Photo courtesy Philadelphia Union Communications

Buried deep in the recesses of the Union’s official website is a horizontal chart that describes how the current Union has been built over time. It begins in 2014, and shows under which chief soccer officer (CSO) the players were acquired. (Click here.)

The chart summarizes important elements of the club’s underlying philosophy. Since PSP’s publication platform is vertical, we converted the original accordingly, modified it somewhat, and present it below.

The original uses these categories of player acquisition mechanisms:

• Homegrown players,
• Signings, i.e., free agents, transfer fees, the various MLS mechanisms such as discovery lists and other special allocation rights of all kinds,
• SuperDraft selections,
• Loan players,
• Trades.

For 2025 a new category has been officially announced, “Off-roster Homegrowns,” although the designation has already been used by several clubs since at least 2024. The original document we are transmuting did not include this new category last time we checked.

We populated the chart with what we expect to be the roster on 2025’s roster compliance day (Friday, February 21, 2025). We expect the following numbers:

• 12 Homegrowns,
• 2 Off-roster Homegrowns,
• 14 Signings,
• 1 Superdraft pick, and
• 1 player on loan with a purchase option available.
• (Since 2014 there have been no player-for-player trades from which a player  still remains with the club.)

Our expected roster total for February 21st is 30.

We expect 27 of those to be available on the Union’s active roster, barring a “Godfather” offer from overseas for a veteran, e.g., Kai Wagner. We speculate that the extra $2 million of GAM might in future help pay for a wise old additional veteran to come aboard before the Gold Cup, once needs have become clearer, and if there is a slot left open on the senior roster.

Within each year on our chart we placed homegrown players at the top, unlike the original in which they are lower down. Roughly half the 2025 team will have been signed from elsewhere, and half will be Homegrown.

Only one college draft pick remains rostered.  (He was the first overall pick in his draft and remains the only goalkeeper in MLS history to be selected first overall.)

The loan player’s long-term status remains uncertain, since it is guaranteed that Ernst Tanner will try to reduce Newell’s Old Boys’ sale price if he decides he wants to keep Glavinovich past this season.

The final chart modification we should note is that we have added the newly announced “Off-Roster Homegrown” category for 2025. We have guessed that Eddy Davis and Sal Olivas will be placed into it when they are officially announced.

Parenthetically, head coach Bradley Carnell said in so many words in his news conference Wednesday afternoon that the ban placed on registering new players by FIFA January 4th has been lifted. Roster announcements will return to being slowed  by the league bureaucracy’s processing paperwork as they always have been.

Chart mechanics

The exponent on the category label tells which number of that category the player is, counting down from the top. So, even though Alejandro Bedoya is Philadelphia’s chronologically oldest player  and has been with the club second-longest, his exponent is 14, meaning there have been 14 “signings” as initial acquisitions to the current roster.

The number in parenthesis directly under the season year gives how many current players were acquired that season, including offseason, preseason, and regular season. Within the specific year and method, players are listed in roughly the sequence in which they were acquired.

We expect the Union to declare 2 DPs, 4 U22s, and $2 million extra 2025 GAM as their 2025 Special Player model. Some abbreviate it “2,4,2.” The alternative would be abbreviated “3,3,0.”

Further errata

DP = Designated Player.

U22 = U22 Initiative Player.

TAM  means league-provided Targeted Allocation Money which buys down salaries that exceed the year’s “maximum individual salary budget charge,” itself the ostensible ceiling on the league’s salary cap through which there are now multiple loopholes.

PPDR = Player Professional Development Role, which in Bedoya’s case means he has responsibilities in the front office in addition to those of a regular player. They are specific to him, were approved by the league, and require periodic reporting on their fulfillment. (We do not know what they are; in his end-of-year presser Tanner complimented Bedoya on a front office job well done last season without explaining what he did.)

Actually, but not officially, Ernst Tanner had taken over for Earnie Stewart by late summer 2018. Actually, but not officially, Earnie Stewart had taken over for Nick Sakiewicz by mid-summer 2015.

A final thought

After observing our first Union II practice of the year Wednesday, in which we saw strikers Nelson Pierre, Jose Riasco, Leandro Soria, and 2024 Superdraft pick from U Penn Stas Korzeniowski who is rehabbing from injury and trying to earn a contract, we should comment that the organization is heavy with young striker candidates all of whom it has chosen to bring in for evaluation.

We offer the opinion that they will not sign any strikers from outside this year until several of the eight of the younger strikers already available have proven conclusively that they do not belong. Of course some other club could make a “Godfather” offer for Daniel Gazdag and change the overall striker situation. (Transfermarkt valued Gazdag at 9 million Euros on December 12, 2024