\n Club exercises contract option on defender<\/p>\n
Philadelphia Union II announced today that the club has exercised the contract option for defender Rafael Uzc\u00e1tegui, securing him for the 2026 MLS NEXT Pro season.<\/p>\n
\u201cRafael has been an important part of our backline and has shown steady growth within our environment,\u201d said Philadelphia Union II Head Coach, Ryan Richter. \u201cHis consistency and understanding of our defensive principles have helped set the standard for our group, and we look forward to seeing him continue to build on that foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2025, Uzc\u00e1tegui started and appeared in 26 MLS NEXT Pro matches, playing a key role in Union II conceding the second fewest goals in the league (34). He also appeared in all three of Union II\u2019s MLS NEXT Pro Playoff matches, including the Eastern Conference Final.<\/p>\n
TRANSACTION:<\/strong>\u00a0Philadelphia Union II exercise the option for defender Rafael Uzc\u00e1tegui on February 26, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Club exercises contract option on defender Philadelphia Union II announced today that the club has exercised the contract…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":623071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,15278,1448,2830,1311,17738,266485,17739,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-623070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-mls-next-pro","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-union-ii","tag-rafael-uzcategui","tag-union-ii","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116150226379699733","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}