Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Philadelphia Union fans have a long checklist for this offseason — as you can see from these last two weeks of posts on offseason issues here at PSP.

• Depth across the squad.
• A resolution to the awkward situations of Maurice Edu, Amobi Okugo, and the three-headed knight protecting the goal.
• A skilled striker and an actual, honest-to-God left back.
• And a staff that appears to have the adequate amount of experience, savvy, and manpower to get the most out of this team.

The last of these appears about to be all set, with Jim Curtin named as manager and Rene Meulensteen expected to join the club today as some sort of decision-making person. Or a decision-helping person. Or a person who is getting paid to help the Union win soccer games, perhaps through some sort of alchemic magic.

(That is to say, Meulensteen’s role is still … unclear.)

But the personnel decisions will take time and be staggered throughout an offseason that typically feels much longer than the 10 weeks between season’s end and training camp. The roster might not even be set until deep into preseason, as we’ve come to expect. Look at the late moves in seasons past: of Sebastien Le Toux to Vancouver or Austin Berry to his own personal Purgatory.

What would make this a successful offseason?

With this scope in mind, it’s worth asking two questions.

One is very simple and useful as a benchmark: What do the Union need to do to have a successful offseason?

The other is a bit more complex, and you can certainly imagine it said in the voice of a college freshman who has just discovered the potency of certain illicit substances: “But, like, dude — what even is a successful offseason, man?” “Duuuuuude.”

The answer to the first question is simple: the Union need to, at the end of the offseason, appear to have a better team than the one that they had in 2014. This means a squad that addresses obvious problems with this year’s roster, the problems that we’ve been poking with a stick for the last two weeks on this very web site. A squad that appears constructed with a specific plan in mind, with defined roles for certain players while maintaining space for healthy competition, blending veterans with rookies and MLS newcomers with old hats, and with more talent than the year before.

You’ll notice, though, that this simple answer is quite vague. For one, there are about one bazillion different ways the Union could go about accomplishing these goals, given the global nature of football and the absurd number of different drafts and procedures there will be in this MLS offseason.

There’s another reason this answer is vague: It is impossible to accurately judge the success of an offseason on paper.

The true value of offseasons

In professional sports, it sometimes seems like the offseason is trying to swallow the actual season whole. On the NFL Network, every day is an important day for NFL teams — even midsummer, when literally nothing is happening, there’s a new argument over the best offseason signing or a ranking of the 74 best punters of all time or whatever nonsense.

The NBA, a league driven by its stars, spends much of January through July paralyzed by the whims of its biggest players, with the psychodrama of LeBron’s next move competing with the actual games being played.

Soccer is certainly not immune either. Just look at the dramas of the transfer window each year, the endless sagas of where Mario Balotelli will go next to score zero goals or whether or not Arsene Wenger will ever buy a freaking defender. (The answer to that question is no, he will never do that.)

I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon here. All of these things are interesting and important to the direction of the franchises that get involved in them. And following the business of the game, the wheelings and dealings, is one of the beautiful things about being a modern sports fan.

But the results that matter are the ones on the pitch.

Winning the offseason — comparing the additions and subtractions around the league, then declaring a winner — matters less than winning the actual season.

Just look at last year’s Union. There is a compelling case that, along with Toronto FC, the blue and gold were the winners of the MLS offseason. Both teams brought in a considerable amount of talent and were expected to ride that new talent to the playoffs.

Yet that’s not what happened. The Union, despite the aggressive action to fix the midfield, were a much less complete team than they seemed to be when they kicked off in Portland. The talent infusion couldn’t make up for the lack of depth at striker, or provide the necessary steel to stop dropping points in the last 15 minutes of each game, or coach the team instead of the overmatched John Hackworth. (Toronto, too, missed the playoffs and fired their coach, though frankly who cares about those guys.)

The point is simple: in league after league, MLS included, winning the offseason doesn’t always translate to success in the athletic playing area.

So we can certainly, at the end of January, pop our heads up and discuss the offseason. Did we bring in Jozy Altidore at striker? How about Greg Garza in at left back? Has Fabinho finally — finally — been fired into the sun? These would all be good things. It is definitely possible to judge whether or not the offseason has created a more talented roster for the Union, and this is a worthy measure to monitor as players enter and depart.

But the tough truth is this:

To find out whether the offseason was actually a success, it’s going to take another full calendar year. Until the 2015 Union play their last game, we won’t know the full story.