Photo: Paul Rudderow

Josh Yaro started at right center back for the Bethlehem Steel last Sunday. It was about time a loanee from Philadelphia Union did.

After three consecutive games without it, the Steel and Union took steps to return proper depth to the Steel’s bench.

This year, Bethlehem has at times deployed lineups without:

a backup goalkeeper;

a backup center back;

a full substitutes bench.

In one game, the team had only four players on the bench. USL rules allow seven.

An obvious truth has emerged: The Steel’s USL roster is too small. And this has forced Bethlehem and Philadelphia to violate one of their stated foundation principles.

The theory

The violated principle is that when each player has a strong, thorough understanding of the responsibilities of his position and focuses primarily on that position, he plays better, both as an individual and a member of the team’s planned style of play. He has no distraction from his role. And he replaces the man ahead of him easily. Philadelphia Union manager Jim Curtin calls the principle “Next man up.”

A Steel game roster has three theoretical sources:

The organization decided to use a core USL roster size of 14 this season. Additional players would be added every game from Philadelphia Union’s roster as the first team needed. As Academy teenagers grew ready to compete among professionals, they too would join in.

The reality

The actuality of in-season operational detail destroys good theories.

The roster construction went well from March into June. Three-sourced depth handled preseason aches, pains, sprains and strains. Everyone’s engine capacity increased. The defense found itself and gelled, although the offense remained discontinuous. The group recovered from the shellacking in New Jersey, did well through a stretch of visiting veteran powerhouses, and anticipated the pivotal challenge of the five consecutive road trips.

Reality check No. 1

Then the roster shortfall emerged.

The last minute injection of Copa America Centenario into the calendar was simultaneous with the group stage of “nationals’ at the end of the US Soccer Development Academy’s season.

That made a mess of the goalkeeper situation. Andre Blake was away with Jamaica. Matt Jones and John McCarthy were in Talen Energy Stadium. CJ Dos Santos (U-16) and Andrew Verdi (U-18) had flown to Texas. And Samir Badr was the only keeper on the Steel bus to North Carolina.

When asked who the emergency keeper had been, Bethlehem head coach Brendan Burke laughed, gently deflected by saying “Wasn’t that an interesting situation,” and low-key answered a quiet follow-up push, explaining that a one-off circumstance meant he had talked to a couple of guys about the “what-if” scenario.

Three consecutive reality checks, (plus one)

That would have been fine if it was a one-off. It wasn’t.

It happened again and again and again, and not just at one position. The new surprises were no longer simple, no longer mild, and should not have been that surprising. (Only Mickey Daly’s loan might have been a “bolt from the blue,” but even then, the club agreed to the move.)

There was no trained center back on the Steel’s game day bench for the three games in which utility defender Nick Bibbs started. Auston Trusty was away. Mickey Daly was loaned out. Mark McKenzie remained – and remains — hurt. When Derrick Jones’s promotion further thinned the roster in general, Anderson coming down from the Union was essential.

Burke’s only center back depth was to shift a field player back and substitute into his position on the field. Credit him for having a plan. The plan was not “Next Man Up.” It could not be. There was no next man to step up.

It wasn’t the only time. In one of these three consecutive games of the recent home stand, Bethlehem had no formally trained backup goalkeeper on the bench. Matt Jones’s whereabouts remained an open, unanswered question until it was finally announced recently that he has picked up an MCL injury.*

Dutch (and Pennsylvania Dutch) thrift

Judicious care in spending on roster salaries is sound business, but not having enough players is not. There is a difference between being caught short by a late-emerging calendar addition and taking four games to react to a problem. The means to respond existed, as the roster for the fourth, most recent game demonstrates. Why those means were not used sooner is the worst kind of question, an unanswered one.

Another field player and a second goal keeper would be good answers to the roster question for the future.