Philadelphia Union Need to Balance Depth Against Inter Miami

The Philadelphia Union kick off a six-game month at DRV PNK Stadium on Saturday night.

The blessing and curse of being a top team in any country is that those clubs play A TON of games.

You have heard the figures by now. The Union could play somewhere around 55 games if everything goes right in Major League Soccer, the Concacaf Champions League, U.S. Open Cup and Leagues Cup.

We only have actual match dates for the CCL and MLS, so let’s put the other two competitions to side for now.

The Union start a six-game March on Saturday against Inter Miami, three days before their trip to El Salvador to face Alianza in the CCL round of 16 first leg.

It will be a difficult run of games, but the circumstances in play will help the Union manage their schedule.

The Union had their trip to El Salvador cut in half thanks to their game being in south Florida on Saturday. That is a significant detail as the Union do not have to spend five to six hours on a plane and can get right to recovery on Sunday and Monday when they are in flight and on the ground.

Ask any MLS player and the less flying they can do, the better to help someone’s legs, even this early in the season.

The Union also have the break of resting four days in between the trip to El Salvador and the Week 3 home match against the Chicago Fire, which is really easy on paper. Thanks, MLS for that break. The Union are home at Subaru Park for the second leg against Alianza the following Tuesday.

It’s a busy calendar to deal with, but there are breaks and more depth around to handle the situation.

Union manager Jim Curtin stated on Wednesday during his weekly press conference that the whole squad will be used in some way.

“Miami is the priority right now,” Curtin said. “We do have a plan in place and we will really trust our roster. I believe very much in the players that we have. We just played today in a mixed, two-even teams, 11v11 and you can tell guys are really fighting for their spot not only in the starting group, but in the 20-man roster.”

There is a train of thought out there that suggests the Union should just punt on Saturday’s road game and be fully prepared for the fight against Alianza.

A stronger case can be made to rest the starters because of the depth that has been talked about for most of the preseason.

But remember where we are in the calendar. It’s still Week 2 and players are not begging for rest. If anything, they are still building up their in-game fitness.

It does not make sense for Curtin to rest all of his key players on Saturday with only one game under his players’ legs.

The better approach is to substitute earlier so that players receive more minutes and remain fresh for the trip to El Salvador.

Curtin and his staff most likely have a purpose to their plan. After all, this is an analytically driven team and more than four changes is frowned upon from game to game.

The different approach from Week 1, where the first sub was made in the 79th minute, should be to pull Alejandro Bedoya, Leon Flach, and maybe even Jose Martinez or a center back early in the second half.

The Union are not going to El Salvador to score four goals. They should be prepared for a scrappy tussle, and one in which they need to be defensively organized.

Damion Lowe, Andres Perea, Jesus Bueno and Jack McGlynn can play 20-30 minutes in south Florida so that the top defensive-minded players can rest a bit.

The Union can follow the same exact approach in the build-up to the second leg at home. They can rotate out Mikael Uhre, Julian Carranza and Daniel Gazdag from the Chicago game to be ready to finish off the round-of-16 early in the second leg.

Of course, the ideal scenario is to concede once or hold a clean sheet in the first leg and then pummel Alianza inside Fortress Subaru.

Curtin can worry about employing full-scale rotation when the Union have to play on the Olympic Stadium turf in Montreal on March 18. That’s the perfect “punt” type game because it’s on the road and on an unfavorable surface.

The Union can use the Montreal road game as a prove-it contest for all of the depth players to thrive in a 90-minute stint before the team gets a full week of rest ahead of the March 25 home game against Orlando City, which is more important than its preceding game because of the location.

The Union’s plan could be thrown off by a bad night in El Salvador, but this seems like the ideal approach with fitness and results in mind.

Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Union.