Philadelphia Union Need to Reinvent Their Roster Ahead of 2024 Season

The Union have a handful of major roster decisions to make over the next month as they prepare for yet another busy campaign.

The Philadelphia Union can no longer boast they made progress in the club’s end-of-year evaluation.

The franchise was stuck in neutral for a majority of the 2023 campaign in which it played over 50 games in Major League Soccer, Concacaf Champions League, U.S. Open Cup and Leagues Cup.

Philadelphia’s fixture congestion is not going away in 2024. The club clinched a spot in the Concacaf Champions Cup (the new name for the CCL) and Leagues Cup does not appear to be going anywhere.

For the first time in sporting director Ernst Tanner’s tenure, there is uncertainty that he will have the magic touch in the transfer market because of multiple misses last offseason.

There is a lingering feeling across the fan base that 2024 will come with a major step backward because of some impending departures and the lack of a competitive transfer budget, but the Union are still capable of competing at a high level, they just need to reinvent their roster to do so.

Most of Core Stays In Place

Let’s start with the good news about the roster.

The Union only need to replace one defensive starter.

Andre Blake, Jack Elliott, Jakob Glesnes and Nathan Harriel are all under contract. It should be an easy decision to pick up Damion Lowe’s 2024 club option.

The majority of the central midfielders, Mikael Uhre and Daniel Gazdag are assured to be on the 2024 roster.

The continuity across the back line and central midfield has kept the Union in a high position in the Eastern Conference for the last few years.

Brandan Craig had an unsuccessful loan at Austin FC to end 2023, but if he can improve in preseason training, the Union would have four center backs to use for even more rotation in 2024.

Harriel equaled Jesus Bueno for the biggest step up in play from 2022 to 2023.

The Homegrown player shined at right back and stepped in on occasion at left and center back. He improved on his offensive capabilities throughout the season and became a huge asset on set pieces with his aerial ability.

Bueno moved from bench player to consistent contributor in a system where there is so much pressure on central midfielders.

The improvements made by Harriel and Bueno prove the developmental arm of the club is still serving its purpose. Jack McGlynn’s improved all-around game further drives home that point.

Harriel’s emergence as a clear-cut starter means the Union can absorb a potential loss of Olivier Mbaizo, if he decides to leave in the offseason.

At minimum, three-fourths of the starting defense and the top two central midfielders on the roster will be back.

Leon Flach will hopefully feel much better in preseason after dealing with a sports hernia injury for most of the 2023 season.

Union head coach Jim Curtin will probably point out in the offseason that Flach is just 22 and has plenty of room to grow, and he’s right, so do not count out Flach as a potential most improved player on the Union roster in 2024.

Gazdag and Uhre each need to improve their attacking production. No one expected the Union to score at the rapid pace of 2022 again, but the come down from that special season hit the attack especially hard.

Uhre dropped from 13 to nine goals and that was just the start of the stunning decrease in numbers.

The Danish forward went from 68.1 percent of his shots on target in 2022 to 36.2 percent in 2023. His shots on target per 90 minutes went from 1.78 to 0.88.

Gazdag proved to be invaluable at the spot, but he needs to create more open-play goals and assists for the Union to be as effective as possible in the final third.

Quinn Sullivan showcased improvement toward the back end of the 2023 season, and his place ahead of Chris Donovan and Tai Baribo was part recognition for his hard work and part damning indictment of the lack of quality on the Union’s forward depth chart.

A majority of people are assuming Julian Carranza is gone this offseason, and if that is the case, Gazdag and Uhre need to do more heavy lifting.

The problem the Union face is the same one they had at the start of last offseason. Depth is still nonexistent in certain areas.

Tanner whiffed on the Andres Perea and Joaquin Torres signings. It remains to be seen if Perea gets a second chance to impress in preseason, or ends up somewhere else in MLS. Torres received praise from Curtin and Tanner in the latter half of 2023 about his work ethic in training, but we did not see much of the Argentinian in game play.

I think it’s safer to say Torres has a better path to playing time with the Union in 2024 than Perea, but there’s plenty of time for that to change.

The Big Changes

Here’s where the reinvention needs to happen.

Kai Wagner’s unceremonious exit dominated the headlines from August on. The left back had everyone on his side until he was suspended for using a racial slur in the first leg of the first-round playoff matchup with the New England Revolution.

Everything points to Wagner leaving and chasing his European aspirations, but what if the five percent chance of him coming back comes true?

Wagner didn’t have many suitors come in with concrete transfer offers while he had years left on his MLS contract, and only AEK Athens has been mentioned in interest surrounding him as a free agent.

My hunch is that the Union and Wagner were far off in contract negotiations because of the value the left back set for himself.

Does that change if Wagner does not receive the offer he wants from Europe as a free agent? Would he come back to the negotiating table willing to sign for a raise, but lower than the number he wants? I’d call that the most unlikely result of them all, but Curtin has taken a never-say-never approach publicly about Wagner and Bedoya, so it’s at least worth floating as a possibility.

Bedoya should be back in a lesser capacity than 2023. He has the full support from the coaching staff and players. The latest example of that was everyone sharing Curtin’s quote from after the FC Cincinnati loss that Bedoya should be back.

Curtin said Bedoya has been the most important player to this franchise, and he’s not wrong.

The argument for Bedoya to come back as a reserve or spot starter is the right one. At some point, the Union have to find younger legs on the right side of the diamond. That was the approach with Perea, but it didn’t work out.

Sanders Ngabo, a 19-year-old midfielder, was signed during the November international break. The Danish youth international can play a few spots in midfield, but it is too early to tell what his impact will be on the club in 2024.

Carranza’s potential winter transfer is the one that will affect the club’s future the most because he will fetch the most amount of money.

We know that Werder Bremen and Olympiacos were in for the Argentinian forward at the end of the summer window.

The winter transfer window might actually be the better time for the Union to sell Carranza because there will be desperation across the top European leagues for striker reinforcements.

We’ve seen countless times that one or two winter signings can change the course of a team’s season and help them avoid relegation.

The question here is will the Union take advantage of one of those situations for financial gain, or take the same approach as previous outgoing transfers and make sure Carranza lands in the best spot for his development.

The Union did that with Brenden and Paxten Aaronson as well as Mark McKenzie, but none of them were strikers, a position that has more demand and with more money attached to it.

I personally think the Union can get somewhere around $10 million for Carranza because of his age and nationality. Who wouldn’t want to sign a 23-year-old Argentinian with a double-digit goal track record?

The Union will negotiate in their favor and the importance of a high sell-on clause will be a key factor of any deal.

What the Union do with that potentially high transfer fee is the most important thing to reinvent the roster.

Tanner Under Pressure To Deliver

Tanner lost some benefit of doubt with his poor 2023 signings.

Perea and Torres were season-long failures and Baribo did nothing of note as an insurance signing in the summer. Only Lowe was a hit signing among the major moves made by the Union.

We could chalk that up as one bad year for the sporting director, or a concerning downward trend that would put the Union at an even bigger disadvantage in the transfer market.

The Union have done so well in Tanner’s reign because he has had the right eye for moving on from players and bringing in ones with low value on the transfer market.

Trading Kacper Przybylko and Jamiro Monteiro at the right time stick out to how Tanner can reinvent a roster on the fly.

If Carranza is sold, Tanner needs to find a top-tier striker with a majority of the transfer fee.

Let’s be honest here.

The Union need to spend big on a forward in order to compete with the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

Sure, you can play money ball at other positions, but the primary objective in games is to score goals and that’s what you need strikers for.

A starting-caliber left back and depth in defense and midfield should be priorities as well, but without a top-tier attack, the Union face the risk of falling back into the mediocrity of Major League Soccer.

The Union certainly aren’t in dire straits with 2024 on the horizon, but the level of trust in the team to make the right moves is lower than it ever has been, and that means Tanner must reinvent the roster to keep the club competitive and refresh the attitude among the fan base.

Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Union.