Interim tag aside, Ryan Richter has as good a chance to win MLS’s Coach of the Year as anyone

The Philadelphia Union are one win away from qualifying for the MLS Cup playoffs. No, seriously. Their remarkable second-half run will bear fruit if they can defeat a really good New England team at home on Saturday night (7:30 p.m., Apple TV).

For those not following the team as closely as we are here, the Union have doled out a 15-game unbeaten streak since a return to play in late July. It’s now October. And if it weren’t for a 2-2 draw with Charlotte FC in their last match, we’d be talking about a nine-game win streak against MLS competition.

They’ve done all this behind a four-man defensive front with an average age of 23, a star midfielder who only recently celebrated his 17th birthday, a striker who’s been scoring at an insane rate since a return to his rightful position as … striker, and all guided by an interim coach who has as many games coaching the first team as the number of games the club has been unbeaten.

» READ MORE: Before Ryan Richter became the Union’s interim manager, he was a hooper from Bucks County

It’s that last part that stands out.

Since taking the reins of the club in May, Ryan Richter has done one thing: put players in the best position to succeed. That means playing them in their actual positions, allowing the ones who need to roam the freedom to roam, making sure the ones who need to be in support are in the right place — and giving the ones who haven’t produced as originally anticipated the opportunity to watch and learn — from the sidelines.

His methods aren’t flashy; in fact, over this run of form they’ve become somewhat predictable. Roughly the same substitutions are made each game, bringing on like-for-like swaps in terms of work rate in the second half (see Quinn Sullivan for Indiana Vassilev, in particular), and when it comes to looking to the future, perhaps that’s the one thing Richter doesn’t do, repeatedly reminding those who ask that his method is a game-over-game approach.

“These are players now playing with a tremendous amount of confidence,” Richter noted following the team’s win against Orlando City on Sept. 26, a game where it was devoid of five starters due to international duty for their respective countries. With the players who remained, the Union rattled off a 4-2 win inside Subaru Park behind a hat trick from Milan Iloski.

Added Richter: “You see the energy they’re playing with. And if you can give this to a team, if a team feels like that, you [as a coaching staff have] to keep that rolling because it’s so powerful. You know, it’s so powerful.”

While some might find this premature, there is chatter that Richter, as an interim coach, could be in line to receive MLS’ Sigi Schmid Coach of the Year award. He’d be the first interim head coach to win the award in Major League Soccer and just the second in the five major professional American sports leagues to win such an honor.

» READ MORE: Ryan Richter’s journey to Union interim head coach follows a familiar path for the club

Coincidentally, the last winner of such an award was a Pennsylvania native, like Richter, who hails from Southampton. In 2012, as the interim coach of the Indianapolis Colts, York, Pa., native Bruce Arians won the NFL’s Coach of the Year award after guiding the Colts to a 9-3 record (11-5 overall) while head coach Chuck Pagano was receiving treatment for leukemia.

Richter could set the stage to do the same in Major League Soccer, but there are hurdles. For starters, only one team in the history of MLS has had a coach win the league’s Coach of the Year award in back-to-back seasons. That would be the case here, considering last season, former Union coach Bradley Carnell earned the distinction after guiding the Union to the 2025 Supporters’ Shield title, given to the club with the best overall record in the league.

The last time a team won consecutive awards was the 2006 and 2007 seasons when the now-defunct Chivas USA franchise had coaches earn the honor. American coaching legend Bob Bradley took the crown first, followed by former U.S. national team standout Preki Radosavljević, who won after taking over for Bradley the following year.

Also, there are other coaches in MLS this season who are doing some pretty remarkable things. One of the front-runners just so happens to be another area native and former Union assistant. What Ventnor City, N.J. native B.J. Callaghan has done with Nashville SC, already locking up a playoff spot and ensuring they’ll be the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs with four games still to play — before MLS’ Decision Day — is impressive.

There’s also St. Louis City SC coach Yoann Damet, who, before a 3-2 loss last week against Minnesota United, rattled off an 18-game unbeaten run which included 13 wins. Earlier this month, his team won the famed U.S. Open Cup, the oldest domestic soccer tournament in America.

So Richter has some competition. The difference between the others and what he has to work with is a payroll that is a lot lighter, players who are a lot younger, some even getting their first look at first-team competition, and a run that’s still going strong as they head into a massive game at home that, with a win (or a draw with some help), would serve as early redemption.

A reminder that this was a team that entered the seven-week break for the FIFA World Cup with just one win, wallowing in MLS’ Eastern Conference basement.

“When the players step on the field, they expect to win; they expect to score,” Richter said. “That kind of confidence, it’s contagious. It can take you a long way. And we have to bottle that up and keep it as long as we possibly can.”

It’s already a remarkable story.

The fun part is that it’s one that isn’t close to being done yet.

» READ MORE: Follow the Inquirer's complete coverage of Union soccer right here!