Bradley Carnell Hired As New Head Coach Of Philadelphia Union

The Philadelphia Union ended an era earlier this off-season when they fired Jim Curtin after 11 years as the team's head coach. The question became who would lead this new era of Union soccer? We now know the answer. The Union hired Bradley Carnell, making him the 4th head coach in franchise history.

Carnell has 10 years of professional coaching experience on his resume, including 8 in the MLS. Most recently, he served as the first-ever head coach for expansion team St Louis City SC. He was fired in his 2nd season there though.

Before that he was an assistant with the Red Bulls, and later the Intermin Head Coach. He started his career coaching at the University of Johannesburg in his home Country South Africa.

Bradley Carnell also played for 18 years, splitting the time between teams in South Africa, and then later in Germany. In addition, he also represented South Africa 42 times in International Play, including 3 times in the 2002 World Cup. He retired in 2011, started coaching in 2012, and then was hired by the Red Bulls as an assistant in 2017.

The Union are at a bit of a turning point. They had gotten used to being at the top of the League Table with him Curtin. They flirted with winning it all a few times, but a team decimated by Covid 1 year, and a collapse in the MLS Cup another, meant they never won it all.

2 years ago they took a big step back going out early in the playoffs. Last season they missed the playoffs altogether. That was all she wrote for Curtin. The blame should fall on more than just Curtin, but 2 disappointing seasons in a row ended his time with the Union. However, Union fans have focused much of their ire on the team's owner, Jay Sugarman.

As more and more MLS teams land big-name players coming over from Europe to finish out their career hear, the Union have not quite jumped on board that train. They made their name-building up young talent, but that pool has seemingly started to dry up.

Fans have grown restless feeling like ownership is not willing to spend what it takes to win now. The Sons Of Ben, the Union fan club, even staged a protest at a game earlier this season, though stadium security quickly shut it down.

In St Louis, Carnell played a frenetic passing style of soccer, which tracks with his playing roots in Germany. It also tracks from his time with the Red Bulls who run a similar tactic. So expect that style to return to Subaru Park. Whether or not it will turn things around for the club remains to be seen.

2024 is coming to an end. It was another wild year for Philly Sports. Both in good ways, but also in some very bad ways. There was more regular-season joy, but also more playoff disappointment. We had big debuts, catastrophic injuries, and multiple collapses that left us heartbroken as a fanbase. So basically it was a typical year for the average Philly Sports fan.

Related: Why I Don’t Blame Joel Embiid: Leave Family Out Of It

With the year wrapping up, The Fantic did an experiment. Employees, both on the mic and behind the scenes, were all asked to come up with their 10 biggest storylines of the year from Philly sports, ranking them from 10 to 1.

Some people (you know who you are) did not follow directions and did not rank their stories. One person, who happened to pitch in the Major Leagues in the past gave his biggest storylines for each team but didn't rank them 10 to 1. But I won't call them out by name.

Most people did follow the instructions, and by the end, we had about 30 lists. I compiled those lists, did a little math, and came up with a democratic answer to what were the 10 biggest storylines of the year. Anything that was ranked number 1 got 10 points, number 2 got 9 points, and so on. By the end, we had a definitive list of which stories were the biggest in Philly Sports this past year.

So what was the biggest storyline of 2024? Was is the drama between Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts from over the summer? Was it the Phillies' quick playoff exit? What about the Eagles' quick playoff exit from last season? Where did the debut and fast start by rookie phenom Matvei Michkov rank? Find out below.

The list will also air as a 1 hour special on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve at 5 pm. It was narrated by the great Amy Fadool, with audio from throughout the year.

Obviously, not everyone had the same 10 stories on their list. So here are a few that got a few votes, but did not get enough to crack the top 10. So here are a few honorable mentions before we get to the top 10.

The Sixers 2023-2024 season started out as well as you could hope. Joel Embiid, coming off winning MVP, looked even better. He dropped 70 in a game and was averaging over a point per minute.

But then disaster struck. A meniscus injury kept him out for most of the rest of the season. They were 31-8 when he played, but 16-27 without him. Embiid came back by the end of the year, but it was not enough to get out of the Play-in Tournament. But they managed to get through that, and hopes were high that they could get past the Knicks in the playoffs.

Those hopes were dashed in 6 games. While Embiid and Maxey played great, the rest of the team was not so great. The Sixers didn't even last long enough to get their usual 2nd round exit. Not to mention we had to deal with Knicks fans taking over our own building.

It was an ugly end to an ugly season, that at one point had so much hope.

Eagles fans have been lucky to have two Hall of Fame-level players for the past 13 years. Jason Kelce, drafted in 2011, and Fletcher Cox drafted in 2012. Those two, along with Brandon Graham, were the last remaining players from the Andy Reid era. They lasted through Reid, Chip Kelly, Doug Pederson, and Nick Sirianni. They were part of the only team to win a Super Bowl in Eagles history. But in the same off-season, they both called it a career.

First Jason Kelce, in a tear-filled press conference, and then later Fletcher Cox, in a slightly more subdued one. Two huge leaders on the two sides of the ball, leaving at the same time.  There were questions about how the Eagles would survive losing two leaders. But there is not question that they are two of the greatest Eagles of all time. 

We will get to the way the season ended, but the start of the season was magical. A rotation putting up historical numbers, a lineup near the top of the league, and a shutdown bullpen.

Going into the All-Star Break, the Phillies were on top of the world, having just recently swept the Dodgers. From April 5th to mid-July, the Phillies won or tied 23 of their 28 series. They were 28 games over .500. But then August got ugly. September was a bit better, still not as good as they were earlier though. But they had built up such a big lead, that the NL East crown was never truly in doubt.

They took home the NL East Pennant for the first time since 2011. But going into the playoffs the feeling around the team was nowhere near as good as it was back in July.

Most of the 2023 collapse was not eligible for this list. The 10-1 start, to the 11-6 finish, mostly all happened in 2023. But the end of it all, the playoff game vs the Bucs, fell in 2024.

They drew a 9-7 Bucs team that only made the playoffs because of how bad the NFC South was. But the Eagles had been even worse, and it showed on that night. The Eagles got embarrassed down in Tampa Bay. They lost 32-9. That 32 for Tampa included a Safety that might be the worst play of Jalen Hurts career. They were lifeless and showed no fight at all. It was way many didn't believe Nick Sirianni would be back. But we will get to that part of the story later in this list.

Daryl Morey did not say the Sixers would go star-hunting like Brett Brown did. But he basically said it in his own way. Morey told reporters that the Sixers were targeting a "High-Level Player." He specifically suggested they wanted a wing player. And that is exactly what they did.

They eventually signed Paul George to a 4-year Max Contract worth $212 million. As free agency opened, it felt like it was the way George was leaning. But negotiations carried into the late night. While most of Philadelphia was sleeping, the news broke. Woj, who was still covering the NBA at the time, hit send on the Tweet announcing the deal at 3:30 am.

So far, it has not worked out as the Sixers hoped. That is not all on George, and we will get into some of those issues later on in this list. But the George news was one of the biggest moments in Philly Sports this year.

When the Flyers drafted Matvei Michkov, it was with the knowledge he was a few years away from coming over to the States. Or so they thought. Because this summer they got the good news that Michkov was coming over 2 years earlier than expected. It was some of the first bit of great news the organization had in years. This was on the back of Cutter Gauthier forcing his way out of the organization and of course the Carter Hart Situation. They had been mired in mostly bad news for a while. But now, a kid many called the best Flyers prospect since Eric Lindros, was coming over to hopefully save the organization.

The phenom did not disappoint. Right out of the gate, he looked the part, scoring 9 points in his 1st 10 games, and winning Rookie of The Month. There was a bit of a speed bump where John Tortorella benched him, but from there he picked up where he left up. He just turned 20 and he already looks like this. Imagine what he will look like when he is in his prime. He wasn't even 20 yet when he scored his game-winner in OT, and then later added another OT game-winner to his resume.

It has not been the easiest of years for Joel Embiid. Firstly, he injured his meniscus last season. It kept him out for most of the year. But as we already discussed, things did not go to plan in the playoffs.

In the offseason, he made his Olympic debut for Team USA. He even played hero vs Serbia where his great play kept them in the game until Steph Curry took over. But many, even at the time, were concerned about him being at the Olympics and wished he just used the offseason to rehab. Those fears came to fruition once the regular season started and Embiid was not ready to play.

He missed the first few weeks of games. Then the circus really kicked into high gear when he shoved Marcus Hayes, who had written a story criticizing Embiid, and for some reason implied that Embiid was disappointing his dead brother and young son in the original version of the story. The fans, who had been furious with Embiid, rallied behind him. But he was suspended and missed even more time. He returned, and had a few good games, but then missed another chunk of games with the same injury.

Even when he returned from that, he came back and had a great game, but in his 2nd game back took a hit to the face and suffered a sinus fracture. He is back playing again after missing only a couple of games, but there has been a lot more drama with Embiid lately than winning. And it has led to a bad start by the Sixers. They are starting to dig out of it, but there is a long way to go.

It was common knowledge that the Eagles don't spend money on RBs. Or do they? Because not long after free agency opened, they landed the biggest RBs on the Market, agreeing to a 3-year $38 million deal.

But the story did not end there. Because Barkley has been even better than advertised. He is on his way to a 2000-yard season, and even still has an outside shot to break Eric Dickerson's record. He took home multiple Player of the Week awards, broke an Eagles record for single-season yards, set career highs, and has the Eagles clicking on all cylinders.

Not to mention this play that will likely go down as the play of the year.

The story that dominated the summer. Nick Sirianni held onto his job. But only with the caveat that he was no longer in charge of the offense. They brought two experienced coordinators in, Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio, and made Sirianni "The CEO Head Coach."

But that shift was not even the biggest story with him. The offseason story was all about the relationship between him and Jalen Hurts. Multiple stories broke down how their relationship hit a rocky patch during the 2023 season, and it was not exactly fixed by the off-season. Hurts did very little to end those rumors with his typical media style where he gave little to no answers.

But apparently, something was worked out. The Eagles started slow, 2-2, thanks in large part to injuries to several stars. but since the bye week, they are 10-1, with the 1 loss only coming when Jalen Hurts was knocked out of the game. Sirianni had a few rough weeks where the fanbase and media were tough on him, Browns and Jaguars games being standouts, but he has mostly redeemed himself in the eyes of the city... for now.

The runaway winner was the Phillies losing to the Mets, it was the only story that appeared on every single list. A season that once had so much promise, ended before it could get off the ground. 2 years after being two wins away from the World Series, the Phillies couldn't even get two wins in the NLDS. The Mets mowed them down in a similar fashion to how the Phillies handled the Braves the past two seasons. Knocking them out in just 4 games.

The bats went ice cold, with only Nick Castellanos and Bryce Harper showing life. The bullpen fell apart, with Jeff Hoffman in particular struggling. The starters still looked good, but that was not enough to get the Phillies to the NLCS. It was an utter collapse, that followed their collapse in the NLCS last season.

This team had been beloved. But you could feel people start to turn on them after this. We have seen it happen to the Sixers, where after several playoff exits, the fans stopped caring about regular season success. We already saw it a bit last season. Their latest postseason failure might push even more people to only really care once they get to the playoffs.

It set up an important season for the Phillies. Their stars are getting older. The window might be closing. But with the already dominant Dodgers getting even better, is the window already closed? We will find out in 2025.