Photo by Ryan McElroy
Saturday night at Subaru Park, the Philadelphia Union pummeled an ineffective FC Cincinnati team 4-1.
The win was a statement of intent from the home team, not just for their ambitions as a club in 2025 but for their ethos as an organization going forward: the Union are value investors, focusing on the relative worth of a player as a part of their system and over time, rather than spenders who can only pay the market value of the player they want the moment they want them. Their opponents on the night have a similar foundation to the Union’s but are going about things quite differently when dollars are involved, and this dichotomy could not have been more evident than on Saturday night.
On one bench were the Ohioans – seeded of course with branches off of the Union mothertree in Head Coach Pat Noonan and Sporting Direction Chris Albright, both Union alums, as well as role players Sergio Santos and Alvas Powell – who showed up with roughly $20m of new attacking talent. Striker Kévin Denkey arrived this offseason for more than $16m and his central attacking midfield partner Evander did the same for $12m.
On the other bench were the Pennsylvanians, who have spent in aggregate transfer fees since their inception in 2010 somewhere between the figures for the two aforementioned opponents. One Reddit thread – just a month old, and perhaps already #agedlikemilk – is simply the latest in a long line of loud lamenters, wondering when the pocketbooks of their beloved team will be opened so that the group can finally become truly competitive.
And yet…
The competition itself
The Union were the better team, definitively so in the final score, the underlying data, and the eye test.
Specifically, the Union’s players performed better than their opponent’s – regardless of the cost. Sure, Tai Baribo scored a hat trick, was the league’s Player of the Matchday, and supposedly only cost the Union $1.4m, but that’s beside the point.
Really!
More important than the like-for-like comparison is the man-to-man one, as marking this attacking duo nouveaux were Union center backs Jakob Glesnses and Olwethu Makhanya. Glesnes was brought to Chester for $770k in 2020, while Makhanya came last year as a 19-year-old, destined for Union II, and was making just his second start as a first division professional over the weekend, with a transfer market value somewhere around 1/32nd of his mark’s.
In layman’s terms, it was a pair of high-priced, I’m-all-in players against two nobodies.
And the nobodies dominated.
Money talks, but ________ walks
Evander found a goal, but only after spending the night being forced backward (only 3 of his 41 dribbles went forward) while having the third lowest passing completion percentage of anyone in his team’s eleven.
Denkey outing was worse, with only 32 touches to his name, only one attacking dribble and a similarly lonely shot (a chance he shouldn’t have had in the first place, had Andre Blake’s hands not completely frozen before it).
Sure, it was only one match. Sure, Cincinnati has some new talent to bed in and multiple competitions to distract them; qualifiers to the merits of this performance abound.
For at least one night though, the team who spent the money were left wondering where it all went, while the team that invested it wisely reaped the rewards, over and over again.
I think Ernst’ has done it again
.
(But it should be noted he spent like money to replace Carranza, no it wasn’t $6M but he got pretty close)*
.
*granted this is still somewhat laughable considering every other team bought a guy like that¹
.
1) MLS spent over $300M on players in this last window alone
.
-still bringing muskets to a tank fight-
My concern was never that the were not big spenders. My concern was that last year they sold key players with almost no additions during the year, and they were running what they had into the ground. The additions this year changed that narrative.
That’s how it felt for sure, but here’s the thing: Only one starter on Saturday was new to the organization for 2025. The rest were already here last year.
I think Danley coming in late last year somehow got lost in the noise about “no additions” — he’s basically a new player, but don’t think the team got credit for it in evaluating the offseason.
The issue wasn’t spending big, it’s that they didn’t spend at all. After the loss to LAFC they would run the same team back, sell some and replace from academy. There was always a net reduction in players over the last few years. This year they did make positive additions which they should have been doing.
They did make additions……we just never noticed because the previous coach didn’t use them outside of Lowe.
IF they play as a unit and IF they avoid the injury bug and IF they get the lucky bounces they can probably do pretty well until other teams get more video/experience of how to play against them and then it becomes harder. IF everything goes their way then might even make a push in the playoffs but in a league with this much parity it often comes down to a single playmaker if things are otherwise even and I don’t know that the Union has that at this point. Scrappy upstarts that play as a team and upset the favorites are so rare they get movies made about them and get names like “Miracle on Ice”. I dunno, maybe we will get a movie someday. Money doesn’t but happiness but it sure helps to keep the blues away.
I just wonder if they can finally figure out how to beat the low block under Carnel.
Other teams don’t need video. Our way of playing hasn’t changed. No matter what you call it, it’s a modified 4-4-2
All I have to say is, who cares if they don’t spend if they win?
I’m a Fire fan and we spend big non-stop for literally dogshit. I’d much rather be in your shoes.
It is not lost on me that our two new academy starters are some that Jim would never play this season because they “weren’t ready”. And our hat trick hero, with the EA Sports accolades, rotted on the bench behind Chris Donovan.
.
This is not quite a confirmation of success; you need a whole season. But it hints that maybe Ernst may know what he’s doing.
The other question going forward this year is : What do international call-ups look like? How many player games did we lose to international play last year ? If MLS can figure out how. to align schedules with European leagues, one would hope that would include NOT playing during International Windows.
Last year it was something like a third of the games that the Union were missing one or more players due to international duty. Given that for some of those they missed multiple players, I’m guessing it was pretty close to an average of one player per game for the whole season.
.
I believe that this year they only have one game (St. Louis) during an international window (excluding things like U-20, U17, etc.) Of course, there are only 14 games rather than the usual 15 games that weekend. Somehow Miami isn’t playing that weekend. But there’s no favoritism in MLS.
Of course U-20s and U-17s do count.
.
There is a U20 World Cup this coming fall that will definitely take David Vazquez, will probably take Neil Pierre, and might also take CJ Olney. So far the U20s have left Cavan Sullivan alone.
.
But the U17s have not left Sullivan alone.
.
Spot on observation. We don’t have depth beyond starters and that becomes apparent during callups and inevitable injuries. The Union don’t spend and the fans suffer with a depleted line up throughout the years when a available player can mean winning, draw, or losing.BIG $$ is spent by fans and fans deserve and expect reciprocity from ownership. With a valuation of over
1/2 billion dollars there is no excuse to not find a way to spend for depth Great start of the season but let’s wait see where this goes.
A valuation of $700m does not equal spending power. I’m not excusing the Union for not spending on backups – but it is a fallacy to equate the team’s valuation with what it can spend. Look at revenue and profit instead.
Look at the revenue and income, not valuation:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2025/02/21/the-most-valuable-mls-teams-2025/
The start of the season has been fantastic, of that there is no doubt. I hope the lads have a great season followed by a better post-season. They may be the real deal, or they may be helped by a new coach bounce and some favorable scheduling. We’ll see as the season goes on.
.
But the answer to “Evander or Gaz” is insanely obvious, and it’s hard for me to see Denkey having anything but huge success in MLS. RIGHT NOW, I’d take Baribo over anyone else in the league, but over time, give me Denkey.
.
I would trade Sugarman for Cincy’s ownership every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I think what a lot of fans don’t understand is that the margins in MLS are a lot smaller than they are in big European leagues where the dominant teams are spending small country GDPs on transfer fees and salaries. And with limits to spending, there are a lot of teams in MLS that have for so long spent big on a few positions, leaving every other part of the squad to languish with replacement level players.
–
I think we’ve seen in teams like Chicago and Toronto that if you get those signings wrong, you will be in big trouble that is too expensive to fix. Moneyball is smart in this league.
–
What has made the Union formidable in the Ernst Tanner era, in my opinion, is being good at making the right choices, not overspending on mistakes in a way you can’t correct, and spreading the talent pool across the pitch to make sure you have better than average talent everywhere and competition in as many areas as possible. Tanner knows what he’s doing.
2014–15 Sporting Kansas City
2015–16 LA Galaxy
2016–17 Portland Timbers
2018 Toronto FC
2019 Atlanta United FC
2020 Seattle Sounders FC
2021 Columbus Crew
2022 New York City FC
2023 Los Angeles FC
2024 Columbus Crew
That’s the last 10 MLS Cup winners. Yes, I see KC there, but 10 years ago was a very different era.
.
A bad GM will sink a club regardless of salary budget. To win trophies it’s much better to be in the top half of the salary table than the bottom.
It’s shocking that this topic elicited a string of opinions from people… 😉
.
You always want the major impact player. But how many Steven Gerrards have to flame out before we realize it’s not a sure thing, and missing on a high-dollar player can cripple your franchise for years?
.
Frankly, if you told me that we would load up with a bunch of players like Damiani, and Baribo, and Uhre, and Gazdag, and Lukic, I would take that roster over one $15M player and a bunch of guys that would struggle in MLS Next Pro.
There are very few Miami’s out there. And we have done pretty damn well for the past 5-6 years (last year notwithstanding) operating at a lower level.
I’d rather watch this group of young, hungry, and talented players than a bunch of soon-to-be-retirees who couldn’t care less about the crest on the shirt.