Rising star Julián Carranza continues to be the Union’s gain and Inter Miami’s loss

There will be a forward from Argentina on the field at Subaru Park on Saturday when the Union host Inter Miami (7:30 p.m., Apple TV, paywalled). He won’t be the biggest guy on the field, nor the most flamboyant, but he’s quite good at scoring and setting up others to do so.

Alas, the forward in question won’t be new Inter Miami signing Lionel Messi. The world’s most famous soccer player is taking a few weeks of vacation before an expected debut in late July.

So what about the Argentine forward fans will see? It’s not just a coincidence that we’re talking about the Union’s Julián Carranza. After bagging 15 goals and seven assists in 35 games last season, the 23-year-old has a team-leading 11 goals and six assists in 24 games this season.

Now he is set to once again face the team that brought him to MLS, just under a year after the Union turned their initial loan deal for him into a full purchase. Though Miami had to let him go as a punishment for breaking roster rules in prior years, the Union’s landing of Carranza is one of the all-time steals in league history: a $500,000 transfer fee and an agreement to pay his $900,000 salary as a Designated Player.

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Miami paid $6 million to acquire Carranza from Argentina’s Banfield in 2019, making him one of the Herons’ original players for their inaugural season in 2020. The team also signed big-name stars such as Mexico’s Rodolfo Pizarro, French World Cup winner Blaise Matuidi, and Argentina’s Gonzalo Higuaín — who knocked Carranza down the depth chart, but rarely played well.

Nor did the team as a whole. The Herons finished 10th in the East in 2020, 11th in 2021, and sixth last year, and have never gone past the first round of the playoffs. Meanwhile, Carranza helped the Union reach the MLS Cup final last season and the Concacaf Champions League semifinals this season.

This is the last year of Miami’s punishments, which included docking over $2 million of cap space for 2022 and ‘23. That won’t matter for bringing in Messi, though it could for his former Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. The spotlight will be bright on the compliance department, not just the merchandise store, to see if the Herons play by the rules this time. While the Union are again an MLS Cup contender, Miami sits in last place in the Eastern Conference while they await Messi’s arrival.

Carranza, meanwhile, will keep going about his business here.

“It doesn’t change me at all, that it’s been a year, almost, [since] they bought me,” he said. “I just feel comfortable here in this institution, happy to be here, happy to be with this team, with these teammates.”

Carranza got a raise this season to $950,000, and it’s still a bargain. He thrives in the Union’s high-octane game, and the stats show it: 25 goals (second-most) and 12 assists (tied for No. 1), 173 shots taken (by far the most), and 70 shots on target (narrowly No. 1). His expected goals figure in that timeframe is 24.93, right in line with his actual tally and second on the team to Dániel Gazdag’s 28.53.

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Those figures and others have drawn European scouts’ attention — including, Union manager Jim Curtin has hinted, from teams at the higher end of Germany’s Bundesliga.

“There’s tons of guys in this world that can score goals,” Curtin said. “They’re all over Brazil, they’re all over Argentina, they’re all over Europe. But what separates Julián is just the amount of defensive pressure, for a team that likes to play that way — and many do right now — on the counterattack with good pressing. He’s a striker that will do that dirty running, do that work.”

He’s coachable, too, Curtin noted. That’s not a given at a position where big egos come with the territory, and for good reason. You have to have a selfish streak to play a ruthless game.

“I like our relationship. I think we respect each other,” Curtin said. “I push him, I’m hard on him, I’ve had moments at halftime where I’ve said some pretty negative things to him, and he’s always had a good, positive response — and I’ll just say, scored right away after the times that I’ve challenged him and been hard on him. He’s a player I really enjoy working with; he’s still really young as well, and is only going to get better and better.”

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Carranza has had some big misses in the Union’s last three games, including an open shot over the bar at San Jose and a point-blank attempt saved at Orlando. Curtin isn’t worried. But he noticed that all those misses went high and put a word of advice in Carranza’s ear.

“That’s three really, really good looks that I’d bet my mortgage that he finishes off, usually,” Curtin said. “I’ve mentioned to him, sometimes just side-footing and passing it in — it doesn’t have to be perfect, just roll it into the corner. But strikers go through these phases ... I have no doubt that the goals will continue to go in.”

As for Carranza not being much of a talker? Well, some players are just that way.

“He isn’t the loudest or the most vocal, but he does his talking on the field, which I really, really like,” Curtin said. “And make no mistake, he has a nastiness, a meanness, a desire to score goals that I’ve seen in a lot of the top strikers that I’ve worked with, played with.”

Carranza showed a hint of that fire when he was asked how it felt to have a long weekend off in the middle of the season, thanks to MLS lightening its schedule during the Concacaf Nations League final four.

“To be honest, I don’t like it,” he said. “Having a weekend off with no games is kind of boring — I didn’t know what to do on Saturday. I like to play every single weekend, and this one that we didn’t play, I was sad.”

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