Last week, Gareth Southgate expressed worry about the amount of game time young English players were getting in the Premier League. In the US, few clubs have shown a greater willingness to give first team minutes to youth than Philadelphia Union. Auston Trusty, Mark McKenzie, Matt Real, Anthony Fontana, Derrick Jones, Keegan Rosenberry, and Jack Elliott are all players that saw significant minutes in their first seasons in Major League Soccer, and five of those players came through the Union’s increasingly productive academy.
That record with young talent shows youth players that if they work hard and develop, the Union are a club that will not hesitate to take a chance on them, and as a result another wave of top players is cresting in the academy and preparing to crash into MLS.