The Union are close to a deal to bring back Mark McKenzie

Nearly six years after the Union launched Mark McKenzie to his career in Europe, the centerback is coming back to Chester.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the deal confirmed to The Inquirer that the 27-year-old will rejoin his old team in January, moving from French club Toulouse. The Union will pay a transfer fee of around $2.5 million, a number first reported by the Athletic.

It’s the first time that the Union have brought one of their marquee academy products back to the club after selling him abroad. McKenzie went to Belgium’s Genk at the start of 2021 for $6 million, and moved from there to Toulouse in the summer of 2024 for $3.2 million.

Along the way, he became one of the top American centerbacks in Europe, and a regular with the U.S. national team. McKenzie has 30 caps, was part of this summer’s World Cup, and narrowly missed out on the 2022 squad.

Now the expectation is he will form a centerback pairing with one of the Union’ academy’s newest gems, Neil Pierre. The 6-foot-7 18-year-old is drawing raves from scouts around the world, reportedly including Spain’s Barcelona. Of course there could be a big offer for Pierre at some point, but it is clear that the Union want McKenzie and Pierre to play together.

There’s also the intrigue of the “sprint season” to start 2027 that will lead to MLS’s calendar flip in the summer. Bringing in McKenzie in January could put the Union in a strong place for that competition, with Cavan Sullivan not leaving for Manchester City until the end of the calendar year.

» READ MORE: Ryan Richter challenged Cavan Sullivan to step up in New York. The teen phenom went on to steal the show.

The transfer fee will make him a Designated Player, at least for as long as MLS’s current roster rules stay in place — they might change next year along with the calendar flip. The salary might too when the time comes, though that isn’t known yet. But it’s a certainty that McKenzie will immediately become be a cornerstone of the club.

With all of this said, McKenzie is still young enough to have good reason to stay in a top European league for a while, perhaps with one more move on from Toulouse if he could earn it. And he did have to be convinced that coming back to Philadelphia was the right move for soccer reasons.

But the Union have wanted for some time to bring him back. They made a strong sales pitch, and McKenzie was receptive.

The soccer side of it had to come first. Once he was on board, the off-the-field side could make sense too — especially raising his young son in the United States. McKenzie is a strong family man, and many of his relatives traveled around the country to watch him at the World Cup.