CHESTER — The Philadelphia Union’s offseason personnel design, long overdue, was to re-establish striking depth.
Not since the 2022 season have they employed three starting-caliber forwards. With the inability to replace Cory Burke after 12 goal contributions in less than 1,200 minutes, with the departure of Julian Carranza last summer, with the stubborn reluctance of Jim Curtin to play Tai Baribo, the Union failed to cultivate real depth.
This winter, the front office seized a window to do so. With Mikael Uhre in the final year of his contract and Baribo nearing option years toward the end of his deal, the club splashed a record fee on Bruno Damiani. The striker of the future would get a runway in the present, as a complement to established scorers.
Three guys for two starting positions is a healthy, sustainable and necessary level of competition. Even if, on Saturday night, the first shuffle of the deck was less than inspiring.
For the first time, Damiani and Baribo started together, generating 20 shot attempts and controlling play but insufficient incisiveness to break Orlando City’s defense in a dull 0-0 draw.
The home point was fine and nothing more for the Union (4-2-1, 13 points), especially against a team it steamrolled to open the season. That day, Uhre and Baribo couldn’t miss, scoring four times on four shots on target, aided by a preposterous defensive performance from Orlando. Saturday was more frustrating, the Union winning the xG battle but lacking the final touch.
That isn’t to impugn Baribo and Damiani. The former, named MLS Player of the Month for March, had just two shots – none on target – one key pass and a ghostly 0.07 xG contribution.
Damiani was in the spotlight, with four shots and a 0.96 xG in his second start, the other paired with Uhre during the international break. Damiani had the two best chances of the game. In the 47th, he one-timed a Frankie Westfield cross from the right flank, but Orlando City goalie Pedro Gallese shuffled to his right in time to parry it with his knees. In the 60th, Damiani leapt for a header three yards out, again on Westfield service. But pressure from behind via Orlando right back Alexander Freeman induced him to head way over the bar. Despite Damiani staying down as Subaru Park petitioned for a penalty, he didn’t see it as one.
“I felt contact. I don’t know if it was enough,” he said. “I mean, in this league, everything is a foul, so it could be, but I don’t think it was penalty in the moment.”
It didn’t exactly measure up to the “perfect” adjective that Bradley Carnell selected to begin his assessment. But in many categories, Damiani did what was asked.
“He did exactly what we needed,” Carnell said. “He had good combinations, good relationships with Tai and Dani (Gazdag) and Quinn (Sullivan). I think whether we start Mikael, whether we start Bruno, whether they play together, I think we’ve seen good returns on what Bruno can bring to the table. He’s very tough to play against, very difficult to mark and he poses a threat with and without the ball.”
“I’ve played with both Tai and with Mikael,” Damiani said. “I think it’s a team mentality that we have that makes it much easier to work with everyone. So we just try hard. We put pressure on them, so I don’t care who is playing with me. I feel comfortable with everyone.”
Damiani exited in the 68th for Uhre, who has been fighting a foot injury. Baribo departed in the 81st for Alejandro Bedoya and a switch to a 4-2-3-1. Uhre’s main contribution was a tangle in stoppage time with center back Rodrigo Schlegel, which led to the Argentina berating Uhre and Indiana Vassilev drawing one of nine yellow cards on the night in defense of his teammate.
The new arrangement will require adjustments, none of which are unforeseen. Damiani has a goal off the bench, the fourth in the dismantling of FC Cincinnati. Uhre has scored only three of his 33 MLS goals as a sub. All of Baribo’s goals have been as a starter. Impacting the game as a substitute forward is a rare trait; it only magnifies Burke’s super-sub role in retrospect.
Damiani and Uhre have subtle differences to their games. The temptation with Uhre, adept at running behind backlines, is to think he would be perfect in late spurts, 20 minutes of sprinting at a tired defense. But the openness he exploits in the 20th minute isn’t always present by the 80th, especially when a team like Orlando stacks five at the back, closing space wide of the center backs that Uhre generally feasts on.
“You’re trying to adjust to the game picture, but it’s hard when you have a lot of defenders just standing on the edge of their own box,” he said. “It takes away a lot of the space that I like to do my work in, getting in behind. So that was obviously a bit hard. But then just trying to go into the link-up play and trying to be a person in the box and be there when the crosses finally happened.”
Where Uhre stretches the field vertically, Damiani’s tendency is to exploit spaces underneath. He’s excellent at running off the shoulder of defenders in search of service in the box, but Saturday, he often checked back toward midfield to connect passes. Both avenues are viable, but the latter runs the risk of stepping on the spaces that Gazdag and Sullivan operate in.
That variety is fine by Carnell.
“We try to get two ways to get at the opponent,” he said. “One is a little bit more vertical, direct and behind. And the other is to progress through the lines. So we try to pick the toolbox and get the right tool for what’s needed in the right moment.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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