Armchair Analyst: Alejandro Bedoya is the glue for Union midfield

Matthew Doyle

Welcome to the Wednesday Q&A series, where we focus on one particular topic – today's being the acquisition of Alejandro Bedoya – and ask you to react, share, and discuss in the comments section. However, feel free to ask about anything game-related (MLS, USL, NASL, USMNT, CanMNT, etc.) over the next several hours.

This one is pretty easy to me: Alejandro Bedoya is smart. He takes up smart positions to receive the ball, he makes smart passes, he makes smart runs. Defensively, he fills gaps in a smart way. He uses his brain first and his legs second, and while he plays unremarkable soccer as an individual, he's pretty consistently been a force magnifier in a team setting.

Think about the rest of the USMNT midfield. Michael Bradley's outstanding skill? The ability to spread the field with huge, accurate and early switches. Jermaine Jones is most notable for his game-breaking athleticism -- even in his mid-30s he can simply outrun some plays. Kyle Beckerman is a shield, and Darlington Nagbe is preternaturally gifted in terms of balance and agility.

Bedoya does some-to-none of all of the above, but he's on the field 95% of the time regardless because soccer is a team game, and he makes the team better on both sides of the ball, even if he doesn't create a ton of chances or score many goals or win tackle after tackle after tackle. He'll help Philadelphia fill the gaps that have popped wide open since Vincent Nogueira left two months ago.

This goal the Union conceded a couple of weeks ago stuck out to me in that regard:

Obviously Keegan Rosenberry has to do better reading the danger and make it harder for Ignacio Piatti to receive, or to turn. And then Ray Gaddis... what the hell, man? How do you not stick with Didier Drogba there?

But like most goals, this one came after a cascade of errors. The backline was really, really poor on that play, but a more organized and functional midfield could have prevented the danger in the first place. To see what I mean, go back to the first couple of seconds, and this frame in particular:

Philly play a 4-2-3-1 that sometimes look like a 4-1-4-1. Either way, it's a lineup that uses three central midfielders. And that's all three of them circled above, after having been cut out of the play with a single pass.

It's been a constant theme since June, as d-mid Brian Carroll has had to take on more of the burden in terms of chasing the ball as opposed to merely shielding the backline. In this instance, either Tranquillo Barnetta or Roland Alberg has to drop deep and cover the space Carroll has vacated or -- better yet -- do a better job of pressing the ball in the first place so that Carroll can keep covering the backline.

Barnetta and Alberg both are true attacking midfielders (get me in the right mood and I'd even argue that Alberg isn't a midfielder at all, but much more of a second forward) without real defensive instincts. Playing them together has produced some fun attacking moments, but too often it's invited these types of passes that immediately put the entire backline on their back foot.

Bedoya figures that out and stops it before it happens. He's not the centerpiece, but he's the guy who holds everything together -- much as Nogueira was before him.

He also seems to like Philadelphia: