The Union are running it back again. Will it work this time?

After the Union reached their first MLS championship game in 2022, they decided they’d run it back in 2023 to try to win it all.

They did not. Instead, in a season with more games than ever over five competitions, they registered 12 fewer regular-season points and were knocked out two playoff rounds earlier.

It was disappointing, but not surprising. Failing at running it back is nothing new in MLS, or many other sports.

That could have led to an overhaul. Instead, the Union are about to run it back again. Not only were veterans Alejandro Bedoya and Kai Wagner re-signed, but no one with global market value was sold: Julián Carranza, Olivier Mbaizo, Jack McGlynn, and Leon Flach.

Nor did the team buy anyone major, perhaps a consequence of a lack of cap space. The purchases made were the kind of low-résumé, high-ceiling prospects the club loves to find.

MLS has longstanding power teams, such as the Seattle Sounders and Los Angeles FC. But even with all their star power, they aren’t afraid to turn over the rest of their squads.

So why do the Union think they’ll be different?

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“That’s a fair question,” manager Jim Curtin said. “I would just say though, you know, we’ve been in and around the top, playing for trophies, for five years now — and it’s not a fluky thing.”

Curtin returned to an axiom he has long held dear. The Union haven’t just made the playoffs for six straight years, they’ve totaled the most regular-season points of any of MLS’s 29 teams, 328. Not only that, but their points-per-year average of 54.67 is the best of every club with more than one season of existence. (St. Louis City SC tallied 56 in its debut campaign last year.)

It is indeed remarkable that the Union have done this. For as much parity as there is in MLS, making money still matters.

Subaru Park is the league’s fourth-smallest stadium, with far fewer luxury spaces to put more cash in the bank. Last year was the first when the Union sold out every regular-season game, with an average attendance of 18,907 that ranked 18th leaguewide. But it’s no secret that the team’s core fan base is smaller than those in smaller but more vibrant soccer cities.

Forbes’ latest MLS franchise value report estimated that the Union lost $7 million last year. Whether or not that’s accurate, the eye test on a game night says plenty.

“You’ve heard me say it a million times, so you’re probably sick of me saying it,” Curtin said. “The way that we punch above our weight, and the consistency that we do it with, it defies a lot of the norm in the sport of soccer.”

» READ MORE: Kai Wagner signs a new long-term deal with the Union, committing his future here

How long can that last? The nation’s fourth-largest media market expects its sports teams to act like it. The Oreland native knows, and so does his locker room.

“It’s a group that recognizes what expectations are in our team now,” he said. “The fans are no longer going to be happy with just making the playoffs. They want a trophy, and they want to win the championship.”

And if you get that close …

“It’s not dissimilar to the way the Phillies and the Eagles’ seasons ended,” Curtin said. “It’s almost disappointment that you didn’t lift the trophy.”

The risk in the Union’s running it back matters even more for a team that’s so good at youth development. You can almost lose count of the Union alumni in Europe: Brenden and Paxten Aaronson, Mark McKenzie, Auston Trusty, and lesser names like Jack de Vries and Anthony Fontana.

That’s how the world’s smartest soccer teams do business, including in MLS. Develop players, sell them on, and spend the profits on getting better.

» READ MORE: Brenden and Paxten Aaronson celebrate being on the USMNT together for the first time

Even players who didn’t play much here can thank the Union for their success. It’s well-known that Downingtown-born U.S. national team goalkeeper Zack Steffen started in the Union’s academy. But have you heard of Faris Moumbagna?

Six years ago, the Cameroon-born striker turned pro with the Union’s then-reserve team, Bethlehem Steel, out of the Montverde Academy high school in Florida. He was barely noticed when he left here as a free agent at the end of 2019. He went to Europe, and after a few years of toil, exploded to prominence in Norway.

Last month, French power Marseille bought the now-23-year-old for $8.6 million while he played at the African Cup of Nations. That’s another Union success story.

The best success stories may be yet to come, because the Union are sitting on a heap of young talent.

Some have already made it: McGlynn, Jesús Bueno, and Nathan Harriel in particular. But they’re just the start. Quinn Sullivan is stuck as a backup, and an out-of-position one at that. Brandan Craig had to be loaned out for a second time so he can actually play.

The next crop behind them is rising fast. Midfielders C.J. Olney and David Vazquez, towering centerback Neil Pierre, and goalkeeper Andrew Rick are all teenagers who could play for the reserve team this year. The most-hyped prospect of all, 14-year-old Cavan Sullivan, is with the reserves for preseason.

Ernst Tanner’s scouting eye added Sanders Ngabo, Jamir Berdecio, Markus Anderson, and José Riasco, who’s currently with Venezuela’s under-23 squad at Olympic qualifying.

» READ MORE: Cavan Sullivan, 14, invited to the Union’s preseason camp: ‘The sky’s the limit’

“I think it’s no secret we have this good wave of young talent coming up, but we have to find the right time to get them minutes,” Curtin said.

He was right, except for one word. We should have been I. Giving minutes is the manager’s job, especially when it comes to in-game substitutions.

That has long been Curtin’s weak spot, and it was again last year. Bedoya played 2,766 minutes over 39 games, with two injuries along the way. Jakob Glesnes played 3,834 over 43 before succumbing to a sports hernia. Dániel Gazdag played 4,045 over 48, and Jack Elliott played 4,171 over 47.

That can’t happen again this year.

If your veteran-loving heart wants to disagree, think of the other teams Curtin mentioned.

Quinn Sullivan was 6 months old when Ryan Howard made his Phillies debut in 2004. Cavan Sullivan wasn’t born yet when the Eagles let Brian Dawkins walk in 2009.

Perhaps their parents have told them stories of Jim Thome’s stardom blocking Howard from the majors, and the uproar over Dawkins’ exit. Or their grandfather Larry, Curtin’s college coach at Villanova.

The elders know which slugger won a World Series here, and why the Eagles were right.

The rest of us know a jammed pipeline when we see it.

» READ MORE: Inside the Union’s controversial recruitment of top prospect David Vazquez

It doesn’t help that Europe’s often-wild transfer market cooled down this winter. In the old days, someone would have bought Carranza just for the sake of it.

“We haven’t sold someone recently, but we’re not going to just sell for the sake of selling — it has to be a good deal,” Curtin said. “And the global market right now, it’s dead.”

In fact, as Curtin pointed out, some of the biggest-spending leagues right now aren’t in Europe.

“There’s only a few leagues in the world right now that will grossly overpay for players,” Curtin said. “Obviously, Saudi Arabia. I would say England still makes wild, brash decisions. And it’s actually MLS.”

“I think that’s a good thing for our league to be in that category, where we have owners that are willing to pay for players,” Curtin said.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to spend if you have the cash on hand. And the fastest way to get it, especially for the Union, is by selling.

» READ MORE: Julián Carranza stays with the Union after Europe’s winter transfer window closes

“The best advertisement for the club, ever, was when Brenden [Aaronson] and Mark [McKenzie] went,” Curtin said. “Because players saw you could go to Europe, you could do well, you get in the national team picture. And then also from a business side of things, our owners went, ‘Wow, this is quite a model.’”

It is, as Curtin quipped, “something that doesn’t happen in the NFL.” But after nearly 30 years, MLS and its teams finally get that selling players is a good thing.

Even if that puts some pressure on the Union to sell sooner, in order to un-jam the pipeline.

“Of course we have to continue that,” Curtin said. “And I believe strongly that we will … That’s something that we have to keep doing, because that is our model.”

There’s one other way this year can go better: if the Union’s incumbents step up.

“I get the comment of, you know, is it too many times running it back,” Curtin said. “But this group knows how to get in and around it. Now, we do have to take that next step, whatever that means.”

He knows that means his team scoring more goals.

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Mikael Uhre started last year believing he could score 20, and he was far from alone. He ended up with 11. That wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great — and some long droughts between tallies made it worse for the most expensive player in Union history.

“If Mikael can stay healthy the whole year, and really get service, and come in [at] his top fitness level and shape, that would be something that would really, really help,” Curtin said.

He wasn’t afraid to put a little heat under Uhre, too.

“I want to challenge him this year to score the goals — the game-winning goals, the goals in the one-goal games,” Curtin said. “He does great in the games where we win 5-, 6-0, and you can pile on and get the goals then. But we want the killer goals in the really tight game where maybe we’re not playing our best, but now a striker wins you the game.”

Tai Baribo’s stepping up would also be a big help. There’s a long history of MLS summer arrivals not breaking out until the next season, and now is Baribo’s chance to join it.

“We’re going to ask for Mikael, we’re going to ask for Tai, to bail us out on the nights that we’re off,” Curtin said. “That’s what the great strikers do, and we’re going to need that.”

If that happens, the Union will contend for a title again. But to get all the way there, they’ll need many things to go right. Right now, no one can make that happen more than Curtin.

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