Photo courtesy Philadelphia Union Communications

Since the Philadelphia Union’s season has ended and the club is undergoing a self-declared roster transition, we expand our usual end-of-year analysis of the younger professional prospects to include the first team as well.

At the professional level there are two major subdivisions of the Philadelphia Union organization’s roster. Each of those subdivides into three parts. We will present several articles, combining or further subdividing the roster parts as seems wise.

We will finish the series with a depth chart of the professional portion of the organization’s players.

Fuller explanations of the chart below were made in part one of the series. Click here.

“ZERO-DOLLAR” CONTRACTS

 Until they matriculate at an NCAA post-secondary educational institution, high school amateurs can sign a so-called zero-dollar contract before every game that preserves their amateur eligibility for college but allows them to play on the same pitch as professionals.

We list the amateur field players still with the team whose number of times dressed and traveling qualified them for the playoffs roster and who also had actual game minutes. Those criteria exclude goalkeepers because they almost always only sit the bench if they do not start. They exclude defender and defensive midfielder Henry Bernstein because he never got any game minutes, and they exclude striker Anisse Saidi because he did not have enough appearances on a game day roster to qualify for the playoffs.

As readers decipher for themselves why some academy amateurs have received Union II minutes and others have not, we recall a comment from former Academy Director Tommy Wilson that all teams, Union II through the U9s, must be populated.

SEVEN CURRENT PLAYOFF QUALIFIED ACADEMY AMATEURS WITH REGULAR SEASON GAME MINUTES

 (Writer’s note: A re-check of our data showed that Henry Bernstein did not receive any actual game minutes, so he has been omitted.)

Jordan Griffin, 16.0, reserve left channel outside back and/or midfielder. Griffin turned 16 Friday, October 25^th. PSP watched his teammates “baptize” him with squirt water bottles at the end of practice to acknowledge his birthday. He is young, athletic and a left-footer. Because he has had only cameo minutes in two substitute appearances, we have too little observation from which to discuss him further. In practices he seems to be a left channel player. He has been blocked this season by Frank Westfield and CJ Olney.

Zach Mastrodimos, 17.6, reserve defensive midfielder and outside back. By pure chance Mastrodimos rode the same elevator as this writer before the Crown Legacy playoff game during which we struck up a pleasant if brief conversation.

He has three appearances with one start for 84 minutes this year for Union II, all since the late summer Academy transition. He started and played the entire first half as the defensive center mid against Miami in Ft. Lauderdale September 15, to prevent Nick Pariano from starting two matches in four days back-to-back we presume. Pariano replaced Mastrodimos after half time. Unsurprisingly, Mastrodimos did not exert significant influence on the match positively or negatively.

Judging by the occasional observed practice , Mastrodimos is considered positionally versatile. Probably coach LeBlanc is trying different spots with an eye to discovering the young man’s best role(s) for next season.

Diego Rocio, 17.1, reserve striker and attacking midfielder. Rocio has had four appearances this year with Union II. Every time he has suited up, he has come on as a substitute for a total of 59 minutes.  His first appearance was in March. The next three were in August. He is playoff eligible but has not dressed. Almost certainly he is currently blocked by Jose Riasco.

Earlier this year in academy play Rocio had a knack for scoring crucial goals. He has not played enough minutes to demonstrate such prowess in MLS NEXT Pro. The U18 Mexican youth national team is the most recent youth national team to call him him in. We assume he has been playing for Union 3 this fall in its mixed schedule of friendlies and MLS NEXT league matches.

Rocio –alternative spelling Roccio – and Anisse Saidi are two young strikers whose names readers should file for future attention.

Jamir Johnson, 16.3, reserve midfielder. Johnson has an athletic quality that cannot be created by coaching, namely elite pace.

Since July 6^th including both playoff matches he has always been in the Union II game squad save once. He started against Toronto FC II on August 18^th and Inter Miami II on September 15^thplaying 69 and 45 minutes respectively.  He has seven other substitute appearances. He totals 231 minutes as a young 16-year-old.

He is blocked by the teenage midfield trio described earlier in the series, but is clearly being groomed to follow on behind them next year as they rise up the ladder.

Kellen LeBlanc, 16.6, reserve attacking midfielder. LeBlanc has been a primary midfield substitute in the front three midfield positions for the second half of the season. When one of them has been absent, he has started for them.

He has three starts and 11 substitute appearances totaling 346 minutes. He scored a brace away to Toronto FC II August 18^th, in the middle of August’s three game losing streak.

We expect that next season like Johnson he will be a midfield mainstay for Union II as this year’s teenage midfield trio will have moved up.

Gavin Wetzel, 18.2, right back and reserve center back. Wetzel is tied with Eddy Davis for the second place on the team in regular season appearances with 27. Both are behind Jamir Berdecio who has 28.  Wetzel has 15 starts, 12 substitutions, and totals 1,525 regular season minutes.

At the end of the season when gameday rosters  began to emphasis defensive security slightly more, Wetzel began to start at right back more frequently.  His judgement about how much and when to be aggressive is safer than Berdecio’s. He makes fewer mistakes.

He has started both playoff games and played the full 90 in each. It has been a year-long project to turn the academy center back into a right back, and there is still a good bit to do in having him create offense. But he is credible now as a third right back below Harriel and Mbaizo on a depth chart.

We expect that when roster spaces open and next year’s first team situation clarifies, he might well be a member of the Academy’s senior class of 2025 who signs a professional contract with Union II, if he wants to.

Eddy Davis III, 18.4, starting striker. Davis has set the team record for goals in a single season, 13, on a team that tied for the league lead in regular season scoring with 57. In his 27 regular season appearances, he has started 22 times totaling 1,772 minutes. An interesting statistical question we cannot answer is how many times his scores were assisted by either CJ Olney or Frank Westfield. He has started both playoff games and played well into the second half of each.

His match log shows several games in which he played full 90s or equivalents and they date from the beginning of the season, so we attribute his fewer minutes than might be expected to the existence of four other strikers on the team who are themselves in need of development.

 In late May Philadelphia Union’s organization bought a minority stake in Danish Superliga side Lyngby Boldklub and created a strategic partnership with them, click here. Davis did have a trial with them in August, illustrating the player advancement dimension of the partnership.

He has followed an unconventional pathway since becoming a 2024 Academy graduate last June. He remains an amateur but has postponed joining an NCAA program to finish the season with Union II. Marlon LeBlanc, former 14-year head coach of West Virginia Mountaineer men’s soccer and highly knowledgeable about NCAA rules, told us after Davis had graduated that he had until early this coming January to decide about his next step if it turns out to involve the NCAA.

WE notice that this year’s first team roster has experienced previously unknown crowding, in part due to both the uncertainties that preceded the successful homegrown signings of David Vazquez and Cavan Sullivan and also the pending decisions about loaned away players who have club options for 2025. (Those now number Matt Real, Brandan Craig, and Nelson Pierre.  Joaquin Torres’ loan terminated October 11th by mutual agreement with Universidad Catolica FC in Chile, after a coaching change.)

We have no idea on the intentions of either Davis himself or the organization. Whatever those may be, the delay has allowed the young man more fully to explore his options and to experience what is already the most successful Union II / Bethlehem Steel FC team ever.