CHESTER — The mission for the coach of the Philadelphia Union is to do more with less – less investment in the first team, less in terms of transfer fees paid, even less acknowledgement from ownership of the reality that they are putting less into the first team to fund the developmental engine of the Academy.
In finding a new leader, Ernst Tanner settled on a coach who in 2023 had one of the most notable instances of doing more with less in recent MLS history.
Bradley Carnell was announced Thursday as the new coach of the Union, just the fourth in club history. He checks many of the boxes Tanner set forth in his search, with roots in the Red Bull system, emphasis on youth development and counterattacking soccer and the bonus of familiarity with MLS.
In the 47-year-old South African who spent most of his playing career in Germany, the Union also get an established head coach who knows who he is on the touchline.
“Working with people, developing players, this is the core of my philosophy,” Carnell said. “And I feel it's my duty here. It's what I do. I'm not here to coach for me. For sure, I enjoy the success that comes with it, but for me, when I see players succeeding, this is the most exciting thing to happen, when I see a player get promoted through the ranks, as I was once.”
Carnell was hired on a two-year contract, of a field that Tanner disclosed as nearly 100 applicants and 10 finalists. He replaces Jim Curtin, who was relieved of his duties on Nov. 7 after 10.5 years at the helm.
The Union finished 12th in the Eastern Conference last year, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017. More pressing was stalled development or regression of players both young and old under Curtin and what the sporting director saw as a lack of willingness to blood young players that meant Curtin and Tanner were no longer aligned in their vision for the club’s tactical direction.
Carnell, who has led dogmatically counter-attacking teams in New York and St. Louis, offers a mission reset.
“It is not that easy when you are looking for somebody who is good enough to train our methodology,” Tanner said. “We are a club which has a competitive strategy and a certain style of play and that requires the right knowledge about methodology and the conviction. And there are not too many guys out there now – a lot of them are over in Europe, a lot of them also here in the U.S. but most of them are at clubs – so we narrowed it down to very few candidates we were dealing with.”
In amongst the buzzword blizzard, Carnell offered tangible aspirations. He espoused a 60-30-10 rubric, seeking 60 percent of the team’s goals off transition moments, with 30 percent from set pieces and 10 percent from steady possession. He vowed to make the Union into, “something different, edgy and difficult to play against,” particularly at home, where the club had an embarrassing 4-8-5 record last year after just one league loss at Subaru Park in the previous two seasons combined. Carnell professed belief in soccer that is, “front-foot, proactive, in-your-face, aggressive and very counterattacking.”
His experience offers proof. Carnell comes from the Red Bull coaching school, having been an assistant in New York from 2017-21. He took over as the interim head coach for Chris Armas in 2020 and rallied the team into the playoffs. After returning to an assistant coaching role in Harrison, St. Louis City hired him as its inaugural head coach in early 2022. With a year to prepare, he led the expansion side to first place in the Western Conference in 2023, with 56 points and a 17-12-5 record. He finished second in MLS Coach of the Year balloting, to former Union assistant coach Pat Noonan.
But things ran aground in 2024. Carnell was fired July 1 as City got off to a 3-7-10 start, sitting 12th in the West. He was replaced by former Union boss John Hackworth, and City remained 12th in the West. Carnell spent the rest of 2024 on the staff of former Red Bulls boss Jesse Marsch with Canada.
Starting a franchise from the ground up in St. Louis is a much different experience than trying to build on the Union’s foundation.
“In St Louis, I look back with extreme pride,” he said. “It was an honor to set up that team, coach that team, have the successes that we did. And even in 2024, I would still say we're extremely competitive, extremely aggressive, to the core of who I stand for and the identity we played with. Some results got away from us here and there, but I use these as all learning opportunities.”
Carnell played for German clubs Stuttgart, Borussia Monchengladbach, Karlsruher and Hansa Rostock from 1998-2010. He earned 42 caps for South Africa from 1997-2010. Tanner knew him there, as he was working through the ranks at TSV 1860 Munich. Tanner was in Salzburg in 2017 when Carnell was first hired into the Red Bull group, before the Union brought Tanner stateside in 2018. The two remained in touch in the U.S., with the Union, Red Bulls and St. Louis City sharing so much soccer DNA.
Carnell will inherit most of Curtin’s coaching staff, including Phil Wheddon and Frank Leicht. He gets a mostly formed roster, the re-signing of Alejandro Bedoya and lone winter acquisition of Argentine defender Ian Glavinovich giving the team 26 players under contract for 2025. Despite Tanner using the word “overhaul” after the season, there’s little roster space for that.
Instead, change must come from within, via a bumper crop of Homegrown players. Carnell’s task is to continue their development and give them chances with the first team while also reversing last year’s slide from some of the Union’s entrenched veterans.
“One of my core philosophies is development,” he said. “And I think if you've looked at my history over the last two and a half years or three years as a coach, giving debuts and (time to) Homegrowns, this is me to my core. This is my DNA in terms of development. And I'm not talking about development just as young guys in the II team. There's definitely development still to be done with the seasoned pros.”