May 31, 2017
Earl Gardner/Philly Soccer Page
Union midfielder Haris Medunjanin will play Saturday in New York City before leaving for international duty with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That appears to be the theme for the Philadelphia Union, who stumbled to their first loss in seven games after a 1-0 result in Salt Lake City on Saturday night.
The lineup likely does not change this weekend, judging by the scrimmage we saw on Wednesday between the Union second team and Bethlehem Steel.
That "reserve" defense was comprised of Giliano Wijnaldum, Richie Marquez, Josh Yaro, and Keegan Rosenberry. Ken Tribbett played as a holding midfielder alongside Adam Najem, while the rest of the team included Roland Alberg, Marcus Epps, Charlie Davies, and John Gallagher, a guest player from Notre Dame.
Gallagher is a tricky winger who scored a couple of goals against Steel in a preseason friendly. He's in Chester for a few days to allow the Union a closer look.
The only starter unavailable for the New York City trip is captain Alejandro Bedoya, who is currently with the United States national team. With Derrick Jones still on U20 World Cup duty, Warren Creavalle is expected to fill in as the starting number eight.
Going back to Yaro for a moment, the second-year center back is cleared for action, according to head coach Jim Curtin. Yaro wrote on social media that he will play for Steel this weekend, but Curtin stopped short of confirming that at Wednesday's press conference.
Midfielder Haris Medunjanin is also in line for June national team duty, but won't join Bosnia and Herzegovina until after this weekend's game.
Bosnia is currently third place in their 2018 World Cup qualification group, three points behind group leaders Belgium. They have a crucial home game against second-place Greece next Friday, then play at Cyprus and at Gibraltar in September and August.
Medunjanin told reporters Wednesday that he was in the mix to play for his country a few months ago, but didn't want to disrupt his MLS transition."I talked with the national team coach (Mehmed Baždarević) before," Medunjanin said. "He wanted to speak with me back in March when we had the international break, but I had just come (to Philadelphia) so I wanted to stay to be with the new team, to adjust here. He said, 'okay, I understand, it's better to come in June to play in this important game against Greece.'"
Bosnia conceded a 95th-minute goal in its first group game against Greece, settling for a 1-1 road draw.
Here's how the Group H table looks after five games:
One of the things we've noticed in recent weeks is Alejandro Bedoya's tendency to do most of his work up the right side of the field.
It's resulted in some odd looking charts that show about 80 percent of passing and defensive actions taking place in lopsided fashion.
I'd always guessed that it was a bit of natural tilt, since he is a right footed player who began his career as a right winger. Medunjanin, his midfield partner, is a lefty who opens up facing the other side of the field. That creates a natural double-pivot that's been working well over the past five or six games.
Here's an example of a typical Bedoya chart, this one from the Red Bull win where he played the first 63 minutes as a number eight before moving up to the ten spot.
Weird right?
Curtin spoke about the trend on Wednesday:
"It's crazy. I talked with Ale about it to ask him what he saw and felt. All of his positive touches, and actually most of his negative touches, they all come on the right-hand side. He said it's probably because of a factor of him playing on the right, obviously as a winger in his career.
"At Nantes, he drifted to that side as well because they had a striker that he liked to play underneath of. It's just habit. When you add in a guy like Haris, who has a good left foot and naturally drifts to the left, then it's just 'organic' I guess you would say.
"It's not by design. We haven't really said, 'Ale, you stay on this right-hand side.' But for some reason, all of his positive actions, and some negative ones, come up on that side. That's just how it's happened. It's worked and it's been healthy, the comfort level of where he's at."
