The Reinforcements: José Martínez & Andre Blake
On a night filled with extra “buzz,” as Jim Curtin put it in his post-game presser, some of that electricity came from the impending returns of Andre Blake (from an extensive injury) and José Martínez (from the Copa America).
For a team known for elite defending in recent years, the Philadelphia Union found themselves 22nd in the league for goals conceded at this point in the season. A major reason for this has been the breakdown of defensive presence in both the midfield and the backline.
In his first game back, Martínez brought the defensive stability, serving as an anchor, that the team had missed for months. He posted 5 interceptions, 3 tackles, and a pass success rating of 92.7%. Simply put, he was everywhere. (See heat map courtesy of WHOSCORED.com)
From a tactical perspective, Martínez serves as a “clean up” midfielder. In moments where the Union had lost the ball, he tracked it down and won it back. On offense, his patience, ball-switching, and ever-threatening shot from 25+ yards (which the MLS certainly knows he can hit) kept New England honest the entire game. Martínez’s play is perfect for the “enforcer” role, and it opens up another dimension of soccer that gives the offense and defense confidence to be on the front foot all night long.
Leadership
This might stray slightly from a statistical perspective, but it plays into tactical analysis despite being hard to measure.
How refreshing is it to see the 3x MLS Goalkeeper of the Year back? We know that he is a human highlight reel when it comes to game-changing saves, but Wednesday night Blake was not called upon to make a single save. (Mind you, there was a spectacular goal from New England’s Ian Harkes that beat him in the 50th minute, but I can’t fault him for that.)
Beyond goalkeeping, the level of leadership that Blake displays and the confidence he instills in the defensive line are unquantifiable. Moments into the match, you could see him giving instructions, restating center-back positioning, and cutting off cross after cross. It may be a thankless job at times, but his leadership on Wednesday brought the best out of two struggling center-backs: Glesnes (who scored a beautiful header) and Elliott (who assisted Tai Baribo’s first).
Passing and Playmaking
Philadelphia’s passing has been lacking in 2024. The Union are 25th in the league with 79.6% success on average, a stark contrast to the 89% we saw in this game—and this game did not include the magic left foot of Jack McGlynn, who is the Union’s best passer by far at 85% this season.
I believe the passing success versus New England can be attributed to two factors: positioning on the pitch and letting your best passers pick their moments.
As mentioned earlier, Martínez had a near-perfect 93%, Gazdag posted 89% from the #10 position, and probably the most impressive was Kai Wagner’s 95% passing rate, which also factored into his record-setting three assists on the night. (I cannot say it enough: he is invaluable to this team.)
Just these three players accounted for 196 of the 560 (35%) Union touches in this game. This is significant! The heat map below shows Martínez, Gazdag, and Wagner’s locations throughout the game.
If you look at the ground covered, it is nearly the entire defensive half and almost half of the offensive half.
Their ability to find themselves in favorable attacking positions throughout the game enabled them to pick out more intentional passes, which, of course, led to five goals.
This is the kind of play that you want your best playmakers to feel comfortable with. If they can replicate this game after game, we could see a fast-moving trajectory up the table very soon.
Finishing
Last but certainly not least was the finishing.
Before I go any further, I need to shout out somebody who has gone completely unappreciated up until this point—Tai Baribo.
What a revelation he has been to the Union’s offense. His high work rate pressures defenses, his intelligent positioning gives him higher percentage attempts, and his clinical finishing has the fan base wondering if we ever needed Carranza to begin with.
Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but the man now has scored 6 goals in 7 starts—these are elite numbers. Better yet, Baribo only had one dribble and took ONLY 4 shots (graph below) to secure his first-ever MLS hat trick. A header, a slow-moving pass to the far corner, and a half-volley—the guy just scores.
He is proving Jim Curtin’s decision to bench him completely wrong. And we all love it.
Conclusion
Wednesday showed all of us a glimpse of who the Union are capable of being underneath the drama of the last couple of months. With the Leagues Cup right around the corner and the transfer window freshly opened, I think it is safe to say that even casual skeptics found themselves cautiously hopeful. The biggest question now is: can the Union leverage the hype, health, and quality that is on this roster in time to rescue the season?
Another great run down, thanks! Just completely baffling that Donovan (and others) were ever the preferred choice over Baribo. I’d love to see ANY practice footage that supports this. I wonder what the rest of the team was thinking through all that or if they somehow saw the same thing.
I have noticed that Baribo is now almost religious in his devotion to defensive running as a striker, as though he is consciously trying to prevent criticism on that score.
.
Also, when he arrived there were comments that he was in preseason shape for a fall-winter-spring league while he was arriving late in the summer of a spring-summer-fall one.
.
And then as I remember he suffered injury at the beginning of preseason this year.
.
what is clear is that he is now full integrated into the narrow diamond’s demands.
Tim – your argument doesn’t make sense if you can’t blame Jim Curtin in the process.
So Jim Curtin is responsible for a player not conditioning himself to avoid injury during the off season?
.
If you do not defend as a striker under Jim Curtin, you will not play. If you want to criticize him for that you may do so.
.
You can also criticize the Pope for not being a Buddhist, or the Sun for not rising in the West.
.
For me any coach in any sport has the right to set his own preconditions for game eligibility.
Not only did Martinez play well, he was also smart after the whistle and didn’t get involved in anything or take a stupid yellow.
what else is clear is that against New England Jim Curtin got as close to the original 2022 lineup as he possibly could. The only change away from it was Baribo.
Jose Martinez is taking much higher frequencies of offensive risks than he used to.
Agreed. That was pretty much exactly what I said as soon as I saw the lineup.
.
It was also a good situation for the younger Sullivan to see his first action similar to Brandon Craig seeing his first action against DC in the 7-0 win in 2022.