guy was the Golden Boot leader for much of the season. And Chris Donovan has given the Union pretty much nothing, so it should be a three-striker rotation at best, if the Baribo/Uhre/Damiani trio is healthy and available.
• Jeremy Rafanello, maybe you would say he’s the only one you would say had limited game time so far – This isn’t entirely true. Mbaizo hasn’t played a lot of minutes and Westfield has logged the majority of his minutes at right full back. Bedoya and Bueno have been rotational guys, sub-500 minutes before the Houston game.
• building group confidence and previous squad rotation – Can’t argue with Carnell here because he’s played pretty much everyone at some point this season and they’ve gotten these miraculous results. It was like we were watching a team of destiny when they went unbeaten over 13 games in all competitions and you had guys like Markus Anderson coming up with big goals in the dying minutes. He truly does believe in this approach and at least there’s no waffling or indecision.
• if you don’t make changes, it hurts training, guys stop caring – This is true, but your best players are you best players. Should Larry Brown have started Raja Bell over Allen Iverson because A.I. didn’t work very hard in practice? Every coach has to balance the health of the overall group and the concept of meritocracy with the ultimate purpose, which is to win games and win trophies. If that means Jeremy Rafanello works his tail off in training, but only plays 200 minutes this year, so be it.
• 46 points in the bank – Okay that’s great, but the objective is to finish with the most points, and you’ve got an opportunity here to win a trophy. So what’s the goal? Is it to win the Shield? Win the U.S. Open Cup? Get a high playoff seed? The points don’t stay in the bank for future use. You are right there at the top and every point matters.

Keep in mind, the Union only play five July games because the USOC quarterfinal against Red Bull was postponed. They did have guys on international duty earlier, and there are various levels of injury recovery and load management that we aren’t privy to. Maybe Baribo isn’t 100% yet, maybe Player X picked up a minor knock in practice. That’s the stuff we’re never going to know from a fan and media perspective.

Confidential information aside, the whole point is that there’s a trophy in sight here. The goal is to win the Supporters’ Shield, not give everybody an opportunity to play. You don’t win a trophy for having the best depth. There’s no award for building the MLS squad with the most interchangeable parts.

What’s more is that this isn’t the Philadelphia 76ers being totally satisfied with the 3 seed in exchange for a healthy Joel Embiid come playoff time. The Supporters’ Shield is harder to win and more meaningful than MLS Cup, because it honors sustained excellence over the course of 34 games. MLS Cup you’ve got some team like Red Bull in 2024 who were bang-average for most of the year and got hot when it mattered. I’ll take the Shield over MLS Cup any day of the week, unbalanced scheduled or not.

Anyway, not to create a strawman here, or be dramatic, because the Union were pretty close to three points on Saturday. Was starting Sullivan over Rafanello or Wagner over Mbaizo the difference between a win and a draw? Nobody can say for certain, but we do know that the elder Sullivan has the second highest G+A on the team, and he played a grand total of one minute. Wagner is arguably the best player in the entire squad, and he played 32.

We also know that the Shield margins are incredibly slim, as evidenced by the greatest team in Union history getting boned in 2022 by fugazi tiebreaker rules that favored LAFC. They scored 72 goals that season and conceded 26 and all they needed was one more point somewhere along the line to lift their second Shield in three seasons.

Alas, it did not happen.

Funny enough, Jim Curtin was always criticized for not doing enough squad rotation, and now Carnell will go 10 guys deep on the bench. We’ve swung so far from one end of the personnel spectrum to the other that now we all have whiplash.

For context, Curtin played 15 guys 500 or more minutes back in 2022, while Carnell has already given 16 players 500+ minutes through 24 games this year. Different philosophies, but the end goal is the same, right? You play to win the game! As Herm Edwards once said.

And who knows, maybe they go on a tear down the stretch here, they beat Cincy and Vancouver, and stave off Nashville and others and win it all anyway, which would be incredible. But nobody is living in a fantasy world where they think the Union are going to win 11 in a row to lift the Shield. This isn’t the no-parity Premier League, where only five teams have a legitimate title shot every year, and they finish with 28 wins. That doesn’t happen in MLS.

That being said, you have to give yourself the best chance along the way, and if the Union don’t win it, hopefully it’s because they fought for it and came up short, and not because they decided to leave too many good players on the bench.