Why Philadelphia Union “cleared the decks” at the World Cup break | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

The Philadelphia Union’s 2026 downfall has been downright dizzying: Last year’s Supporters’ Shield winners find themselves dead-last in the overall MLS table as the league enters its 2026 FIFA World Cup pause, with just one league win to their credit after stacking up 20 of them last season.

That’s prompted dramatic action from Jay Sugarman and the rest of the club’s brain trust as the city steps into a global spotlight this summer.

“We're coming off a six-year period where we had the most points in the league, the best goal differential, and we thought with the World Cup coming, 2026 was a year we could really showcase the Union and Philadelphia,” the Union’s principal owner told reporters on Thursday morning, explaining why the DOOP squad dismissed head coach Bradley Carnell mere months after he won the 2025 Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year award.

“Unfortunately, we didn't get it right. A host of challenges, some expected, a lot unexpected, really have us in a place that was unthinkable six months ago, so we need to fix it, and we need to get back to what the Union have been as a club.”

Major moves

Philly elevated Ryan Richter, the coach of their MLS NEXT Pro side, to lead the first team on an interim basis and also promoted academy boss Jon Scheer to sporting director, with his predecessor, Ernst Tanner, expected to return to Europe when his contract expires at the end of the year.

The German is currently on administrative leave, undergoing a league-approved restorative practices program after an investigation earlier this year found he violated MLS policies and standards of professional conduct.

“We've always known that Ernst was going to leave at the end of this contract year, so we think that now is the right time to create the certainty we need to move forward,” said Sugarman.

“Bradley is a good coach and a quality person, and a lot of things went against us in the first half of the year that maybe weren't in his control. But given where we are, we decided it made sense to really clear the decks and start fresh.”

With 19 matches left to play after the World Cup pause, the Union are 11 points back of the Eastern Conference’s final Audi MLS Cup Playoffs slot.

Yet they still harbor hopes of salvaging something from 2026, and plan to be active movers in the summer transfer window after making significant changes last winter to the core of a roster that had been among the most consistently successful in MLS over the past several years.

“It's very, very clear that we need pieces,” said Scheer. “We've identified key ingredients that we're looking for in our additions, in our signings, whether that be leadership, whether that be weapons off of set pieces, whether that be a piece for our back line that is left-footed to give us versatility in terms of how we build and how we attack.

“I can also say that we feel we need another attacking piece to give us a different look, a different skill set, especially in and around goal.”

What's next?

The search for a permanent head coach is underway, though the Union don’t feel compelled to complete that process before MLS play resumes in mid-July.

Both Sugarman and Scheer emphasized that Philly’s commitment to their fundamental ethos – a rugged, high-energy pressing game model paired with a player-development mindset centered on their prolific academy – will not waver, and thus will guide their approach to that hire.

“We spent a lot of time, seven and eight years ago now, trying to figure out what was going to make us successful in this league,” said Sugarman. “The style of play was one of the key pillars, to differentiate how we played, to make it hard on other teams to play us. That's not going to change.

“We also have our development pillar, and we have our innovation pillar, and all three of those are really working together to try to create a club that will be sustainably successful,” he added. “We're not going to tear that up and start over. I think a coach who comes in with a wildly different philosophy is probably a stretch here. We want to continue to do what we're doing, we just want to get better at it.”

Sugarman made clear that Scheer will have resources with which to upgrade the roster this summer.

“We entered the winter window with what was a record amount of player allocation spend, and we missed on some targets. So we've got quite a bit of money left in the bank, which we'll look to Jon to come up with the right solutions for,” he said.

“This is really painful to be in this position in a year where the eyes of the world will be on us, and we had a chance to really tell the Philadelphia Union story in a way that I don't think it's been told. We will be back there again, I have no doubt, but this is as painful a six months as we've gone through.”