Photo courtesy Philadelphia Union

To date the Philadelphia Union’s 2025 game schedule  has not forced new head coach Bradley Carnell and the technical staff to rotate the squad, although international absences and injuries have. The month of May will change that, dramatically. The Union are currently scheduled to play eight games in 29 days from May 3^rd through May 31^st. And if they advance to the next round of the Open Cup, the numbers will rise to nine in 29. That would average one game every 3.2 days.

Were they to beat Indy Eleven, for four consecutive weeks they would play every third, or possibly fourth, day.

A new practice-and-game rhythm must therefore replace this year’s previous one. Instead of a game every seventh day with predictable recovery days, days off, and repeated days of both skull and on-field practices, match days will be followed by recovery (plus travel sometimes), a sole practice day, and then the next match. We attempt to illustrate below using some charts.

Four squad layers

 Observation suggests that Carnell and the technical staff divide the first team’s roster into four “layers.” Each indicates the current likelihood of game minutes. He has said recently that during a single-game week, earlier practices are populated by everybody, and later ones see a division that allows both him and Union II head coach Ryan Richter to concentrate on preparing the squads that will be playing together in their next matches. We can confirm that for coach Richter’s side from direct observation.

The four layers are current starters, primary reserves, deeper developmental reserves, and off roster players. The “starters” category needs little explanation. “Primary reserves,” a.k.a., those first off the bench, substitute frequently for meaningful lengths of time, with spot starts interspersed as needed. Concretely, Indiana Vassilev had been a primary midfield reserve until Daniel Gazdag departed.

“Deep” or “developmental reserves” range from infrequent cameo substitute appearances (Cavan Sullivan) to players still awaiting first team debuts (David Vazquez and Neil Pierre). Off Roster players play games with Union II. We list two extra Union II-contracted players with the off-roster ones since we suspect the first team may develop real interest in them should their growth trajectories continue upward. (See the asterisks* immediately below).

Ian Glavinovich is injured and will be unavailable for May, as well as June and probably July as he recovers and restores game fitness.

The gauntlet

We attempt a chart below to illustrate the challenges that May will bring.

“Rest interval” means days elapsed between the previous match and the next scheduled tap-off. To explain concretely, the first entry means the Union will play Montreal on the seventh day after its previous match against D. C. United.

“Travel one way” is a rough approximation of how long it might take to travel to (or from) the away game, from boarding the bus at Subaru Park — or the away city’s hotel — to the corresponding travel terminus. The center number of the three is the internet’s estimate of actual flight time. The other two are purest guesswork of the times from travel origin to plane-boarding and plane-exiting to travel terminus. Fortunately, all travel should waste only part of a day, since there are no transcontinental trips scheduled for May.

* = Open Cup match. We assume a win over Indy Eleven to create the worst case scenario of nine games in 29 days.

Effects on practice rhythm

First, we lay out our best understanding of the rhythm of a week’s activities when the week has only a single game.  Layout restrictions prevent putting all eight days into a single horizontal rank. Note that on three of the  days  a second on-field and/or weight room practice session allows players to carry out their prescribed individual development plans (IDPs). From a player’s perspective those days are two-a-days.

Next, we lay out both “3^rd day” and “4^th day” patterns. Note the absence of any off days. We believe the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) requires those, but we do not know how the Union will honor the requirement during four consecutive two-game weeks.

In reference to IDPs, we learned last November that coach Curtin sacrificed them in favor of rest during similar circumstances. We do not know how coach Carnell will resolve the tension between rest and IDPs because to date he has not had to do so. We are confident he anticipates the problem and has strategies in mind to resolve it.

Conclusion

By June 1^st we will thoroughly understand Carnell’s approach to squad rotation. And we will be able to assess how well he prepared his squad to undergo it.

How he has adjusted practice rhythms will be less clear, but will be worth trying to discover.