Big fee, depth key to Trusty deal

After the Union’s record-setting 2019 season, Ernst Tanner was clear: This was only the beginning. To remain a perennial playoff team, the club would need to use their academy to both produce talent that could help the team win and become a valuable resource that could be bundled and, with the benefit of analytics and good scouting, turned into an even more formidable roster.

That model sometimes leads to hard decisions, and today Tanner made one such difficult choice when the Union acquired a club-record return in allocation money for homegrown defender Auston Trusty. The Union will receive up to $750,000 in allocation money from the Colorado Rapids, a number that far exceeds the $500,000…