Supporters' Shield shocker: Philadelphia Union's epic season defies the odds | OneFootball

By Ben Wright

Against all odds, the Philadelphia Union are the 2025 MLS Supporters' Shield champions.

The league's best team during the regular season were hardly a favorite to make the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs, let alone claim the Shield, in their first year under head coach Bradley Carnell.

And yet the Union did just that, completing the feat with Saturday's 1-0 home win over New York City FC courtesy of Mikael Uhre's lone goal. A raucous Subaru Park crowd celebrated the historic moment a year after Philadelphia missed the postseason altogether.

"It's sweet," Carnell, who replaced legendary head coach Jim Curtin in January, told MLS Season Pass. "These guys invested in the very beginning to get rewarded today and I'm so happy for them.

"What they've done, what they've committed, what they've rebuilt, you just have to tip your hat to everybody here at the club."

Captain and club legend Alejandro Bedoya echoed those sentiments.

"The new coaching staff reinvigorated the locker room, came in here with a lot of energy and some new ideas and really set the tone from the beginning, from preseason," Bedoya said.

"I've got to give them a lot of credit. Give the new players who came in a lot of credit. This is for sure the deepest team we've had."

Silencing critics

A big part of Philadelphia's historic season was about proving doubters wrong.

For the Union as a whole, proving that winning just nine matches in 2024 was a fluke by crafting the league's stingiest defense in 2025 (33 goals conceded).

For Carnell, proving that, despite parting ways with St. Louis CITY SC just a year after leading the then-expansion side to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference during their inaugural 2023 season, he still boasts the chops to win in MLS.

"This is what we've seen from the guys all the way through the season: this hunger and this desire just to prove people wrong last year, whatever happened," Carnell said.

"For me personally as well, whatever happened. It was this combination of, I would say two failures, right? To grow it together, to build something together, for them to absorb information and then execute. It's amazing."

While the attitude from those outside observers may have been skeptical, the belief never wavered inside the locker room.

"I think there was always a lot of chatter before the season, obviously with the way things went last year," noted Bedoya. "But I've always said that this locker room is special. We've created a great culture in here. The guys always believed that we could do something special."

WATCH: Philadelphia Union lift 2025 Supporters' Shield!

Moment of vindication

The last time the Union lifted the Shield? In 2020, in front of just 2,775 fans after the Covid-shortened season and attendance restrictions put a damper on what should have been a cathartic moment. This win, says Carnell, bookends that moment.

It's also a personal bit of vindication for him.

"I had a moment in 2018, winning the Supporters' Shield [as an assistant with the New York Red Bulls]. Never got to hold it. And I regretted that moment all the time," he said with a smile.

"To get to hold it today was really special, to get the players to hold the real shield. From 2020, [they had] the makeshift Shield. And I was like, 'I want you to hold the real one!' you know? This means something, right?"

Eyes on MLS Cup

Despite the Union finishing the season as MLS's top side, Carnell is clinging to the idea that his squad can somehow fly under the radar in the playoffs – beginning with their Round One Best-of-3 series against the Eastern Conference Wild Card winner in late October.

"We're not the superstars," Carnell laughed. "I'm not the super coach. We don't care. We like it this way. We fly under the radar."

Flying under the radar or not, they're far from content with just the Shield. As Bedoya emphasized, they want a first-ever MLS Cup.

"Supporters' Shield is – it's great. I'm very happy to get that other silverware for the club. But we want to win an MLS Cup," Bedoya said.

"I want to win an MLS cup so bad. And so I think we'll celebrate tonight, but the focus has to be on winning the Cup."

WATCH: Philadelphia Union down NYCFC to win 2025 Supporters’ Shield!