This was not how Auston Trusty’s career was meant to play out. A Philadelphia boy, in the academy from the age of eight, a full-time starter by 19, playing every single minute of the 2018 season after only making his senior debut in the season-opener, Trusty was meant to be both the face and the future of the Philadelphia Union franchise.
And then, halfway through the 2019 season, only his second as a starter, suddenly, swiftly, perhaps harshly, he was dropped, first from the starting XI and eventually out of the squad entirely. By the end of the year, he was the fourth-choice centre-back and facing an inevitable exit in the offseason.