Photo Ron Soliman

Answers to the question, “Who played?” provide clues toward how the roster-chooser valued his players.

These data charted below inform those valuations for the 2024 Philadelphia Union:

• total minutes played,
• total on-pitch appearances,
• total games started.

Except for Frank Westfield, all players listed immediately below held first team contracts. Westfield was rostered only for Leagues Cup matches. “None” means they were not eligible for first team minutes in 2024. The players are grouped by whether they spent the full season with the club or not.

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One of the first lessons this writer learned from Brendan Burke back in 2016 when Burke was adjusting to a professional head coach’s role was that on the business side of things professional soccer was about increasing a player’s roster asset value. Recent comments from Jay Sugarman at the late summer Town Hall reinforced Burke’s point.

Sanders Ngabo had 29 appearances with Danish first division club Lyngby Boldklub from 2021 to 2023. He was a Danish U19 international with limited callups. He came to the Union needing to prove himself recovered from injury.

From day one with Union II, he seemed to understand the organization’s playing system and was a successful single defensive midfielder who often bordered on dominance even though he may have been playing further back on the pitch than normally. We commented at times that the next narrow diamond midfield was developing chemistry before our eyes.

Yet during the first-team’s springtime roster congestion and its summertime periods of roster scarcity he never played even though  he sat the first team bench nine times. None of those game score lines were blowouts providing an easy debut. But performances for Marlon LeBlanc that had seemed outstanding won no trust from Jim Curtin.

We have no way to know whether Ngabo disliked playing as a single six. We do not know whether he fully understood the patience necessary to win Jim Curtin’s confidence. If he did dislike being a six, in proper professional style his play certainly did not show it. And we do not know whether AC Horsens initiated the transfer conversation. But clearly that Danish opportunity was judged better than Philadelphia’s when it arose.

His time with the Union did nothing to raise Ngabo’s roster asset value as estimated by Transfermarkt (see below).

Olwethu Makhanya came to Philadelphia late in the 2023 season as its first and only U22 Initiative player. Together with Brandan Craig, Union II’s Neil Pierre, and perhaps Carlos Rojas also of Union II, he seems a leading candidate for the center back generational change that aging will soon force into the first team.

The last time Jim Curtin engineered a generational change — 2018 — he replaced Oguchi Onyewu and Richard Marquez with Auston Trusty and Mark McKenzie. Both newcomers had had to prove themselves – thoroughly! – at the second team’s level. The height of the jump from second team to first was less back then, as well. MLS has improved its play noticeably since 2018, and MLS NEXT Pro is younger and less experienced than the USL Championship was. It took Trusty almost two seasons to prove himself ready for the first team. McKenzie’s path had its diversion to Wake Forest for a semester, so his second team professional experience was less.

For his center backs especially, Curtin demands players who approach the mathematical limits of perfection.  We assume he does so because central defenders’ mistakes so often create goals and cost games. And Makhanya has made a few game-changing errors. The DOGSO red card against North Texas in the championship final is only the most recent. A ninety-sixth minute penalty kick foul in Columbus whose spot kick negated Gavin Wetzel’s ninety-second minute equalizer was another.

On the other hand, this is the South African’s first full season with the Union’s system. As noted it took Trusty two years to be ready. And Makhanya made no obvious, costly mistakes when they dismantled Columbus in Chester to win the Eastern Conference. There is still hope and time for the South African.

Makhanya’s time with the Union has dropped his Transfermarkt roster asset value by $100,000.

Jamir Berdecio and Markus Anderson are less problematic as first team developmental “successes” in 2024 than are Ngabo and Makhanya because once the dust settled neither was a serious candidate for meaningful first team game minutes this year.

As detailed elsewhere and earlier, Anderson came from Spain’s third division and its fall, winter, spring calendar. So, he was approaching end-of-season conditioning when he arrived in Chester in February. His useful ability to cover ground defensively late in games almost certainly explains his early season first team appearances and game minutes. He was a fill-in not a contributor.

Twice injuries have impeded his progress for Union II. But his partnership with Eddy Davis was essential to Union II’s late season recovery and subsequent playoff run. He will benefit from his first significant time off since mid-summer 2023 during the winter.

His time with the Union had not changed his Transfermarkt roster asset value as of June. We suspect it may increase it once end-of-year recalculations occur since Transfermarkt does pay limited attention to MLS Next Pro.

Berdecio spent most of 2024 being repurposed. He has been attempting to learn right back, having previously been a midfielder. His judgment of risk and reward has not yet fully transitioned between the midfield line where he had defenders behind him to clean up risky, failed tackles and the defensive ones where only the goalkeeper is available to help.

He is on loan with a purchase option for 2024 and has several option years already in place should his contract be bought. His athleticism and aggressive mentality are first team quality. But his mistakes in judgment counterbalance that.

His roster asset value has dropped $75,000 during his time with the Union and Union II.  Little wonder that Tanner has declined his option to return to the Union.

Here are Transfermarkt’s more recent roster asset values for the four players discussed above. Calculation dates vary, making the data not as precisely comparable as serious mathematicians might like.