The Union finally signed marquee academy prospect David Vazquez

The Union’s long-awaited signing of marquee academy prospect David Vazquez is finally done, the team announced Thursday.

His initial deal is with the club’s reserve squad, Union II, but the front office believes he could move up to the first team later this year. Contract talks started late last year and went on for months, as the Union had to fend off foreign suitors who wanted to pull Vazquez away.

An 18-year-old attacking midfielder from Los Angeles, Vazquez joined the Union’s youth academy in early 2022 after the Union recruited him from Los Angeles-based Total Football Academy. He’s played 23 games with the Union’s reserves as an amateur so far and spent the early part of this year’s preseason with the first team.

“Since joining the academy, David has shown immense growth in development and has proven to be a highly intelligent player,” Union II coach Marlon LeBlanc said in a statement. “At a young age, he has the attributes needed to grow into a productive and pivotal asset to the team.”

» READ MORE: Inside the Union’s controversial recruitment of top prospect David Vazquez

The Union’s recruitment of Vazquez was controversial in MLS circles because Los Angeles FC or the Galaxy could have claimed him as a homegrown player within the league’s territorial rights system. But the Union knew the Galaxy hadn’t recruited him, and that Vazquez had visited LAFC’s academy but not committed to it.

They also knew TFA is a big-time program, with famous alums in men’s and women’s soccer. Efraín Álvarez and Ulysses Llanez went from there to the Galaxy’s academy, and are now seasoned pros. Olivia Moultrie signed with the Portland Thorns at age 15, Alyssa Thompson was on last year’s U.S. World Cup team, and her sister Gisele Thompson just joined Alyssa on Angel City FC.

Vazquez played with both Thompsons and Moultrie growing up, TFA academy director Mario Gonzalez told The Inquirer. He sent over a photo of Vazquez, Moultrie, and Gisele Thompson together on a team trip to Spain in 2018.

“We look at the pictures and we laugh,” Gonzalez said. “We’re like, ‘Man, who would have thought, right? At this age?’ ”

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Vazquez’s original plan was to join Mexican power Chivas, fitting for his family’s Mexican roots. But they came to like the Union academy’s residential setup, a feature the club was way ahead of the rest of MLS on.

So when American Airlines lost a bag carrying David and his father Manny’s passports on the trip to Chivas’s base in Guadalajara, as Manny told The Inquirer last year, “We kind of took it as a sign.”

They got their passports back a few days later, but it was too late for Chivas. The Union’s pitch, led by former academy chief Tommy Wilson and current director of scouting Jon Scheer, was the winner.

“They have everything there … I thought it was the best thing for him,” David’s mother Denise Vazquez told The Inquirer, as big an endorsement as the club could want.

“I wanted him to be kind of immersed in soccer and [the Union academy] was the place that I felt like he’d be able to eat, breathe, sleep it the whole time,” Manny added.

» READ MORE: From L.A. to Philly, David Vazquez’s Union Academy life could have gone a different direction

Gonzalez, a fellow Mexican-American, also knew how big an opportunity it was. He’d been meeting with the Union since Vazquez was 13.

“That’s my personal goal, to help kids from Mexican-American descent to try to promote them to play at the highest level, go to the highest education institution possible,” he said. “I get the chills just talking about it. … There was no doubt in our minds as a club that we wanted to allow him to experience this environment.”

With the vote unanimous, they took the plunge.

“I got the chance, went to Philadelphia,” David said. “Once I got there, I immediately fell in love with their facility and just their culture and the brotherhood that was just there.”

That was just the start of the story, though. Vazquez wasn’t officially registered as a Union academy player until three months after he arrived, because he moved east without either Los Angeles team’s permission.

» READ MORE: Jim Curtin calls out the Union’s ‘really small brains’ in too-wild game vs. Saprissa

Why did that matter if he wasn’t in either team’s academy? Because MLS rules allow teams to claim rights to nine players from their local areas who aren’t in their systems. That rule greatly annoys the many people around MLS who believe teams that don’t sign local prospects by a certain point shouldn’t be allowed to sit on their rights.

The restrictions used to be much worse than they are now, and there’s a widespread belief that someday they’ll go away entirely. But for now, the hurdle still stands.

The Union wanted to negotiate deals with the two L.A. clubs. LAFC stood firm, though, and filed a tampering charge.

At one point, MLS headquarters got involved. But multiple sources told The Inquirer late last year that instead of playing peacemaker, the league started an investigation — and kept it going even after the teams were on the way to a deal.

The Union were so annoyed with the league that at one point, principal owner Jay Sugarman called MLS commissioner Don Garber about it.

» READ MORE: MLS says it has global ambition, but too often acts like it doesn’t. That needs to change.

In April 2022, compensation deals were finally settled. The Union didn’t just pay LAFC and the Galaxy, but a fine to the league office too. The amounts aren’t known yet, which is unusual. Generally, when MLS teams sign players from other teams’ territories, the compensation is included in the signing announcement.

It’s a lot of hoops to jump through for a kid who just turned 18 last week. But the Union know that if Vazquez fulfills his potential, they’ll more than make their money back with a sale abroad in a few years.

Vazquez played 15 times for the U.S. under-17 team, including every game of last February’s Concacaf championship and last November’s World Cup. (The U.S. reached the final of the former and the round of 16 of the latter.) He’s a candidate to play in Concacaf’s next under-20 championship set for July 19-Aug. 4.

His key moment with the Union could come not long before then. Dániel Gazdag is expected to make Hungary’s European Championship squad, meaning he’ll be gone for almost all of June — and perhaps some of July if the Magyars advance in the knockout rounds.

With the Union short of attacking midfield backups, that could be when Vazquez gets his shot. It would be a big call, but the team has done it before with Brenden and Paxten Aaronson. The time may be coming to do it again.

» READ MORE: Mikael Uhre and Quinn Sullivan’s growing chemistry could be a big help for the Union