CHESTER – Ryan Richter knows he’s stepping into a unique situation with the Philadelphia Union.

Not that the team has gone from winning the Supporters’ Shield last year to one win in 15 games this year. Not the more than a decade with the club in various stints as first-teamer, reserve-team player, then assistant coach and now interim coach.

Richter has more than six weeks from his appointment as Bradley Carnell’s replacement to his first game to figure out how to fix the Union. It’s a boon for an interim coach, and it’s a runway to institute a reset – not of soccer philosophy but of cultural items that had flagged under Carnell in a disastrous start.

“It starts with creating the environment and the culture and the way that we want to compete and the passion that we need to play with and the fight and the intensity that needs to happen every single day,” Richter said Tuesday, meeting with a select group of media for the first time. “Before we get into the changes, the tactics, the system, we have to set the culture and the environment of how we want to approach every single day.”

Richter was hired May 27. The Union parted ways with Carnell, the 2025 MLS Coach of the Year, and elevated Jon Scheer from interim sporting director to full-time.

Richter needs no introduction in the building. The William Tennent and La Salle product played for the Union in 2011, part of a seven-year pro career that included being part of the inaugural Bethlehem Steel (now Union II) in 2016. He started coaching in the Union youth ranks in 2018 and was promoted to first-team assistant in 2022 under Jim Curtin.

In 2025, when Carnell became head coach, Richter transitioned to leading Union II. That experience was vital to taking this role.

“I don’t know how people go from directly being an assistant coach to being a head coach,” he said. “I know just with my personality and where I was at as far as a leader that that would not have been something that was possible for me. The opportunity to take Union II was something I was really grateful for, because you need to learn how to lead a staff. It’s different when you’re speaking to the players as an assistant coach than when you’re the one making the final decision of who plays on the weekend. And learning that communication piece and learning how to lead people and trying to be more honest every day and trying to realize how you can connect with people and how you have to coach people in different ways, you only get this real experience as a head coach.”

The first weeks have involved exclusively communication. Since the Union’s May 26 loss at Inter Miami, players have been on a CBA-negotiated break. They return to Chester Monday.

Richter has touched base with all of them to gauge where they’re at, to convey his expectations and garner feedback on what needs fixing. While he reserves high praise for Carnell, he understands that change is needed. How to do so won’t be decreed from on high.

Richter is clear that the philosophy won’t change. Since Ernst Tanner, hired in 2018 as sporting director and in a limbo state after his MLS suspension for workplace behavior expired on June 1, took charge of the club, counterattacking soccer has been the mode of play. Carnell was an absolutist. Richter learned under a more pragmatic coach in Curtin. He shades toward the latter pole.

“The philosophy is not going to change,” Richter said. “The style is not going to change. But there has to be changes and nuances to the way that we approach things. … How do you put (players) in a position and give them the freedom that they can affect the game in the way that’s that they can?”

While demurring on specifics until he discusses them with players, Richter didn’t come down on a formation, with Carnell unwavering in a 4-2-2-2 and Curtin in a 4-4-2 diamond. That’s separate from tactics anyway. And without denigrating his predecessor, he twice used the phrase, “meeting players where they’re at,” indicating more pragmatism and adaptability than Carnell.

“We have work to do, but let’s not forget that we’re here for one reason, and it’s to win,” Richter said. “So we have time to build some of the new ideas that we want to implement, and we have time to get players on the same page, and we have basically a fresh start for the team.”

Specifics will wait until the group reunites. Amid one of the worst 15-game starts in MLS history, the Union are failing at both ends of the field. The former defender has ideas on minimizing damage from a team that has allowed 30 goals in 15 games after conceding just 35 in 34 last year. He’s going to push for “more variety in the way that we attack” from a young, rebuilt unit.

Scheer and owner Jay Sugarman indicated that signings could be on the way. Richter’s remit is to figure it out with or without them.

How long Richter will get is a question to which he doesn’t have an answer. The Union promised a global search for Carnell’s replacement, though the last two times they changed coaches midseason – with John Hackworth in 2012 and Curtin in 2014 – the interim got the full-time job. The Union are paying the contracts of Carnell and Curtin through the end of 2026. (Curtin on Monday was hired to lead Austin FC, but his contract doesn’t kick in until 2027.)

“No promises or timeline has been given to me, and I don’t need that,” he said. “I’m focused on doing the best job that we can. I’m focused on Monday. And then we have a nice runway into the first game against Red Bull.

“I’m not going to come out and just run a couple sessions and try to keep the guys happy for a few weeks. I’m going to approach this like we have a job to do, we want to prepare the team in a certain way, and we’re approaching it like, however long this lasts, we’re going to do our best to try to win games and put the club in a good position, whether it’s with us going forward or with a new coach.”

He’ll do it by leaning on the relationships he’s cultivated, whether with a player in Cavan Sullivan who he’s known since he was seven years old or veterans he played against in MLS.

“I’ve been a part of this club since 2011, in pretty much every role from a coaching standpoint that you can be involved in,” he said. “I think over that period, I’ve made a lot of good relationships with people, staff in the academy, staff in the second team, ownership. Everyone that’s involved in the club, I feel like I have a connection with. And I hope that means that everyone feels like they’re a part of this.”