The Union have rarely had must-watch players. Jack McGlynn is one right now.

For as good as the Union have been in recent years, the team has long been dogged by complaints that it lacks a must-watch player.

Other MLS teams have had Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Didier Drogba, or Thierry Henry. The Union have had … well, who exactly?

Brenden Aaronson only became a big deal late in his time here. Paxten Aaronson left too soon to become one. Freddy Adu was a reclamation project. Andre Blake is a goalkeeper, as great as he is.

Alejandro Bedoya is, and Maurice Edu was, a fine player. But neither fulfilled a generation of American soccer fans’ dreams of their own Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool legend who loved to charge upfield and launch long-range blasts of heroism.

This year might be different.

In Jack McGlynn, the Union have a serious rising star. Scouts, opposing coaches, and the U.S. national team program have seen him coming for a while. This season, the 19-year-old midfielder is poised to truly break through.

» READ MORE: How to watch Union games in the new Apple MLS Season Pass streaming package

McGlynn will likely go to the under-20 World Cup in late spring, and perhaps the senior-level Gold Cup in the summer. But unless a European team crashes into Ernst Tanner’s office with a gargantuan check, McGlynn will be with the Union all year.

Fans who pay attention now will be able to enjoy the full ride.

If it seems unfair to project that much on a teenager, know that it’s part of soccer’s nature. While baseball and football prospects don’t reach the pros until their early 20s, the world’s game doesn’t bat an eye at teenagers.

McGlynn was 17 when he signed a pre-contract in August 2020 to turn pro at the start of 2021. He had already played five games for the Union’s reserve squad by then.

He now has 51 games with the Union’s first team under his belt, spanning the regular season, playoffs, U.S. Open Cup, and Concacaf Champions League. And he has a big new contract, guaranteed through 2025 with team options for ‘26 and ‘27 — which means a big window for the Union to profit from selling him.

As the 2023 season kicks off, McGlynn knows his time has arrived, and he’s ready for it.

» READ MORE: Union sign midfielder Jack McGlynn to new contract

“I think it’s really cool,” he told The Inquirer. “Obviously, being a young guy, it’s still kind of overwhelming hearing all this — I’m a very humble guy, so I don’t really look into it that much. But I just try to do my thing on the field, and what happens off the field happens.”

A humble guy? Tell that to Nashville SC, on whom he scored a penalty kick in the 2021 playoffs and dropped an ice-in-the-veins celebration with it. Or U.S. World Cup centerback Aaron Long, whom McGlynn beat with a rainbow flick in a Union-Red Bulls game last September to set up a Mikael Uhre goal.

Or the six New York City FC players McGlynn beat with a masterful cross-field pass in the Eastern Conference final, sparking the game-winning goal.

“Of any player we’ve had at the Union, his ceiling is the highest,” manager Jim Curtin said. “I say that not to put pressure on him, but because it’s true. He does things with the ball, that left foot, that — I’ve seen [Barcelona and Chicago Fire legend Hristo] Stoichkov, I’ve seen Haris Medunjanin, he has that same kind of quality.”

Just as important, though, are the moments when McGlynn has the ball on that foot and does nothing.

If you’re a soccer novice, that sentence may sound strange. If you’re a devotee, you know what it means. McGlynn’s tempo-setting instinct is elite. It’s such a prized skill in the sport that American soccer’s lexicon adopted the Spanish term for it: pausa. The English translation, as you might have guessed, is pause. The meaning in soccer is much deeper.

“He has the ability to play in a mature way — slow down the game, speed the game up‚” said former Union assistant coach and current U.S. national team assistant B.J. Callaghan. Though Callaghan had moved on from the Union before McGlynn arrived, he has watched the player plenty from afar, and from closer with U.S. youth national teams.

“I’m still a Philadelphia Union fan,” Callaghan said. “I think another compliment to him as a really young player — and it’s usually a compliment you give to older, more experienced players — is I think he’s a player that makes other players around him better. That’s really important.”

McGlynn didn’t learn that pausa skill at a lush suburban soccer megaplex. He grew up in the Queens neighborhood of Middle Village: a nice place, but very much a New York City locale. The city-owned Juniper Valley Park, across the street from his family’s house, was his home turf. LaGuardia Airport is four miles due north, and the Forest Hills tennis center is two miles east.

“I’m used to playing pickup soccer every day — not the facilities like in Pennsylvania that are really nice, big grass,” he said. “I’m used to playing on turf fields, old turf with a bunch of older guys. That’s kind of how I developed as a player. And then playing with my older brother and dad every day in the park, because there wasn’t really a field there.”

Before joining the Union’s academy, McGlynn played for one of New York’s most famous youth clubs, Blau-Weiss Gottschee. That older brother, Conor, was teammates with future U.S. national team star Tim Weah.

In time, Jack got good enough to draw pro scouts’ attention. After NYCFC and the Red Bulls passed him over, the Union pounced, helped by McGlynn’s family ties in Scranton. He joined the Union’s academy in 2019. Two years later, he was in MLS.

Most of McGlynn’s playing time with the Union has come on the left side of the diamond-shaped midfield. A few times, he has played on the right. This preseason, he has been in a deep central role and an attacking central role.

How different are all those positions?

“It’s obviously very different playing as an 8 in a 4-4-2 diamond, having to go press the fullbacks and then trying to get on the ball and make things happen,” McGlynn said. “I think when you’re in a double pivot with, say, me and José [Andrés Martínez], it’s a lot more easy to get on the ball and kind of make things happen. But I think I’ve kind of adapted into the role of being a left shuttler.”

None of that is what he was used to when he got to the Union. McGlynn was an attacking midfielder as a kid, fleet of foot and slight of size.

He’s less slight than he used to be, but far from a bully: 6 feet tall and 161 pounds, the Union’s website says. Then again, that’s an inch and 21 pounds more than he carried as a rookie. Sitting with him for an interview shows it has come in muscle.

» READ MORE: The Union are changing up their playing style, and Jim Curtin wants to see more of it

“It took some adjusting, but I think I’ve kind of got it now, and I can play any role in the middle,” McGlynn said. “It’s always fun when you’re on the field, no matter what. Being able to try to change different things, show different formations to different teams and try to change it up — we’re in so many games this year, you can’t do the same thing every game.”

McGlynn is excited to go to the under-20 World Cup, with a group that could include several current and former Union teammates. They could be together next year at the Olympics, too, and compete for the biggest stage of all in 2026.

“The U-20 World Cup, that’s a huge goal for me — to say I could play in a World Cup, and tell my family about that,” McGlynn said. “It’s a goal I’ve always had growing up as a kid, no matter if [it’s] the first team or U-20s. I think we have a really special group there, and I think we’re going to make a run there, too.”

He also has big goals with the Union.

“I hope we can make another deep run at MLS Cup — hopefully I can be a big part of that,” he said. “We’re in five competitions. I think we can win all five.”