The notebook on Bradley Carnell’s Union debut and new formation

The Philadelphia Union opened the 2025 Major League Soccer season with an impressive 4-2 road win at Orlando City, the fourth-place team in the Eastern Conference last year, in head coach Bradley Carnell’s first game in charge. 

The MLS season is a long one, and one game into a tenure is too little to draw any sweeping conclusions. But many of the Union players are familiar faces, and Carnell has a track record of his own in the league with St. Louis City. 

What transpired at the Inter & Co Stadium was a reminder of the talent within the Union’s squad, and of Carnell’s aptitude of playing this brand of soccer. The Union played energy drink soccer under Jim Curtin, but Carnell has brought in a more distilled version of the system and it worked to full effect on Saturday, as the Union overcame an early deficit, pounced with a quick start to the second half to open the game up, and rode the game state to a comfortable win. 

Overall, the Union have robust attacking talent, and Carnell is going to juice the volume of chances for his players by giving them license to flood the box with numbers. Every team across the world that plays this kind of soccer wants to reap the attacking benefits of this philosophy, and accepts the risks of it. The Union’s defense was lucky to give up two goals in this game, but the script followed Carnell’s ideal blueprint. That is to say, that while the Union sparkled, it won’t always be this easy.

There will be plenty to unpack in the early stages of Carnell’s tenure, but from a tactical viewpoint, here are some thoughts on how his system operated based on the first game.

Carnell rolled out a 4-2-2-2 with an “empty box” in the midfield. The Union’s preferred formation in recent years is a 4-1-2-1-2 with a diamond in the midfield. Both formations are 4-4-2s of sorts, but the Carnell system, when executed with enough running, can be both more stable at the base and more explosive going forward.

In the diamond, the Union were inherently narrow with two strikers, and while they could get wide to attack center backs, that would leave just one 10 to cover opposing teams’ deep lying midfielders. And when teams went wide, the two shuttlers had a lot of ground to cover to show to fullbacks, furthermore just leaving one player at the base of the diamond to protect the backline. 

The diamond worked plenty, and the Union enjoyed high-workrate strikers to make it hard on opposing teams. But strikers in that system wanted to stay high, even without the ball, so they could be vertical threats when the ball turned over. 

Carnell’s shape is about the modality of the “box” and particularly the two players between the strikers and the defensive midfielders. They can play as wide wingers with the ball, they can both run as shadow strikers to make a front line of four and clog the penalty area, and they can fill in halfspaces as creative line breakers as well. 

Defensively, Carnell’s front four were tasked with pressing on the same plane, and aggressively man marking Orlando players once triggered. Whereas the diamond was more about staying narrow and funneling the ball towards the spine, Carnell’s shape is rather amorphous in that the front four chase the ball, compress space, and squeeze the other team into a turnover. 

The strikers and attacking midfielders run backwards just as much as they run forwards so that no player has time to turn and find space. Even when Orlando broke the Union’s lines, the back-press from the strikers was much more aggressive than it had been in the diamond. 

In the mid-block, the Union overload their entire shape ballside, so that both pivots at the base of the box compress the field and take away the obvious options.

And to cap it off, the Union leaned very much into counterpressing, especially when high up the field. As soon as the ball is lost, players swarm to the ball to try and win it back in the first few seconds, and Quinn Sullivan’s work rate keyed the first goal on one of these sequences. The number of Union players in the Orlando box on the turnover is precisely what left them so vulnerable, and when a team is that scrambled, a left back like Kai Wagner can get unmarked a few yards from the touchlines to square a ball.

Players also have license to jump into lanes, and start the chase to make other teams very uncomfortable building out of the back. Mikael Uhre singlehandedly flummoxed Orlando into the Union’s third goal. It is mentally challenging to play with sharpness and speed against a press as rabid as this.

Transitions are the goal of many defensive structures and what the Union do when they get the ball is very similar to what it looked like last year, but Carnell has leaned into the method of turnover generation at full force. 

The downsides of this system is that the Union’s aggression when chasing the ball high up the field and in the mid-block can be exposed by one or two smart passes, or by a crafty dribbler. Orlando’s first goal saw them baited the Union left side out of position, and then attack the space immediately with a deep-starting run for a valuable chance. 

Teams can undo the press with lots of wide switches and hard off-ball runs to drag markers out of position. Some teams will be able to play bumper cars just like the Union and find easy transition opportunities on second balls when the Union are disorganized. The Union will pressure the ball very well, but their intentional unbalancing will leave plenty of space for defenders to scramble and recover. 

Jakob Glesnes in his prime was a great scrambler, and still has great positional sense, but the same cannot be said of the rest of the Union’s backline. Danley Jean-Jacques is a good on-ball disruptor at the point of attack, which is massive in this system, but his subsequent reads are less than ideal and will need to grow with time. Jovan Lukic has work to do at finishing his defensive marking runs. This will be a key area for the Union defense to shore up, and a ripe opportunity for Ian Glavinovich to step into a tough role.

In terms of chance generation, the best way to get the ball in a dangerous area for this team is to win it 20 yards from goal. See Mikael Uhre’s solo goal. And the next way is to launch a ball into space, whether on a counter-attack or a goal kick, and create verticality. 

The Union’s fourth goal was a perfect example and should show how ruthless the team can be when sitting on a lead and forcing opponents to commit numbers forward. Again, the energy drink model is about creating positive feedback loops within the game state, and the Union’s positional awareness among the front four of Daniel Gazdag, Tai Baribo, Uhre and Sullivan makes the transition attack look smooth. 

But when chasing the game, at neutral, or just generally attacking a set defense, the Union cannot just launch long balls for 90 minutes, nor do they want to, as possession is needed to settle the game and conserve defensive energy.

After a rough opening stretch, the Union settled nicely in this facet. The end goal of possession moves are overloads in wide areas to get crosses and cutbacks across the face of goal with one, two and ideally three or more runners staggered in the box to put pressure on defenses. 

Gazdag, Sullivan and Wagner are the three most creative players, and while Frankie Westfield performed well in his debut, Olivier Mbaizo’s skillset and speed should help have four wide players to deliver balls. 

To get to the best areas, the Union use the layers of the box as backboards to constantly break the lines of the defense and reshuffle. The Union do not try to build up with a lot of players, and instead ask players one or two lines up the field to check back, draw defenders, and then search for third-man runners or one-two combinations. 

Glesnes and Wagner are key in breaking the first line, and then Lukic has responsibility to roam in all directions to find the ball, turn with the ball and distribute it forward.

The Union are patient at circling the ball until a lane opens up, and then working quick combos into space. A striker can receive a ball in a channel, drag a defender out wide, and recycle the process until someone likes a crossing opportunity.

The Union can do this on either side, and all of the front four interchange and check into half-spaces at different angles and depths, although Uhre is the hardest checker back to the ball.

It’s very methodical, and while the Union will be susceptible in defensive transition, it won’t be because of their ambition playing the ball out of the back. It’s low risk in a decision-making sense. 

Whenever there is no immediate read, any player can hit a diagonal into a channel for a striker to chase and for the whole team to get up the field for a second ball. 

The stress on the defenses comes from the work rate of the front four at compressing and then expanding space in short stretches of time with coordinated runs, and given the Union personnel, it’s a fine way to go. And since Sullivan and Wagner can hit accurate crosses from even 30 or 40 yards away, getting the ball that far up the field will be enough to force defenses’ hands.

With more time, there will be more data on Carnell’s in-game adjustments, his subbing patterns, his lineup tweaks, and his gameplanning for specific opponents with this specific Union squad.

The system will certainly have its ups and downs, and it requires lots of intensity. That was no different from last year, and maintaining the energy throughout the season while navigating squad depth will be a challenge. But after one game, the system looks simple and coherent and leans nicely into the Union’s strengths. The weaknesses didn’t come to roost, but to say that as the bottom line for a road opener against a perennial playoff team is a very positive reflection of Carnell’s approach.