Cavan Sullivan and the Union’s reserve team are heading to the MLS Next Pro league title game

It doesn’t make up for the Union’s poor season this year, but the club’s reserve squad will play in the MLS Next Pro league championship game on Saturday.

Many of the team’s top young prospects have been big contributors at the reserve level this year: attacking playmakers Cavan Sullivan, CJ Olney, and David Vazquez, forward Eddy Davis, centerback Neil Pierre, and goalkeeper Andrew Rick.

They have taken Union II to its first playoff final since the club launched a reserve team in 2016, when it took over the Bethlehem Steel moniker and played in the USL Championship. Union II (the team name changed in 2019) finished second in MLS Next Pro’s Eastern Conference this year and won a playoff game for the first time since 2018 in the USL era.

The players have gotten significant attention among fans and scouts, not just for their talents, but for their ages. All six players mentioned above are teenagers, even though four already have first-team contracts. Union II’s overall average age of 18 is the second-youngest in MLS Next Pro, and its starting lineup’s average age of 18.9 is the youngest.

None of this means they’ll all make it at the top level and someday lead the Union to their first trophy since the 2020 Supporters’ Shield. But there is real promise in this group, and it most recently was shown in a 4-0 rout of the Columbus Crew’s reserves Saturday in the Eastern Conference final.

» READ MORE: The upside of the Union's bad season is their young talent now knows what it takes to win

“Every single guy in this group, in this locker room, has a boatload of talent,” Olney said. “Being able to bring it out on the field and bring each other’s talents out on the field, it’s really good.”

Many of Union II’s players have played together for a while now, having been in the Union’s youth academy before reaching this level. At the prestigious Generation adidas tournament, Vazquez, Olney, and Rick won the under-17 title in 2023. Sullivan, Pierre, and young forwards Diego Rocio and Jamir Johnson won this year’s edition.

There is a psychology to winning finals, especially in a penalty-kick shootout as this year’s under-17s did. Union fans need no reminding of that, given the team’s failure to win every final it has played in, from three U.S. Open Cups to the 2022 MLS Cup.

Now these youngsters will play their first final at the professional level, and Pierre believes that experience can help.

“It would definitely be a big honor, especially since the first team have come [up] short,” he said. “I feel like at academy level, we’ve won a lot of things. Us here, [we] kind of know how it is to win. I know it’s a different level, but it’ll definitely be a big honor.”

» READ MORE: The Union's veterans wanted one more shot at a title. They delivered a failure of a season.

The Union’s opponent Saturday will be FC Dallas’ reserve team, North Texas SC. Like the Union, Dallas has a long history of developing elite prospects: Kellyn Acosta, Reggie Cannon, Jesús Ferreira, Ricardo Pepi, and Álex Zendejas are among those who’ve played with Union alumni Brenden and Paxten Aaronson, Mark McKenzie, and Auston Trusty on U.S. national teams.

The two programs don’t meet often, but it’s fitting that they meet on a big stage for youth development.

“I don’t have anybody that’s already made it,” Union II coach Marlon LeBlanc said. “Yeah, Cavan Sullivan’s a star boy and David Vazquez and CJ are there, but their best years are still ahead of them. So we look at it that way — at least I look at it that way.”

This year, North Texas was MLS Next Pro’s best regular-season team by a clear distance, tallying 62 points to Western Conference runner-up St. Louis City’s 56 and Eastern Conference winner FC Cincinnati’s 53. Union II was next with 52. Goalkeeper Michael Collodi and defender Nico Gordon made the all-league team, as did the Union’s Olney and left back Frankie Westfield.

Having backed up their success in the playoffs, North Texas will host the final (8:30 p.m., Apple TV) at FC Dallas’ Toyota Stadium in Frisco.

“We’ve validated the project; we’ve validated what we’re doing with young players. We’ve validated that we’ve stuck to our guns and what we believe,” LeBlanc said. “In playing the way that we want to play, and doing it and proving that you can win [and] you can develop at the same time. … If we can go out and win this one against an older, obviously really, really good North Texas team, it just puts the spotlight on it even more.”

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