MLS-worst Philadelphia Union fire coach Bradley Carnell

The Union fired Bradley Carnell on Wednesday, and if you want a clean look at how backwards this club can operate, you don’t need to look any further than that sentence.

This is a guy who took over a team on a downswing and inside a single year had them lifting Major League Soccer’s Supporters’ Shield for the most points in the league, with a Coach of the Year trophy on the mantle to match. Not even twelve months later he’s gone.

The news broke Wednesday, first reported by The Athletic’s Tom Bogert, and the timing tells its own story. The Union limped into the World Cup break sitting dead last in MLS, and the front office decided the man holding the clipboard was the problem.

Bradley Carnell…

Bradley Carnell took the job from longtime coach Jim Curtin with the club trending the wrong way, and he turned it around in a hurry. He had the Union overachieving from the jump, clinched the Supporters’ Shield as the best regular-season team in the league, and walked into the MLS Playoffs a legitimate championship contender, all in year one, before they bowed out to New York City FC in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

That run wasn’t going to last, and here’s the part the front office is hoping you skip over: it wasn’t going to last because of decisions made above Carnell’s head.

The Union Front Office Made This Bed

Start with the sporting director. Reports and then an investigation into Ernst Tanner over the use of “inappropriate and insensitive comments” got him suspended by MLS back in March, without pay, with the suspension running until June 1. That’s the man in charge of building the roster, sidelined by the league for his own conduct.

Then look at what they did to the team itself.

The Union spent the offseason slashing payroll, and the bill came due fast. Out went Tai Baribo, the leading scorer last season with 16 goals. Out went Kai Wagner, the top playmaker with a club-best 11 assists. You cannot subtract your best finisher and your best creator in the same winter and expect the points to keep coming. That math has never once worked anywhere, and it didn’t work here.

Where It Leaves Them

So far this season the Union have shown nothing close to enough to survive those departures. Heading into a World Cup break they won’t return from until July 22, they sit at 1-10-4, with a minus-12 goal differential and seven points, dead last in all of MLS. And now they’re hunting for their third head coach in three years.

Think about that. The same club that won a Shield and a Coach of the Year award one season ago is now starting a coaching search from the basement. Coaches aren’t the throughline here. The people hiring them, suspending themselves, and gutting the roster are.

Bradley Carnell got handed a stripped-down team after the front office cashed in his best players and lost its own sporting director to a suspension, and then he got blamed for the result. Fire whoever you want at the top of the building. The man on the sideline was the last person who deserved it.

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