Countdown to Kick: Union's unique No. 9

Nearly every soccer team has a player wearing the number nine. In the early years of the sport, starters always wore numbers one through 11, and as tactics and preferred team shapes changed the number nine was often the player furthest up the pitch.

Thus nine became mythologized. The great goalscorers wanted the weight of that number, and those that broke into the senior team would quickly request it the moment it became available. Unlike other sports, soccer does not retire numbers for all time. Instead, numbers take on both positional and club-specific narratives, and none are more consistent than nine: The goalscorer.

Yet, Philadelphia Union are entering the 2020 season with, at present,…