Photo courtesy Philadelphia Union

At the Philadelphia Union’s end-of-season press conference with head coach Bradley Carnell and Director of Academy and Professional Development Jon Scheer, Carnell mentioned the first team would again travel to the extreme south of Spain early in 2026’s preseason. The Costa del Sol is where many European teams gather to train after their winter breaks, and last year the Union scrimmaged Slavia Prague of Czechia and Aarhus Gymnastikforening (AGF) of Denmark.

Because of the Concacaf Champions Cup (C C Cup), it is almost certain that the Philadelphia Union will begin its season with nine games in the first 32 days, one game every 3rd or 4th day for a month on average. Full squad depth and full squad conditioning will be paramount in preseason.

This year Danish side FC Nordsjaelland has already announced it will scrimmage Philadelphia on Friday, January 23rd at a time to be determined. But Philadelphia has not yet published that detail. After all they are still signing players and waiting for Major League Soccer to approve those contracts. For example, they announced Ben Bender’s return Wednesday and Alejandro Bedoya’s Thursday.

(Writer’s note: Less than 15 minutes after this post was published, FC Midtyjlland of Denmark’s top flight tweeted they have signed former Union striker Mikael Uhre after he passed his medical. I have edited the text where appropriate.)

in the text where appropriateLast year at Marabella

In 2025 we think Philadelphia flew to the city of Malaga, in Grenada, Spain via London, England,  and then once in Andalusia they bussed to Marbella on the actual Costa del Sol. That would have been 10-plus hours in the air plus a layover of some hours in London if they flew commercially. We thought the travel must have consumed most of a 24-hour day.

Although there was never an official announcement of Philadelphia’s 2025 Marbella travel squad, they took 30 players. We deduced that from direct observation and other reports of the two preseason matches, published photographs in club digital reporter Sage Hurley’s invaluable posts, and comments made by head coach Bradley Carnell in press conferences.

Because in earlier preseasons the Union’s past has often been prologue, we assume roughly 30 players will again travel to the palm trees and sunshine of what the Moors used to call al-Andalus before 1492’s final reconquista.

Our method

First we will list all the players whom we think might be in camp with the first team as they gather this coming Saturday, January 10th in Chester.

Additional youngsters will be in Chester, too, but they are having their progress checked and are not yet candidates for the first team. We place 16.5-year-old Union II striker Malik Jakupovic in this category since last time we saw him play he was not yet physically ready for MLS itself.

Next, we will narrow our list to thirty.

Step one – the 39

Below are the 39 players we estimate to be Philadelphia’s current head-of-the-professionals-list (or likely soon to become so.) Typos in both charts are deliberate to facilitate layout.

• The two exponents after player names give the weeks we think have elapsed since their respective knee surgeries.
• The five pound-signs indicate four 2025 Union II players and one academy amateur whom we expect will remain in the organization at some level this season,
• We omit academy amateur left back Jordan Griffin (17.2-years-old) because we suspect other teams may be highly interested. Left-footed left backs are scarce. Our instinct may well be wrong since we have seen no evidence for it.

Step two – the 30

Here is our best guess at who will go to Spain.

We left the two surgery rehabilitating-and-retraining players at home in Philadelphia with their facilities and medical staff, namely Quinn Sullivan and Pierce Holbrook. Neither is new to the squad and its ways, so missing the team-building aspects of preseason is less critical.  Until he got hurt Holbrook had already become the fourth keeper for first team practices even though he was, and probably still will be, contracted to Union II.

Unlike last year’s behavior we  omitted 2025’s Union II youngsters who may be promoted to off-roster Homegrown contracts later on. Our choice may be wrong.

Last year all four candidates who later became off-roster Homegrowns went to Spain. They had been 2024 Union II players. All were announced as new off-roster Homegrowns only  after returning from Spain in early February. Marbella had been the proving ground for Frank Westfield, Neil Pierre, Sal Olivas, and Eddy Davis.

Were the two returning out-of-contract veterans not to have returned, attacking mids Willyam Ferreira (16.9-years-old) and Kellen LeBlanc (17.8) might have gotten a chance to prove themselves. They still might if Carnell is willing to work with a 32-man squad. He does need more depth than last year. We think striker Stas Korzeniowski (22.9) will definitelygo to Spain .

At the moment the Union’s schedule has 42 certain games, barring disaster against Defence Force from Trinidad & Tobago. We assume they will not advance out of the second round of the C C Cup against Club America or phase one of the Leagues Cup. The other variable is the 59-day — no, that is not a typo — break for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. There might be some unreported, unpublished, closed door scrimmages towards the end of those two months for tune-up purposes.