Well this was not expected.

Delco native and Philadelphia Union academy product Auston Trusty is being transferred from Colorado to sister club* Arsenal F.C. in the English Premier League:

Pretty crazy. Auston is from Media, and came through the Union academy before debuting for Bethlehem steel in 2016. He went on to play 56 games for the Union, then he was traded in 2019 for about half a million dollars in “allocation money,” which is the MLS in-league currency.

Auston’s had a renaissance of sorts for Colorado, and played 33 games for a really good team this past year. I’m honestly pretty stunned to see him go to Arsenal, but the Gunners confirm that this is a situation where they’ll loan him out to a smaller team to see how he does. Chelsea does this all the time. They brought in MLS defender Matt Miazga in 2016 and he’s only played two games for Chelsea. He’s gone on loan to Vitesse, Nantes, Reading, Anderlecht, and Alaves, all of which are quality teams, but not the same as a top EPL side.

*I say sister club because Colorado and Arsenal are both owned by the same dude, Stan Kroenke. He owns a ton of teams, like the LA Rams and Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche. In this case, there’s a bit of a public relations angle to the transfer, where it’s like the big team takes on a player from a smaller sister club. Red Bull has a somewhat similar pipeline, like when they move a guy from New York to Salzburg and then up to Leipzig in Germany. Manchester City also has smaller clubs in different leagues under the same ownership, like New York City FC.

Whatever the plan here, it’s cool to see a local kid go overseas and get involved in the setup for a big team like Arsenal. Don’t get me wrong, Arsenal are total chokers, and a perennial disappointment, but they’ve got passionate fans and are a massively popular and historic club. In a way, they are the Philadelphia Flyers.

Edit – totally forgot to mention the Union have a sell-on fee here: