Trusty, Jones go distance in Homegrown Game

Philadelphia Union defender Auston Trusty and midfielder Derrick Jones both earned a start for Brian McBride’s MLS Homegrown team on Tuesday night. The pair survived the game’s ample substitutions and were able to join in the celebration after Kortne Forde’s stoppage-time equalizer.

McBride trotted out an unorthodox 3-4-3, with Trusty lining up on the left in the back, and Jones sitting the deepest of the four midfielders. The team had little time to practice, and that was pretty apparent on the Chivas U-20s’ first goal, where Auston Trusty’s man beat both him and goalkeeper Jesse Gonzalez to the near post.

“It’s not like we were a ‘team.’ It was the first time we had ever been playing together,” Trusty explained after the game. “I was caught out wide, I guess, and we were only playing three in the back, so I had to sprint over knowing we didn’t have anyone to check back. Kortne [Ford] was kind of dragged out a little bit, he had a man to his left. We didn’t really know each other and we were playing like that. But it was a good goal. Good passing. The best passing you could possibly have in that situation, and they took advantage of it.”

Jones also noted the unfamiliarity with his teammates, and said he “tried to go out there and talk to each other and concentrate, and try my best.”

Though they’ve have featured at the U-20 World Cup and now the Homegrown game, neither player is a first-team regular with the Union at this point. Both Jones and Trusty relayed a message of patience from Head Coach Jim Curtin.

“It’s more just waiting for the opportunity to come, and when the opportunity does come, just taking total advantage of it and just moving on with my career from there. It’s nothing really specific,” Trusty said. “It’s just waiting for my opportunity.”