Philadelphia Union forward Bruno Damiani reacts during the second half of Saturday's 1-0 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes at Subaru Park. Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
The Philadelphia Union are the first team to win the Supporters' Shield one season and start the next with three consecutive losses in the league since 2007.
Despite that rarity, there's no mystery as to why it’s happening. The Union's spring struggles are a near Newtonian response to a winter of change. The relative panic that has inspired is a byproduct of the way in which winning a trophy last year has raised expectations.
Replace two reliable, veteran strikers with younger, less proven (if higher-upside) prospects, and an early failure to score should not come as a shock.
Sell top chance creator Kai Wagner without a replacement on the attacking end, and a dearth of creativity has led to being the last team in MLS to score a goal from open play.
Dither on getting a new left back in to fill the shoes of the three-time All-Star Wagner and think anyone can play left back competently, and see three different left backs commit crucial errors leading to three different goals in three one-goal losses.
For every front-office action, there can be an equal and opposite reaction. Even graver is the consequence of inaction, or in the case of the acquisition of left back Philippe Ndinga that was only finalized last week, delayed action.
The result is back-to-back home losses – the latest a 1-0 setback Saturday to San Jose – for a team that went 12-1-4 in MLS play at Subaru Park last year. The situation has yielded quotes by coach Bradley Carnell that don’t seem to much resemble the game that transpired and a locker room facing questions of how to stay together three games into the season.
“I think that we won't lose confidence at all,” defender Frankie Westfield said Saturday. “It's never too early, never too late. We just need that one moment to click, that one game to click, that one goal to go in. And I think once we start and score that first goal, we're going to keep pumping them in. So I think it's just sticking to what we want to do, sticking to how we want to play, sticking to the plan that coach wants to put out for us.”
The sky is not falling in Chester, no matter how bad things appear. The playoff miss in 2024 remains scarring, but it still is unlikely that the Union won’t figure things out and at least be a factor in the playoffs seven months from now. (That last Shield team to start slowly, D.C. United in 2007, recovered to repeat as regular season champs, though in a drastically different MLS: It’s 1.83 points per game to win the Shield would’ve been sixth in MLS last year.) But merely getting by has long since ceased to be the standard in Chester.
The Union got younger in the offseason. Parting ways with Jakob Glesnes, Mikael Uhre, Wagner and Tai Baribo removed the third through sixth oldest guys on the roster. Of the new faces, Japhet Sery Larsen is the oldest at 25. Geiner Martinez and Agustin Anello are 23. Ezekiel Alladoh and Ndinga are both just 20.
There was always going to be an adjustment period with the arrivals. The succession planning began last summer, when the thought of the Union starting 2026 with CONCACAF Champions Cup to muddle the adjustment phase still seemed far-fetched.
The early struggles have been bothersome in the degree of futility – no goals from open play in three matches, for instance, or more red cards than shot attempts in the first two appearances of club-record signing Alladoh. But some level of struggle is not shocking.
“It's something we need to improve on, for sure,” Bruno Damiani said. “The guys who have more years here left last year, most of them, and now it's just a lot of young guys with energy and also talent. But everything's a process, and we are struggling a bit, but it's just three games. I think it's not being enough patience coming from us – I’m not I'm not talking about the crowd or anything; I'm talking about us. We need to be more patient. We need to know that the things are not going to come right away.”
In isolation, the squad refresh was understandable. In context, it feels far less palatable.
The Union won the Shield in 2020, struggled with the workload of 2021 and reinforced the core to make it to MLS Cup final in 2022. LAFC did the Shield and Cup double on 2022, then reached MLS Cup final again in 2023 in addition to a CONCACAF Champions League runner up finish. Inter Miami won the Shield in 2024, stumbled in the playoffs, then reinforced the squad to win it all in 2025. It takes some convincing to believe that that is even remotely the Union's path right now.
Then there’s the risk of a slow start snowballing. The Union’s first three weeks – and seemingly its first two months – has been/will be defined by chasing.
In micro terms, they've had to chase the game in each of the first three outings after conceding first. They are a markedly worse team in that game state, when teams can allow them to have possession and dare them to break down a bunkered-in defense rather than pressing a team in possession.
“I think it's harder to get goals like that, because they just sit back against us,” Westfield said. “And I think we’ve just got to find ways to break them down, even when they start to sit back.”
In macro, they're playing catchup on the standings to the other 14 teams in the Eastern Conference. Last year, the Union won their first three games. Carnell didn’t have to make a single lineup change the first four weeks. The Union never fell below fifth in the East at the end of any week and where in first or second after 27 of their 34 games. The team played free and fearless without worry of standings pressure, liberated to pester opponents, score early and frustrate teams chasing.
This year, the Union start in a hole. With CCC competition, they've started nine different defenders for four spots in five games, plus Carnell hobby horse Ben Bender. Nate Harriel has played three different spots. The team has conceded first in each league game. The pressure is on Alladoh to produce, on Anello look less lost, on Ndinga to fill a void at left back where impatience is growing before he even stepped foot in the country.
Last year's start made the good of the Union better. This year's threatens to make the bad worse.
