Philadelphia Union: Play the kids

By Ricky Zellefrow | Aug 5, 2017

CHESTER, PA - MARCH 20: Diego Fagundez /

Philadelphia Union can grow, but they need to start giving their youth some playing time.

You do not have to look far past tomorrow’s matchup to understand how the Philadelphia Union can look to improve soon upon their recent lackluster play, both over the last few months and over the past few years. Their opponents on Saturday, FC Dallas, have made a name in the MLS for playing younger players, and the Philadelphia Union could really learn something from that.

The fact is the Philadelphia Union would have to drastically improve over the next few days to even have a chance at playoffs. Even then, their remaining schedule is one of the hardest in the league. That means they would have to not only win games to make playoffs, but do so against some of the top sides in MLS including Atlanta United, Chicago Fire, and FC Dallas.

If you look at FC Dallas you see a squad that is not spending a lot of money on players, but is still doing well in the league each season. Currently they sit 7^th in the league, and 2^nd in the Western Conference.

They are the reigning Supporter’s Shield winners and Open Cup champions which means for the most part they are doing rather successfully and winning games. Something that the Philadelphia Union would really like to do, and the way FC Dallas does things, cheaply, is much like the way the Philadelphia Union wish to run things.

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FC Dallas is the poster-child for “Money Ball” in MLS. They have multiple young players playing heavy minutes, and multiple US national team hopefuls something else the Union are heavily interesting in having.

Right now, they have Kellyn Acosta, a likely World Cup player, and Jesse Gonzalez a future goalie prospect for the national team. Acosta seems likely to head to Russia next year. They also have two young center backs who have recently gained national acclaim in Matt Hedges and Walker Zimmerman.

They also have multiple young international players that have played many minutes in Ecuadorian Carlos Gruezo, Canadian Tesho Akindele, and Colombian Michael Barrios. The Union should learn that there are viable young options internationally that can come in and make an impact. They need to find the right players and build them up to compete in the MLS. They can use these to sell on, or build a franchise that is a perennial contender.

The problem is, the Union have started to do this, but as much as they have these young players they have a tendency not to play the kids. Most notably,35 Giliano Wijnaldum spent much of the first half of the season behind Fabinho, while Keegan Rosenberry has barely seen the field since hitting a rut near the end of the last season.

While the two cases are different, Keegan’s is perhaps the most interesting. He went from an MLS rookie of the year contender in 2016, to not starting less than 10 games into the following season. While surely you can bench a player, who is not performing to stunt a young player’s growth and not start him for months, while the team is not contenting is a bad look for a team built around youth infusion.

Beyond these two cases, Joshua Yaro has barely seen the field since returning from injury, although just last year he started half the season. Oguchi Onyewu, who has been a revelation, is also on the downside of his career, and if the team considers Yaro the future, why not start him along recently found likely second future Center Back Jack Elliott now, rather than later?

Derrick Jones is another interesting case. He started much of the first part of the season at the 6, but has since seen less and less time. The team did take an upswing moving Alejandro Bedoya back to the 8, but after multiple successful results the team has regressed. Jones has shown he can compete at this level, so why continue to stunt another player’s growth by benching him, especially when with Jones it was not a performance based issue, but a formation based issue.

The main other issues in youth development revolve around Marcus Epps and Adam Najem. Epps has seen more time since the Fabian Herbers injury he has missed a lot of possible time, and has looked good in his game time.

With Chris Pontius and the team tending to underperform it would make sense to start him and get him time to grow the player.

Najem is an even more interesting case as he is in a major position of need at the 10, and the only other options the Union have, Alberg, and Ilsinho have looked lackluster much of the season. Najem has seen the field only a few times, and as a favorite of the New York Red Bulls system you would think the Union would have gotten him in hopes of using him.

This noticeable trend of not playing young players continues from the past few years of the Union’s inability to play young players. This is especially prevalent in the notable problems the Union have had with youth.

Until recently their academy system was rather lackluster, and young players barely got any actual time in the system to grow. Take for instance Zack Pfeffer who has retired from play before his 23^rd birthday. This is a continuation of the idea that the Union system has been a problem from youth development.

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Now many fans had hoped the problems had been fixed with the introduction of the YSC Academy, and Bethlehem Steel FC. But it seems that at least on the full team youth continue to be benched in favor of older, more experienced players. While this is fine if the team was successful, when the team lacks the wins and points desired, you begin to wonder if it might not just be better to play your kids.

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