Three Union players earn Under-20 calls
The Philadelphia Union’s claim to be among the elite talent pipelines in MLS got another feather in the cap Tuesday with the revelation of the American squad for the CONCACAF Under-20 Championships, featuring three Union players.
Matt Real, Mark McKenzie and Anthony Fontana will take part in the tournament, which spans most of November in Bradenton, Fla., in the attempt to qualify for next summer’s U-20 World Cup.
McKenzie, a regular in the Union’s first team, will not join until after the Union are eliminated from the playoffs, per a team release. The Union will play a Wild Card game either Oct. 31 or Nov. 1 at a site and time to be determined. Should they win, they would have a two-leg Eastern Conference semifinal occupying the next two weekends.
The Union lead the way among MLS clubs with three representatives. Fifteen players on the 20-man squad have signed pro contracts, and 10 are under MLS umbrellas. Of the eight who have signed MLS contracts, McKenzie is far and away the leader with 1,539 MLS minutes played. Sporting Kansas City’s Jaylin Lindsey is a distant second at 555.
Real had a three-match cameo with the Union in April. The Drexel Hill native has gotten more action with Bethlehem Steel, making 21 starts and scoring once.
Fontana has played 16 matches for Steel this season with one goal, lately playing as a No. 8 with fellow Homegrown Brendan Aaronson slotted in as the No. 10. He has five games with the Union, including a goal in the season-opener in March. Just 10 days past his 19th birthday, the Wilmington, Del., native has been in camp before with the U-20s and played in friendlies with the U-18s. Real and Fontana will leave Steel, which is in the midst of the USL Playoffs, to participate.
Former Union Academy product and Philadelphia native CJ Dos Santos, now with Portuguese club Benfica, is on the roster, as is Sam Rogers, who had signed a national letter of intent with Villanova but agreed a pro contract with Seattle Sounders 2 instead.
The 34-team tournament begins Nov. 1. The U.S. is drawn into Group A with Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Puerto Rico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The U.S. must win that group to advance to the qualification stage, from which the top two in each of the new three-team groups earn the four qualification spots to the World Cup in Poland, starting next May. The final of the CONCACAF championship is Nov. 21.