After a momentous start to the 2024 season, Julian Carranza’s availability will be a gameday decision for Philadelphia Union’s Round of 16 Leg One match against Pachuca due to an injury suffered in the club’s 3-3 Round One finale.
The 23-year-old Argentine striker scored four goals in the team’s first two matches of Concacaf Champions Cup play, impressing an international audience with a hattrick in the team’s first meaningful 90 minutes of the year. In the latter contest, however, he started to experience some muscle tightness, and out of precaution, he’ll miss his second consecutive match on Tuesday.
His recent absences spurred a discussion about the team’s striker depth during Concacaf Champions Cup matchday -1 media availability, and both Head Coach Jim Curtin and Mikael Uhre shared their thoughts on the group’s current depth chart.
“It's been by committee right now,” Curtin said. “Whether it's Markus [Anderson], it's Quinn [Sullivan], it's [Chris] Donovan. [Jeremy] Rafanello even stepped in as a 10 last game and did a good job for us. So again, it's not just one player yet.”
Markus Anderson is the newest addition to the group, joining during preseason from the Spanish third division. He quickly climbed up the ranks, earning his first Philadelphia Union start at home and his MLS debut all in the same week. Against Saprissa at home, he clocked in 45 minutes, then on Saturday on the road, he subbed into the team’s 1-1 draw, bringing speed to the final seven minutes where the team found their equalizing goal.
“I feel like obviously, he's brought something to the group he's, he has a great explosion. He has some speed, but also some good touches and good coding abilities in the dribbling. So I think that Yeah, he definitely provides something to the squad,” Mikael Uhre said of his new teammate.
“He definitely provides something to the squad but yeah, as Jim often says to us, it's our job to make him feel welcome and make him feel a part of the team as quickly as possible. I feel like he's stepped into that really well and the guys have taken care of him. So it's, yeah, again, it's about having the entire group working together and trying to integrate the guy that's coming from the outside and help him reach his best potential.
Anderson is one of five players who have rotated into the front three in place of a teammate in the typical trio up top in Daniel Gazdag, Julian Carranza, and Mikael Uhre. He, alongside Donovan, Rafanello, and even Sullivan when bumped from his natural midfield, have been part of Curtin’s young crew to choose from when calling on fresh legs during the strenuous start of the season.
Missing from that list, though, is Tai Baribo, who was signed last summer but has only seen just 151 minutes since his arrival. The Israeli National Team player was rehabbing from an injury during the majority of preseason training in Clearwater, Florida. Curtin says that time he missed with the group has had an impact on his role thus far. During his press conference, Curtin shared that he and Baribo had a productive meeting on Sunday to discuss how he can integrate into the rotation as the season progresses.
“We talked about the challenges because we aren't training a lot together, we're basically playing recovering, there haven't been the reps with the top group that any striker needs. Every striker looks better when Kai Wagner’s serving them balls or Nate Harriel is getting to the end line and cutting balls back and he hasn't had many of those reps, because he had an injury in preseason where he missed almost three weeks,” Curtin said.
“We talked about that. We talked about doing it more consistently every day in training, and I think we'll have a good response from Tai to fight his way up that depth chart, but I say it all the time that the game in training tells the truth and the guys that we pick on the weekend are the ones that we think give us the best chance to win, so he's going to work hard to to be one of those guys.”
