Ahead of Saturday's contest against Orlando City SC, Philadelphia Union Head Coach Bradley Carnell sat down with digital club reporter Sage Hurley for the latest edition of Coffee With Coach.
Coach, first rematch of the season opened 2025 in a really big way against Orlando city. Now you'll take them on at home in front of union faithful at Subaru park, but they found their footing as of late. They've picked up points in each of their last three games. What have you seen from their group since that first match in February?
"They're very creative, very dangerous in the final third. I think they have some of the highest output and volume in terms of their attacking thresholds. Pasalic, Angullo, these guys, they're really tough to stop if you give them time and space. So, that's going to be the order of the day.
I think that first game just galvanized our trajectory over like five weeks now, just thinking of how we rallied back, get back in the game, take over the game and really dominate, and really, I would say, convincingly win away from home, and that just gave us a good confidence boost for the next couple of weeks.
We've been riding that wave of momentum, and even if the result doesn't really go our way, like last week in Miami, we thought we could have come away with a point and I think we're a little bit more disappointed than other teams maybe might be going to Miami. I thought we dominated there in Miami with shots and all the volume that we put out in their attacking third. But we conceded as we did, which is bitter, and it crushed us a little bit, but we bounced back, and we had a good week of training and looking forward to the game ahead.
There's been some really significant fight within this team when they're out on the pitch, especially in those last two games, even in Miami, when you're down two goals. Your team didn't stop battling until the final whistle. How do you keep that energy going despite the deficit.
It's been fun, and that's it. We always say you have to train harder than the opponent, and train harder than on match days, and then you can put out performances like that, even against a Miami team. I'm proud of the the effort from the group. We're not going to win every game, but what I want to see is a signature of resilience, determination. Never say die, If you're going to go down, go down swinging. This is the type of mentality that we want to bring to the table, and I think it's fitting of our style of play, fitting of the city.
We're here to excite. For sure, we get results and we're here to win, but we want to entertain. Part of the game is about entertaining, and I think everywhere, every team we've played has had to adapt to us, and I think it's been hugely entertaining in terms of our game model.
In that Miami game, you used your third unique starting xi of the season, and in every game, except for the St Louis City game, where the bench wasn't as deep as usual, you've used atleast four subs. In your press conference today, you talked about this plug and play method. Where have you seen that work really well this season?
I think we saw it on in Miami, right? I think when we needed a little boost in the midfield, we bring on Indy Vassilev, and he took a little little bit more control for us in our build up play. He distributed the ball really well. Forms a good relationship with everybody on the team. He's a bit of a tweener -- he plays like a playmaker six. He can play in the 10 if we need him in the 10 as well. So, yeah, he's all-balanced, all-round attacker. An attacking-minded player, I would say. And that's been working really well.
Then I've seen the hybrid system, the plug and play system, with our outside backs. We can put Nate and Frankie in. We can put Nate in the 10, as we did in against St Louis. That was an interesting move for us. It just takes a bit of bravery to do it as staff. It gives empowerment to the player, o be okay with mistakes, because we want to just try and put teams under pressure in certain ways, regardless if there's a mistake or not.
Mistakes are part of the game, and if we can mitigate those through the mistakes and have a plan B when the mistake happens, and we'll go from there, and I think we've been amazing at that.
So some more recent news [Thursday] morning, Tai Baribo was named Major League Soccer Player of the Month. Those six goals speak for themselves. What can you say about Tai in terms of what he's brought to this team and how he contributes to the group's success?
I kind of look at it the other way. I don't look at the individual. I look at what the team has done to provide him with those opportunities. We need the players and the service to be supplied in a way that it benefits Tai, and Tai needs to be in the right spot of which he's done his job, and he's been in the right spot, and he's been amazing at it. Having said that, the supply has been really good. We've found a good way and the combinations to get to those plays, to give him the opportunity to score goals.
But then, what Tai does really well, and it's part of the demands of the game, is to defend from the front. Our strikers are our first defenders, so they are the ones that initiate the press. They are the ones that, when the ball bypasses them, they have to come back in the game and really double down. We like to steal the ball from the opponent from the blind side. We call this a ball thief. He's been really good at the ball thief. In New England, he was phenomenal. I think scoring goals, that's the pretty side. That's what everybody sees. It takes a keen eye to see the other side of the game where Tai has been so good.
