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Since some may not have found Sunday morning’s Czech livestream of the friendly between Slavia Prague and the Philadelphia Union for themselves, we add these observations to supplement Alex Hayden’s excellent match report from Sunday. (Click here.) We also reference the club’s offering which features the five different lineups that saw the pitch. (Click here.)

Coach Carnell

Shape: We perceive coach Bradley Carnell used two formations. To us neither seemed like 2024’s 4-4-2 narrow diamond.

In the first half it seemed to be a 4-3-3 with a deep-lying defensive center mid (Jesus Bueno) and both outside backs pushing aggressively forward up the flanks simultaneously (Kai Wagner and Frank Westfield). In the second the shape seemed to be a 4-4-2 with a flat midfield whose double pivot would push forward as offensive circumstances indicated, sometimes to include both players (Jeremy Rafanello and Danley Jean Jacques).

The single six position was played by the roster’s sole remaining experienced single six player, Bueno. Nick Pariano did excellently there in MLS Next Pro last year but has only those twelve games of minor league experience on his resume.

Jeremy Rafanello played at defensive midfield in the Portland roster emergency last season and did well but otherwise was an attacking mid reserve. And Danley Jean Jacques arrived only last fall with limited English through which to learn the nuances of the most important position in the old formation. Carnell’s caution in the first game against a strong side made a good deal of sense.

A tactical defensive detail:

In the first half both outside backs immediately pushed forward aggressively into the attack whenever the Union had the ball, leaving only the center backs and sometimes the defensive mid in defense. Previous practice sent only one forward immediately, with the second moving up only as way opened.

In the first half at least three times Slavia Prague delivered long diagonal crosses from outside channel directly to the other outside channel — “big switches” in soccer speak — to create uncontested perfect crosses to the far post that put balls into the Union’s net. The second two were disallowed for offside, but the first was the match winner.

Perhaps in the first instance the offside trap was not executed properly to prevent the goal? Is that a detail new to Union defenders?

If we have understood Carnell’s tactical change correctly, the offside trap detail  needs more work. Since the method is different from previous practice, an early glitch or two is not surprising.

Squad mixing: He also did his best to create evenly balanced sides for use during the event. From minute one through minute ninety each had elements of first-team strength present in it. As he said post game, it is too early to read positional ranks into the sides he put out.

The first group that played the first thirty minutes — actually 36 — was heavily veteran. The major experiment was at center back where the pair both were debuting with the Union, Olwethu Makhanya and Ian Glavinovich. Makhanya never saw a regular season first-team game pitch last year and Glavinovich is new to the club.

The veterans in that first group were playing much more interchangeably than they had played last season. While watching play last year, clear patterns for placing and combination play developed. While comparing 30 minutes to more than 40 games is statistically unfair, no such patterns emerged in that first half an hour.

The three substitutes who came on after the first half an hour were all veterans of last year’s first team and played within the principles and shape that the starters had established.

The second half was different in both personnel and shape, but not in underlying principles of play. There were three second half time periods, minutes 45 to 62, 62 to 75, and 75 to 90.

As Alex Hayden’s match report points out, the second half is when the youngsters took the field. Center back and the double pivot were staffed by first-teamers with the notable exception of Neil Pierre. But both outside backs were youngsters, as were both flank mids, and both strikers.

The exception to our youngster generalization is that for the first 15 minutes of the half, the Sullivan brothers were the flank mids, Quinn on the his strong foot on the right and Cavan on his strong foot on the left.

Conditioning: Of course the most basic function any coach must achieve during preseason is game fitness conditioning. And game fitness, while growing out of practice fitness, can be achieved only in games. We chart the game minutes.

We do not know why Nathan Harriel and Chris Donovan did not play. That Mike Sheridan did not does not surprise us since Director of Goalkeeping Phil Wheddon has always liked having four keepers on hand for practice. That’s probably why Sheridan is in Spain.

Absences

Jack McGlynn was away with the US national team having played the night before in Ft. Lauderdale against Venezuela in the US’s 3-1 victory. He played the full 90 minutes and was apparently Man of the Match.

Nathan Harriel has been in Spain, but did not play against Slavia Prague. We don’t know why. A speculative guess for which we have neither evidence nor confirmation? Harriel may have traveled to the USMNT camp to replace John Tolkin, who moved to Holstein Kiel of Bundesliga 2. Harriel and Tolkin were the two outside backs for the Olympic team last summer in Paris. It’s purest guesswork with no evidence to support it, but…..

Similarly, we don’t know why Chris Donovan did not play. He is a known quantity and may have given way to provide time for Eddy Davis and Sal Olivas to debut with the first team against a tough opponent to see how they would do. Or he may have picked up a knock in training.

Debuts

The following eight players made their first-team debuts. Five played as defenders and three played as attackers, with one each being repurposed for the match from the midfield where they had played last year (Nick Pariano and David Vazquez).

• • Olwethu Makhanya got his first start and his first minutes on a first team pitch since his five 2024 preseason appearances. He was credible with none of the glaring mistakes that Jim Curtin so intensely mistrusted.
  • Neil Pierre started the second half at right center back next to veteran Jakob Glesnes, and played the full 45, shifting to the left when Olivier Mbaizo went to right center back for minutes 75 to 90. He intervened to save Mbaizo from a potential Czech breakaway late.
  • Frank Westfield started at right back, and he played both outside back positions during his hour shift. That Westfield played credibly at both outside backs against the current first place first division club team in Czechia is worth noting. (SP currently lies 29th in the 36 team Europa League as Hayden’s match report notes.)
  • Isaiah LeFlore substituted for the last half an hour at left back. (Click here for a summary of his 2024 season.)
  • Nick Pariano replaced Westfield at right back at the start of the second half when the former Union II captain moved over for Kai Wagner. Pariano played ahead of Mbaizo, presumably to find out if he could manage it. He did so with no glaring mistakes. Roughly half an hour of his time was against Slavia Prague’s subs, however.
  • David Vazquez subbed as a striker for the last 15 minutes, a position in which he has started consistently for the US U20s.
  • Officially,  Eddy Davis is unannounced and still an amateur. But the concrete evidence on the ground suggests he is now some type of signed professional. He started the second half at striker alongside Markus Anderson. They paired together last fall during Union II’s stretch run to MLS Next Pro Cup. They were Union II’s goal scorers in that 3-2 loss to North Texas SC.
  • Sal Olivas also subbed on at striker. Olivas and Davis did not play together. The young Texan paired with Vazquez up top for the last 15 minutes, his shift.

Principles of play

“Positional interchange as the situation demands” was a clear Union principle of play in this match. Jim Curtin’s teams also interchanged positions but not to the degree that Carnell has implemented. The first team looked like Marlon LeBlanc’s three interchanging attacking mids did during the second half of 2024 (C. Sullivan, Olney, and Vazquez). There was much less predictability to the veterans’ combination patterns.

Also, center backs penetrated further forward offensively than under Jim Curtin, all the way into the final attacking sixth at times.

Otherwise it looked like familiar energy drink soccer but with all-out intensity.

There were no periods of building through possession and other forms of rest, but that is probably due to both the quality of the opposition and the shortness of everyone’s shifts since ten more players than the regulation 16 were going to get minutes.

Philadelphia did not create a great deal of offensive pressure, especially against the Czech team’s starters.

Appendix: Union Lineups and substitutions

Here is how the Union were deployed in the first half. Starters are boldfaced. The image is much too static when compared to the positional interchangeability of actual play.

And in the second half.