Union defender Frankie Westfield, left, passes the ball in a U.S. Open semifinal against Nashville at GEODIS Park on Sept. 16, 2025. Steve Roberts-Imagn Images
It’s the season of optimism in MLS. Everyone is tied for first place, according to the league’s website. Everyone can see a pathway toward being the team they want to be before inconvenient reality intrudes.
For the Philadelphia Union, with a shiny new Supporters’ Shield trophy in the cabinet, the optimism may be somewhat restrained. Many of the beloved veterans from last year’s team are gone. This year’s squad will look different – maybe not much worse, but certainly different.
For the on-the-fly rebuild that this offseason was, the Union remain club with a clear identity. Teams around MLS are answering all kinds of questions this preseason – about formation, about tactics, about who coaches trust, about how they want to try to win games before they even reckon with actually doing that.
Under Bradley Carnell, the Union have no such quandaries. They know how they will line up and how they want to play. They understand a broad portfolio of concepts they want to emphasize with the ball and without it. Some teams are starting at zero. The Union are not.
It’s why, for all the questions that follow, one that isn’t in doubt is the baseline for the Union in 2026. Thy are a high-floor team. With their emphasis on counterattacking soccer and the principles they’ve instilled, the Union are going to be a competent soccer team in MLS. That’s not the question.
The question is if a good team can be great, or if it can take the next step from being great last year to being championship worthy.
Those questions will build on more granular ones that are facing the Union as the 2026 kicks off Saturday night against D.C. United. Here are eight queries on the mind as the Union kick off the club’s 17th season:
It’s been a long time since the Union have entered the season with this kind of positional quandary. Kai Wagner left for English club Birmingham City without the Union having a replacement lined up.
They have been linked to a long-term fill-in, but the deal isn’t done. They don’t have a left back at Union II ready to be promoted.
That means to start the season, Frankie Westfield will start there. He was excellent as a rookie last year at right back, and he provides more attacking thrust at right back than fellow Homegrown defender Nathan Harriel at that position. Had Wagner stayed, it would’ve been easy to see Harriel getting more minutes at center back and Westfield taking over the right back job as an attacking complement to Wagner. That has changed.
Left back is rarely a do-or-die job. But so pivotal was Wagner that the answer to this question informs each of the next two …
Wagner averaged 2.9 key passes – that is, passes that created a shot opportunity – per 90 minutes last season. That ranked seventh in MLS. A spot below him: Lionel Messi, at 2.8. In 34th on that list was Quinn Sullivan, at 1.6 key passes per 90.
Wagner is gone. Sullivan, who tore his ACL in September, will be back some time after the World Cup break, aiming for late July.
The Union are fond of positing the team’s tactics as the chance creator, through counterpressure and caused turnovers and quick actions to goal.
But someone has to do physically unlock the door. And how that will happen involves a fair amount of wishful thinking and hand-waving at the moment.
Indiana Vassilev could be more consistently influential in his second season. Milan Iloski gets a full season to adapt. Cavan Sullivan will play more. The central midfield duo of Jovan Lukic and Danley Jean Jacques can dial in their chemistry (though their goal contributions declined from a quick start last year).
So until that void is filled with some regularity, there will be skepticism.
Jakob Glesnes and Wagner were important and they’re thanked for their service and they will be missed. That was the company line. But how important were they?
In the last six seasons, the Union have started a grand total of six games without Glesnes and Wagner – that’s MLS, Leagues Cup, Champions League, playoffs. The last time a Union starting XI featured neither Glesnes nor Wagner nor Jack Elliott, who left after the 2024 season in free agency? The 2021 COVID Eastern Conference final loss to New York City FC. Since the end of the 2018 season, that was the only game the Union played (excluding U.S. Open Cup) with none of the three defenders, something on the order of 300 games.
That’s omnipresence. And they’re gone.
Much as Wagner and Glesnes may not be the players they once were, and much as the Union may treat such players as interchangeable, don’t be surprised if that’s not that immediately case. The Union have done well to find replacements: Japhet Sery Larsen has a profile very similar to Glesnes six years ago. Geiner Martinez has played at a high level in South America. Finn Sundstrom is well thought of in American circles. The club was very high on Neil Pierre this time last year and likely still will be after a loan stint in Denmark. But it’s a lot of change.
Damiani, per MLS’s statistics, posted an expected goal tally of 13.68 last season, his first with the Union. He scored seven goals. That’s one of the biggest underperformances in the league.
But the biggest challenge for strikers is often getting themselves into dangerous positions. Finishing can come and go, subject to the whims of luck and form and hot goalkeepers. A striker that gets himself in position to score consistently tends to be sustainable.
There’s precedent for players taking a big jump in Year 2 once they've acclimated to all of MLS's oddities. Sam Surridge scored 14 goals in his first 2,900 minutes after an arrival late in the 2023 season through the end of 2024, then 24 goals in 2,940 last year in the league. Denis Bouanga and Christian Benteke both struggled in the first season after summer arrivals then exploded in their first full year. Damiani turns 24 in April. Time is on his side.
The Union have never had a forward score 20 MLS goals in a season (Daniel Gazdag 22 in 2022). If Damiani or Ezekiel Alladoh can pop to that level, it would be a massive step toward burnishing the Union’s title credentials.
Between his time as a San Diego super sub and his midsummer arrival to the Union, Iloski accumulated 12 goals and six assists in 1,071 minutes in all competitions. Those goal contribution figures per 90 minutes were on par with a guy named Messi last year.
But Messi played more than 4,000 minutes. If all goes to plan for the Union this year, Iloski could see upwards of 2,000 minutes in the league and creep toward 3,000 in all competitions. It would seem impossible for him to keep those per/90 figures in the same realm.
But Iloski will be depended on to provide attacking thrust without Quinn Sullivan. He will have a green light to shoot whenever he’s in sight of goal. Without Wagner and Sullivan, he’ll boost his assist tally with a steady stream of set-piece deliveries.
That could mean an eye-popping season. For what it’s worth, he’s got a goal and an assist in his first 65 minutes over Defence Force, in what is likely to be the worst opponent the Union will play all season.
The Seattle Sounders played 50 games in all competitions last year. The Vancouver Whitecaps played 53. Inter Miami played 58.
The Union played 41. When they made MLS Cup final in 2022, it was their 38th game of the year.
When they ran out of steam in 2023, their playoff ouster was game No. 51.
This year, the Union have 34 league games. Given five away goals against Defence Force, feels safe to say they’ll move on in CONCACAF Champions Cup to play at least four matches. They’ll be over 40 via the Leagues Cup before MLS Cup playoffs, and the six-week World Cup break condenses the schedule.
This isn’t to take anything away from the Union’s Supporters’ Shield last year, but after missing the playoffs in 2024, their focus was singularly on the league, while a number of contenders split their focus. The Union made the most of that opportunity. Some other team will likely do the same in 2026.
The Union were 7-8-3 against the other eight playoff teams in the Eastern Conference last season. But against teams in second through sixth in the East, they went 4-7-1 – including the playoff loss to NYCFC and the US Open Cup loss to Nashville – with a minus-5 goal differential. Add in their only game against a top-6 Western team, the 7-0 loss in Vancouver, and that’s 13 points from 13 games and a minus-12. That’s bad.
The Union beat up the teams they were supposed to beat. They generally fell short against other good teams. Did they do anything to change that this offseason?
Maybe. If Ezekiel Alladoh is a 25-goal striker in MLS. If Sery Larsen is a borderline Best XI defender. If Iloski is a 30-goal-contribution guy over a long season. If Cavan Sullivan’s performance demands regular minutes. If Agustin Anello becomes a potent attacking change of pace.
That’s a lot of ifs.
To contend for a trophy, sure. It’s a shame they aren’t entered in the U.S. Open Cup, since that’s attainable after the Union made the semifinals last year. It seems unlikely, given all the changes, that they can get up to speed in time to challenge for CONCACAF Champions Cup in the spring. But with roster stability and a second preseason around the World Cup break, could they build towards a Leagues Cup campaign in August? Sure.
But winning MLS Cup means beating Inter Miami and Messi. It’ll mean beating Thomas Muller and the Whitecaps. It’ll mean beating Son Heung-Min and LAFC. That seems to remain a long shot.
