The Philadelphia Union snapped their two-month winless streak last Wednesday with a 5-1 hammering of New England, then they waxed Nashville 3-0 on Saturday night. Two home wins to pull themselves out of the Eastern Conference basement.

That took place after some in-stadium fan protests that resulted in a meeting between Sons of Ben leadership and front office members.

The SOBs shared notes from the meeting here:

If you click through, there’s a document with written notes from the meeting. This is the part that jumped out to me (slightly reformatted to fit this page) –

Even the smaller market teams are spending more and more money on star players. Will the Union ever be able to keep up with the trend?

-We were told we’re never gonna be an LA/NY/Miami of the league, there’s no global appeal to live in Philly – The appeal abroad to live in New York/LA/Miami will help high ranking world class players take a lower salary than they deserve

-The teams such Toronto and Chicago were cited as teams that have swung big and missed. If this were to happen to the Union it would have repercussions past that players time here

-The current signings and roster make up of RSL and Columbus were mentioned to the front office as examples of a smaller market team with an established player signing by the SoB representatives – At this time, it doesn’t appear that style of player targeting fits within their roster building plans

-They are firm on their stance they are not willing to sacrifice sticking to their established roster building model unless it is a permanent change to their roster building model

-They are not interested in making one time exceptions to this business model

Yeah alright, listen, I don’t think anybody expects Philly to be Los Angeles, or New York, or Miami. That goes for the “four major sports” as well. Free agents wanna go to the Lakers and Heat and Dodgers. Philadelphia isn’t cosmopolitan, it’s not sunny and 70 degrees every day, and then on the Union front you’re practicing and playing in Chester. Southern California, it is not.


But hopefully something got lost in translation here, because while the Chicago Fire swung big and missed, Toronto F.C. did not. Toronto went to three title games in three years, lost the first one on penalty kicks, won the second 2-0, and then lost the third in regulation. The year they won, 2017, they were #1 in payroll with Sebastian Giovinco, Jozy Altidore, and Michael Bradley, who were three of the top seven earners in the league. The Union, meantime, had one player making more than a million dollars.

RE: the Crew and RSL, good on the Sons of Ben for bringing that up. Salt Lake City and Columbus aren’t exactly destinations, but Columbus is spending about $5.2 million on Cucho Hernandez and Diego Rossi while RSL has $1.9 million Cristian Arango. The Union do have Mikael Uhre near the $2 million mark, but just sold Julian Carranza and the rest of the core is sort of clumped together in the high six figures. The U really aren’t that far behind, they just don’t pay large transfer fees and don’t pursue top-end players. For instance, if you go down the list of MLS players by base salary, highest to lowest, you have to go to #38 to find Uhre. There are 37 other players in the league who make more than him.

That’s what Union fans are asking for. They’re not asking for Messi, because the Union aren’t going to attract someone like him, or pay him $20 million guaranteed. But they could have continued the best stretch in team history with a Cucho or Rossi type of move, or something $4+ million ala Christian Benteke or Hector Herrera. Don’t tell me that D.C. or Houston has more allure than Philadelphia. That’s the type of winning move this Union team should be making, not shoveling money at players, but willing to splash a bit in that Tier 1B level, which would also require Kevin Durant to get off his lazy ass and recruit someone. Moneyball got them this far, so the model is not ineffective, they just let it sort of peter out. They brought back some of their own players, signed some guy from the Spanish third division, and made an in-season, in-league trade. Now they’re probably scouring the Myanmar Premier League for the next diamond in the rough. That’s the running joke.

Meantime, let’s extend the winning streak. Doop doop, motherfuckers.