The upside of the Union missing out on a Leagues Cup trophy? Its young talent now knows what it takes

One can only wonder what was on CJ Olney’s mind as he watched the Union’s 3-1 loss at Columbus in the Leagues Cup semifinals from the visitors’ bench.

Or what was on Cavan Sullivan’s mind as he watched from wherever he was on Wednesday night. He wasn’t on the bench, a point made resoundingly when Jeremy Rafanello subbed in for Alejandro Bedoya in the 90th minute.

The same goes for David Vazquez, Brandan Craig, Frankie Westfield, Olwethu Makhanya, Eddy Davis, and even older-but-still-new players like Jesús Bueno and Tai Baribo.

At some point, it will be their turn to try to do what just one Union team in the organization’s 15-year history has done: win a major trophy. The latest attempt is now over, and the next theoretical one — the Supporters’ Shield for Major League Soccer’s best regular-season record — is far out of reach.

The Union will play for a consolation prize, a berth in next year’s Concacaf Champions Cup, in Sunday’s Leagues Cup third-place game against the Colorado Rapids at Subaru Park (4:30 p.m., Apple TV).

» READ MORE: Union fall in Leagues Cup semifinals, 3-1 at Columbus Crew

Then, when the regular season resumes, they’ll start a nine-game push for the playoffs from 10th place in the Eastern Conference.

The first two of those games will be the eighth and ninth games they’ve played this month: Aug. 28 at home vs. Columbus (a game postponed because of the Leagues Cup run) and Aug. 31 at the rival New York Red Bulls.

After that comes a FIFA national team window, mercifully, but that might be the year’s last kindness. The final seven games include road trips to Inter Miami (which could have Lionel Messi back by then), New York City FC, Orlando City, and Columbus.

You’ve read here repeatedly that this Union team needs a significant overhaul. That view won’t change between now and whenever the year finally ends, whether in the playoffs or not.

Of course, it’s sad that veterans who’ve given the Union so much over the years have won so little for it, especially Alejandro Bedoya as his retirement looms. But the next era of Union players is waiting in the wings. Some names are listed above, and there are more to come.

» READ MORE: Whatever you think of the Leagues Cup, the Union had a chance to win it

Behind closed doors in Chester, there is ample desire to give them their turn. Sporting director Ernst Tanner also has made no secret of his plans to do plenty of shopping abroad this winter.

It’s not meant as a slight to the Union’s current core of veterans that this needs to happen. It’s just a statement of fact that all eras end, in soccer and every sport, and the time is coming.

What should that next era aspire to? It need only look at Columbus to see what is possible. The team from Major League Soccer’s 22nd-largest city unquestionably is one of this country’s standard-bearers in the world’s game, reaching the final of this year’s Concacaf Champions Cup and Leagues Cup after winning last year’s MLS Cup.

Yet the Crew’s squad-building method should be replicated by bigger-city outfits they’ve surpassed. While Miami and Los Angeles attract stars with their glamour, the Crew’s leaders include college products Patrick Schulte and Darlington Nagbe and veteran journeyman Christian Ramirez.

Add former teammate Aidan Morris, a terrific central midfielder who this summer joined England’s Middlesbrough for $4 million, as well. He was a homegrown academy product, and a contemporary of Jack McGlynn and Paxten Aaronson in the U.S. youth national team pipeline.

» READ MORE: José Andrés Martínez’s departure from the Union is the first of what could be a wave to come

Where the Crew truly stands apart from the Union is their willingness to spend big on their biggest match-winners. (And in having a downtown stadium, but we’ve beaten that drum enough.)

Diego Rossi cost a $5.63 million transfer fee to bring him back to MLS from Turkey’s Fenerbahce a year ago, two seasons after he left Los Angeles FC. Fellow forward Juan “Cucho” Hernández cost $10 million to land from England’s Watford in 2022. They also both earn healthy seven-figure-a-year salaries.

The Haslam family that owns the Crew (and the NFL’s Cleveland Browns) no doubt held its collective breath when writing those big checks. Now it can say the payoff hasn’t just come but keeps coming.

Union principal owner Jay Sugarman and his top part-owner colleague, Richard Leibovitch, have long insisted that they’ve never explicitly said no to spending requests from Tanner and manager Jim Curtin. They said so again recently in a town hall meeting with fans that was recorded and published on the Union’s YouTube page.

The sense remains, though, that any good employee knows what not to ask for. If Tanner could swing for players of Rossi and Hernández’s caliber, you can be sure he’d land them easily. He knows where they’re needed, too, and where to give Sullivan, Olney, and the rest the room to flourish that they will soon enough earn.

» READ MORE: Is Cavan Sullivan really that good? Here’s what to know about the Union Academy and its teen phenom.

Curtin, too, has long since proved how good he is at his job. The day he leaves Chester — and he will someday, whether for a European club job or a U.S. national team assistant post — will hammer that home.

After Wednesday’s game, Curtin reflected on one of the lessons he hopes his team takes from its latest deep-but-unfulfilled cup run.

“It’s games you want to play in,” he said. “The further you get in this competition, while we’re disappointed to lose in the semifinal, these are still elimination-type games that get you ready for the playoffs. … For your young players, your middle-aged players, your old players, you never know how many more opportunities like this they’ll get.”

The truth was in there, and he knew where.