Featured / Union

Union sign Chris Albright

Image courtesy of Empire Supporters Club

The Philadelphia Union announced on Monday the signing of defender Chris Albright.

The Philadelphia native, a product of Penn Charter and FC Juniata, has played in MLS for 13 years, beginning with DC United where he started his career as a forward.

Albright is a three-time MLS All-Star. He won the US Open Cup championship with LA Galaxy in 2005 and the SuperLiga title with New England in 2008.

After originally being allocated to Miami Fusion, Albright was traded to DC United in July of 1999, helping the team to the MLS Cup title that year.

Albright’s promise as a forward was overshadowed by the fact that he scored only four goals in that position for DC in his three years at the club. Albright was converted to right back by Bruce Arena after being traded to LA Galaxy in 2002. In 2008 Albright was traded to New England. After suffering a season ending injury in 2009, Albright was traded to New York in 2010. Injury limited his playing time in 2011 to six starts in eight appearances and New York declined to pick up his option for 2012. He became a free agent after being passed over in the 2011 Re-Entry Draft.

Albright earned 21 caps with the USMNT. He was a part of the Olympic squad in 2000, scoring two goals to help the team advance to the medal round for the first time. Albright made the 2006 World Cup squad but recorded no appearances in the tournament.

10 Comments

  1. Great guy, who is a good friend of Olsen and has organized some nice Xmas camps with him couple years ago, but doubt he will add much value. Will be a nice surprise if he does add value.

    • His value is depth, when/if he stays healthy, when/if Williams goes to London for the Olympics. The coaching staff probably doesn’t see Gaddis slotting in immediately.

  2. Good depth signing. Funny, I remember thinking when he got passed over in the re-entry draft that it might be worth taking a punt on him as a backup. Can’t hurt really.

  3. Nice signing. I personally felt it was pretty clear that Gaddis wouldn’t be the one at RB with Williams gone (I think they would have dropped a Farfan back), so this allows us to keep the Farfans up in the attack where they belong. A backline of Lopez, Valdes, Califf, and Albright will be plenty solid. D is coming along nicely.

  4. Love this signing. First veteran from the area to sign with the Union. Good depth pickup.

  5. Always liked Albright. Good signing

  6. Anyone else worried that this is a statement on the negotiations with Williams?

    • interesting thought but i doubt it. we needed insurance for the olympics anyway and albright isn’t a long-term replacement.

    • On the contrary, I think Nowak went out of his way to name-drop Williams and giving him a deserved pay increase. He (King Piotr) isn’t one to comment on these kinds of things …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*