Photo Kyle Grantham

As stated earlier, we expect we will not see Union II roster moves for 2026’s roster build announced in the short-term future. So, we will combine PSP’s inaccurate, cloudy, cracked crystal ball with our end of season roster analysis and add our guesses about 2026’s roster to it.

We have organized the work into three parts. They will be based on positions: nine goal keepers and defenders, nine defending and attacking midfielders, and six strikers.

We exclude players who are loaned away from the organization as we guess that none are likely to return and secure game minutes. We remember from the past that none such have done so, even when they have still officially been carried on the Union organization’s books. We believe loan aways David Vazquez, Isaiah LeFlore, Oliver Semmle, and Jose Riasco are gone.

Defending midfielders

Bradley Carnell’s biggest tactical change upon arriving in 2025 was to replace a single defensive midfielder with a pair of them while maintaining two strikers in the attack.

It should surprise no one that Union II new head coach Ryan Richter did the same. Richter’s decision makes excellent developmental sense since an adult single six must be an exceptional player, something developing adolescents are less likely to be than actual and exceptional adults.

We have added MLS NEXT Pro playoffs and the 2025 FIFA U17 World Cup in Qatar to the regular season’s statistics in the charts below.

Pariano spent the full season on loan from the first team to the second. We assume he did so to maximize game experience as a defensive midfielder, building on the affinity for the position his previous Union II head coach Marlon LeBlanc had discovered in the late summer of the previous season.

He travelled to the Costa del Sol of Spain with the first team for preseason, where injuries to both Nathan Harriel and Olivier Mbaizo forced him into playing right back in Bradley Carnells’ 4-2-2-2. That experience became useful to Union II once Gavin Wetzel graduated and left for the University of Pittsburgh. It expanded to at least one emergency appearance as a left back after Isaiah LeFlore had been loaned away and Jordan Griffin had been called up to the US U17s.

Pariano led the club in both minutes and starts. He was captain, which added to his sense of responsibility to his team and his willingness to play wherever and do whatever his team needed.

We know now that the organization did not retain Pariano for 2026. CJ Olney is younger and may be playing the same position in the future. Pariano would block him.

If the social media report that Marlon LeBlanc will be head coach of Brooklyn FC, a USL Championship expansion side for 2026, he might well bring Pariano with him as a tone setter for his locker room. Time will tell.

Olney did not start his season well.  He was loaned out to Lexington SC of the USL Championship on July 11, and was recalled September 11, having been unable to break into an established USL C team fighting for a playoff spot.

 Upon his return he started every game but in a new position, defensive mid. While coach Richter has stated that it is not his natural position, we think it better suits his temperament and judgment. In his previous seasons, Olney did not effervesce and incandesce all over the field the way other attacking mids tend to do. He executed his responsibilities reliably and competently and made occasional perfectly timed and judged forays into the attack. In 2024 some of those forays won games. To us that pattern sounds more like a D-mid than an A-mid.

Upon recall Olney played the full 90 in every match. Being sent away re-adjusted him towards the player who had played so well the previous year, much to his credit since he is the one who made the changes.

Those adjustments were good enough that after the season was over he was called into a national U19 camp that is designed to increase opportunities for more players to develop towards a role with hisage-appropriate national team.

Full marks to the member or members of the technical staff who decided to send him out on loan. Shaking him up worked.

By the end of the season, Benitez had evolved into an essential contributor. He was Richter’s first choice primary reserve at both center back and defensive mid. His teammate CJ Olney has described him as the hardest tackler on the team. In addition, he has good size and excellent pace.

The flaw in his game is distribution. He does not provide distribution all over the field from either center back or the double pivot.  When paired with Pariano or Olney, the flaw didn’t matter. In their absence, however, it did. In that circumstance Union II had little alternative to playing the ball deep to its strikers on offense. Controlled passing through the central channel in the midfield was absent.

Benitez has worked hard to improve himself. Coach Richter recently described him as the squad’s most improved player. A specific detail that the coach went out of his way to mention was that in Benitez’s first full 90, at home in the playoffs, he did not receive a yellow card. (He had gotten over 20 in his 23 other appearances).

He arrived in Philadelphia on a free transfer from St. Louis, signing a contract late last February. We expect he will be offered another one for 2026 with an individual development plan to improve his distribution. With an Auston Trusty-like work ethic he could make himself a candidate for the first team in the future.

Probst was announced asaquired on loan on July 24^th. He was clear competition for Oscar Benitez and as such may have stimulated Benitez’s improvement. He also allowed defensive midfield players within the Academy to stay with their academy teams for practices as well as games. And of course his presence was insurance against injury. His start in the conference final when Nick Pariano had suffered a hamstring and was unavailable illustrates the last point.

A lone full 90 and only four starts in three months indicates he was primarily a substitute and a practice player. His loan has a purchase option, but we would be surprised if Union II exercised it.

Attacking midfielders

Attacking midfield is the position most directly affected by first team head coach Bradly Carnell’s decision to keep two strikers but play with two defensive mids in a double pivot. Carnell’s decision creates an “empty bucket” in place of a central, third attacking mid as there had been in Jim Curtin’s midfield diamond..

The organization’s attacking mid strategy is also affected by Cavan Sullivan’s unofficial but widely confirmed departure for City Group Football once he turns 18 and can secure England’s equivalent of working papers. The Union are training up Sullivan’s replacements even as they are developing him.

Sullivan has advanced beyond MLS NEXT Pro this season to the first team’s pool of primary reserves. The advancement has been intensified because of the injury to his older brother.

• He was permitted to delay his arrival in Qatar for the recent FIFA U 17 World Cup to provide midfield depth to the Union itself in the second game of its first-round playoff series against Chicago.
• He did not dress for the first Union II playoff game this year, because he was needed for first team midfield depth.
• Once back from Qatar he played as a late substitute in the Union’s conference semifinal playoff loss to NYC FC.
• He played roughly 160 fewer minutes for Union II in 2025 than he did in 2024. even though he scored two more goals and had one more assist.

In the Qatar U17 World Cup he substituted late in the first match and scored its only goal. In group stage matches two and three he started, scored a penalty kick, and assisted on one of the U. S.’s other two goals. He was apparently named Man of the Match in all three group stage wins.

In the first game of the knockouts, he assisted on the U. S.’s goal in regulation and scored the first U. S. penalty kick in the losing shootout that followed the draw. He was a key player for the U. S. U17 team.

The late cameo in the conference semis against NYC FC  suggests that he is not yet ready to dominate a good MLS side, indicating that City Group Football is unlikely to claim that he has already outgrown MLS.

We expect his appearances for Union II next season will come only when he needs to tune up his match fitness.

By eyeball Sullivan seems to be a little taller than he had been earlier in the season. By chronological age it is time for his final growth spurt, but we have no quantitative supporting data, only the impression that his upper body proportions are beginning to look more like Quinn’s. Colleague Alex Hayden reports that at the beginning of the season he Hayden was taller, but that now Sullivan is the taller of the two.

This season Anderson seemed to be switching positions from striker to attacking midfielder. He had a brief glimpse of time with the first team, but the transition occurred primarily with Union II. Only next year will we learn whether he is still considered a serious candidate for the first team when we discover whether he is with them for preseason.

Some of the other MLS NEXT Pro teams game-planned to concentrate on stopping Anderson. He impacts games offensively at that level. The question had been whether he could execute an attacking mid’s defensive responsibilities well enough. By the end of the season the answer at the MLS NEXT Pro level was yes. But it is a big step to MLS itself.

We suspect that the technical staff has also wanted him to improve his 90-minute match fitness level.

He is guaranteed to return for 2026. What is not guaranteed is for which team he will be playing  primarily. Quinn Sullivan’s recovery and rehabilitation will provide Anderson with an opportunity starting in 2026’s preseason.

LeBlanc is one of the candidates to replace Cavan Sullivan when Sullivan departs for City Group Football in 2028.

The most important statistic in LeBlanc’s boxes is the number of full 90-minute games he has played. or rather not played. Attacking mids play fewer full 90s than do members of the defense’s back seven. but they must be able to do so  when circumstances dictate. LeBlanc’s low number and his age both suggest he is still engine building.  He is still an adolescent not an adult.

He is working hard to improve his offensive creativity. He is already a good free kick taker. He seems to have been Richter’s first choice in 2025 to replace Sullivan the Younger when Sullivan was not available.

He did well enough this year that he went to the Qatar U17 World Cup, where he was a late game midfield substitute in all three group stage matches. He dressed but did not play in the knockout stage draw and shootout loss.

We fully expect him to return to the organization for 2026. The question will be whether he does so with the second team again or on a first team, off-roster homegrown contract.

The statistics above indicate that Ferreira is at least a full year behind Kellan LeBlanc in his development as a professional, and that therefore his primary task is engine-building.

Ferreira and LeBlanc are in direct competition to replace Cavan Sullivan when the time comes. The competition is real, even though the numbers above do not yet suggest it. When LeBlanc was away in Qatar, coach Richter turned to Ferreira as the last gasp attempt to create a goal to tie Red Bull II in the conference final. The move did not work, but that it was made is revealing.

Ferreira will return to the organization, unless some other club makes him a better offer. He will be a free agent on January 1st. It would not be a complete surprise were he also to do so on a first team, off-roster homegrown contract. Recent first-team roster decisions have created some space.

Johnson possesses the athletic attribute that cannot be coached, elite pace. We believe he has recently trialed with PSV Eindhoven. He made the U. S. U17s for the current World Cup in Qatar, where he received his only professional start of the year.

If Union II’s game day roster behavior is any indication, he is behind Willyam Ferreira, perhaps because he is physically slight and easily knocked off the ball.

He has scored twice and produced an assist for coach Richter this season. But the Union organization has not signed him. Having three potential successors to Sullivan would go a step beyond past Union developmental practice. We have thought of three explanations: Union doubts, other clubs’ bids, and parental ambitions for further education.

AS with others, Johnson may earn his diploma from the Union’s academic entity, YSC Academy, but he may not play his soccer for them.