Alejandro Bedoya is having a renaissance with the Union at age 35

Alejandro Bedoya can hear the footsteps coming.

He knows Father Time is crossing the parking lots that stretch from Subaru Park to the Union’s practice facility, and with company: Quinn Sullivan, Jack McGlynn, and another crop of precocious prospects starting to blossom behind them.

Yet here is Bedoya, three months after turning 35, playing some of the best soccer of his six years with the Union. He’s second on the team in chances created, behind only lead set-piece taker Kai Wagner. He’s No. 1 in progressive passes and completed passes into the opponent’s 18-yard box. On defense, he’s tied for No. 2 in blocks, and is No. 1 in aerial duals won.

Most remarkably, Bedoya has five goals, already tied for his most of any year in MLS with over a third of the season to go. He’s two away from tying the single-season high for any of his 13 years as a pro, set with Sweden’s Helsingborgs in 2013.

Where has this renaissance come from?

“You can always try to look at age to diminish my ability,” Bedoya said in an interview with The Inquirer this week. “But I keep proving people wrong and proving myself right.”

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His words weren’t just a stand of defiance. The Union have quietly made some tactical changes to get Bedoya more involved in the team’s attack, since other players on the field — especially left midfielder Leon Flach and right back Nathan Harriel — are more defensive than their predecessors.

“The focus is to get me on the ball more often and be able to dictate the game more so that we’re maybe not bypassing the midfield all the time,” Bedoya said. “My role keeps evolving. I don’t have that up-and-down speed, perhaps, anymore, but I think my positioning within the lines and in between the lines on the field is very good.”

He hasn’t changed his self-perception of not being a goal-scorer, a subject that has trailed him for what feels like an eternity now. Fans with long memories haven’t forgotten when he was a winger at the 2014 World Cup and a No. 10 at the 2016 Copa América Centenario.

“I’ve always preferred, actually, assisting if I could — to set up and get that extra pass to make a nice goal sequence,” he said. “And you see a lot, sometimes I probably could shoot more often around the box, but I always try to maybe play one-twos or combine or play the extra pass or the cutback ball, even when I have an angle to shoot.”

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He still applies the phrase they came up with at Nantes, the historic French club where Bedoya spent his last three years in Europe before coming here: le facilitateur, the facilitator. And as he has gotten older, he has focused even more on that than before.

“With age, you get a little bit smarter and don’t run stupidly as much as I used to,” he said. “So I just try to get into good spots where I can get on the ball, and then with the ball, play people into good spots.”

Yet at the same time, Bedoya has added something more: a bit of South American engancha. The Spanish word translates literally as “hook,” and the soccer term is a compliment befitting a son of Colombian immigrants. Among its uses is when a wide player cuts inside to beat a defender and create.

You know it when you see it: Bedoya gets the ball on the right flank, dribbles to space in the middle, puts the ball on his left foot, and lets rip. His goal against FC Cincinnati last month was a textbook example, as was the first of his two against D.C. United.

“As of late, they’ll tell you I’ve been working on it,” he said. “I’ve been able to score some good goals this year with my left foot or get some good shots. But more goals for me, it’s just icing on the cake, you know — and hopefully, I guess that could help me get another contract.”

We will get to that last phrase in a bit. And so will he.

“I’d rather we win the games and finish the season strong,” he said, “get into the playoffs, and make a run.”

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Bedoya won’t play in Saturday’s game at Orlando City (7:30 p.m., PHL17) because he’s suspended for yellow card accumulation. So he might take a little time to focus on some of his interests outside soccer.

Fans are accustomed to hearing from the Union’s captain about social and political issues, especially gun violence. But there is much more still to his well-rounded life. Bedoya is an art collector and an investor in multiple businesses, from an artist marketing agency to a Philadelphia-based venture capital firm.

He’s been interested in the business world since his days at Boston College, where he studied in the university’s management school. He still keeps in touch with classmates and a former professor. Two years ago, he completed a Harvard Business School program for athletes who want to run businesses after their playing careers.

“I’ve been able, throughout my playing career, to try to find a decent balance between focusing on soccer, but then focusing on off-the-field things,” Bedoya said. “Trying to learn more, become more knowledgeable, come out of my comfort zone. Soccer is what I know, but how else can I get involved in different things that [are] going to set me up post-career?”

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His latest project is a sports facility in New York that hosts padel, which combines elements of tennis (in style), pickleball (in size), and squash (with walls in play around the court). The sport is booming in South America, the Middle East, and Scandinavia, and it’s starting to make inroads in the United States.

“I’ve always had a liking to how business works, especially in the sports space,” Bedoya said. “I know for so many guys, at 12 [p.m.], 12:30, they’ll just go home, sit on their couch, play ‘FIFA’ or ‘Call of Duty’ all day long. I did that for a year or two in Sweden, and then after that, I said, ‘I need to do something to grow out of my comfort zone and learn more.’”

That has led him to spend time “diving into different spaces and different things, so I can really find out what is it that I really end up enjoying more than the other things that will keep me busy during these hours after training and post-career.”

This one, he said, has a helpful bonus: “Here I am making a good business move, but also keeping me in shape.”

There is one thing Bedoya knows he doesn’t want to pursue after playing. Asked if he’d like to go into coaching, he gave a quick and blunt “No.”

“I’d rather go into management, maybe into the front office or the technical side of things,” he said. “For now, coaching, I don’t know if I could deal with it. I feel it’s almost worse than [being] a player. You’re here at 5 in the morning to watch video. I’ve seen what Jim has to deal with sometimes with a lot of these guys, the egos and personalities, and it’s a lot.”

With that, it was back to the present.

» READ MORE: Alejandro Bedoya leads Union protest against gun violence: ‘This ain’t American exceptionalism’

“I think this is the year where we’ve finally felt the expectations are for us where we should be,” Bedoya said. “After what we did last season, in the years prior, we’re now a top team. We’re not going to creep up on anybody.”

In the locker room, he said, “We’ve held ourselves way more accountable than previous years, where maybe [we’ve] been a little bit more underdog, under the radar.”

He cited how angry the players were after all those ties, and a road loss at woeful Chicago that really got them riled up.

“We’ve been kind of [angry] even though we’re sitting top three and have been pretty much the whole year, because of the dropped points at home and that bad performance in Chicago,” he said. “I’ve seen guys being more outspoken. And I think that we really feel that we can win MLS Cup.”

So, then, about the thing that Bedoya brought up before being asked: being out of contract after this year.

“I’m playing a big role in our success and a big reason why we’re at the top of the Eastern Conference,” he said. “I try not to worry about that stuff … but, at the same time, I feel like I am deserving of at least another year.”

Bedoya’s current contract started in 2020. It took him out of designated player status and cut his pay twice, that year and 2021, then gave him a raise this year when the Union picked up a club option.

After this season, he will be a free agent. Manager Jim Curtin surely will want to keep his captain, but at what cost — not just financially, but to academy products’ playing time?

“You know how it is here: There’s always a budget or something, there’s always guys coming up as well,” he said. “I’ll have challengers — I’ve had challengers the whole time — but I just keep proving that I’m better than them or that they’re just not ready for it yet. And as long as I keep delivering, I’m going keep my spot warranted, and I’m not going to let anybody take it away from me easily.”