Photo: Marjorie Elzey

Two weeks ago a flat Philadelphia Union lost to last-place Toronto FC 3-1, playing on the fourth evening after they had beaten DC United in the capital by the exact same score.

While they recovered to beat New York Red Bulls on the weekend, the shock midweek result causes thinking about the difference between a schedule of single game weeks and one of multi-game ones.

Practice rhythm underpins games. Compare the practice rhythms of the Union in 2022 and to those of 2023.

A typical single game week

Discussion, experience, observation, and deduction create a sense of the Philadelphia Union’s probable practice rhythm. Assuming game day had been Saturday, this schedule inserts hypothetical days of the week into the pattern below for clarity.

• Day After (Sunday)– Recovery and Rehabilitation: The group exercises together and then as individuals. For example, the team may take a long slow jog or exercise together in cool deep water. Exercising muscles while lowering body temperature in a buoyancy-assisted environment increases blood flow but reduces stress. That produces few new toxins and cleans out the old ones from the game’s anaerobic energy generation. Then individuals do what works best for them, such as muscle massage with a therapist.
• Day Off (Monday): Players are at home doing laundry, groceries, doctors, dentists, phone calls home.
• Day First (Tuesday)– Practice Resumes: Film sessions break down the previous game with suggested remediations. The team then practices on a pitch in the late morning. Everyone wears  monitors to record vital signs, log ground covered, and measure sprint speed. Individuals practice in the afternoon after lunch following plans tailored to each. As examples, an early days  Ilsinho worked on weight loss, then came sprint speed, and then was cutting precisely and immediately at his highest possible pace. Danny Cruz worked on dribbling around opponents, not through their prone bodies after he had flattened them. Brandan Craig lifted extra weights after eating a nutritionally appropriate meal.
• Day Next (Wednesday) –Hard Practice: Film of the new opponent is presented and the game plan is discussed.  Team practice in the morning includes hard work in small sides using  restricted spaces with the squad divided into three groups. Two groups are always playing while the third rests.  They rotate so everyone logs the same minutes by the exercise’s end. A full field scrimmage can follow. Individual practices occur in the afternoon as above.
• Day Next, if available, (Thursday) – Hard Practice: As above. The day may often be truncated by travel away.
• Day Last (Friday) – Sharp, Intense, with fewer minutes & less distance: Smaller spaces, two groups playing. one group resting but in shorter rotations. Intensity is pushed verbally. Full field provides only instruction with one or two short bursts of repetition.
• Game Day (Saturday).

Playing one game a week allows the same lineup to recover fully and play again in a predictable routine. Reducing the rhythm to six days or increasing it to eight interferes not at all. The model pays maximum salaries to starters, fills the bench with promising inexpensive youngsters, and has the youngsters improve by working daily with and against the veterans.

Sell the Aaronson brothers and Mark McKenzie overseas, and sell Matt Freese within the league. Use a frugal budget and elite talent spotting well. And judge and motivate players’ readiness to play games excellently. Correctly claim proof of concept as a financially self-sustaining, competitive player development side.

Head coach Jim Curtin has always been specific that his players must blend together well enough for the whole to exceed the sum of its parts. Everyone must integrate fully and instinctively into a difficult style of play, and each player must consistently perform at the upper limits of his capability.

The routines and principles described above together with the results of the 2022 season demonstrated the system’s proof of concept.

2022

The weekly rhythm described, Curtin’s skill in blending his men together, Ernst Tanner’s discovery of an excellent combination of players within the limits of his annual salary budget, and — probably — captain Alejandro Bedoya judiciously kicking some butts while inspiring others produced exceptional success in 2022.

Thirty-five games were played during the 31 weeks of MLS’s 2022 regular season because the Union had not made the Concacaf Champions League and had lost in their first U. S. Open Cup match. Those apparent negatives were actual positives because practice rhythm remained intact and players remained properly rested.

In the 2022 season the Union faced only ten multi-game weeks. Twenty-one had single games only, played on at least the sixth day since the preceding one. Practice rhythm remained intact. Finding the emotion to play at the highest individual levels game after game remained possible. Multi-game weeks were only occasional obstacles for focus and conquest, and as such they created team-building and confidence. The concept was proved.

2023 has been different

As we were gently warned by Tanner and Curtin last winter, this season’s rhythm has been far less manageable.

Single game weeks have become occasional instead of the norm.  The Union have already played 40 matches across all competitions; they played just 38 all of last season. Only three-eighths of the time has the Union played on the sixth day or later. For five-eighths of the season they have played on the third or fourth day.

“Practice rhythm? What’s that?” Consider what playing on the third day means.

Human physiology mandates the recovery and rehabilitation day, and afternoon film sessions could be added to it. But then comes only our “Day Last” above because day three is game day. Were west coast travel needed, even Day Last would disappear. This pattern, or this pattern plus one, has been 2023’s norm not the exception.

This year Curtin’s whole has not always surpassed the sum of its parts. Several games have been flat.  The old concept has not conquered the graft of the Concacaf Champions League and the Leagues Cup onto 2022’s schedule. Has it been competitive? Perhaps. But conquering? Not so far.

The roster has needed additional present-use squad depth but in numbers greater than three. And those players have needed to be of higher quality. Only one remains useful in impacting a game, and using him means changing the shape. The second now sits because he provides no impact, and the third has been loaned to NYC FC to get minutes.

A deeper present-use squad necessarily means fewer slots allocated to deep reserve youth player development. That adjusts the underlying business model because it reduces the number of opportunities to sell youngsters overseas for model-sustaining profit.

The Union roster’s raw quantity is comparable to those of Europe’s five big leagues at 28 to 30. But the quality of its present-use depth is not. That quality must improve. In only two positions has there been interchangeability this year, and they are not in the midfield or the attack.

A healthy percentage of all revenues realized from 2023’s 13 extra games should be added to 2024’s salary budget to pay for a higher quality present-use bench in 2024, especially midfielders and attackers. Otherwise 2024’s continued high game frequency may destroy the expectations of success that sold the club’s 2023 Leagues Cup tickets. It is already likely that fewer of the 2024 Leagues Cup games will be at home.

Appendix

Here is raw data on 2023 schedule congestion where N = the number of days after the previous game. All between-game intervals of six days or more are bold faced. (Season opener Columbus occurred a week after the last match of preseason.)