Union’s Jack Elliott gets well-deserved contract extension through 2024

When the Union picked up Jack Elliott’s contract option for this season after last year’s playoff run, it seemed obvious that a contract extension would be the next step. The Scottish centerback had more than earned it, after another stellar season as a rock of the defense.

On Tuesday, the first official day of the Union’s preseason, that deal became official. The Union announced an extension for Elliott that guarantees his contract through 2024, with a team option for 2025.

“It’s great to know how the club sees me, and how important I am to the future here,” Elliott said in a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

The deal also presumably includes a good raise from Elliott’s 2021 salary of $340,000. We won’t know that for sure until the MLS Players Association releases this year’s first batch of salary data in the spring, but no one would argue that Elliott has earned a pay bump.

Nor would they dispute that Elliott, 26, has earned three more years of stability at the only pro club for which he has played. His rise to prominence after being the 77th overall pick in the 2017 college draft out of West Virginia is one of the great success stories among college soccer products in MLS.

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“It has been a ride, and I don’t know if I expected to be here at this point when I first started — or [when] I was in L.A. playing in the [college scouting] combine,” he said. “But here I am about to go into years six, seven, and eight. Looking forward to it, and taking the club to another level.”

Although Elliott isn’t as famous or as flashy as some of his contemporaries, every scout, data analyst or opposing manager you talk to will have plenty of praise for him.

In last year’s regular season, Elliott ranked No. 1 among centerbacks in total clearances (154), No. 3 in passes blocked (22), No. 4 in aerial duals won (95), No. 5 in total tackles (53), and No. 8 in interceptions (54), according to Opta, MLS’s official stats provider.

Those totals were racked up in 2,970 minutes over 33 regular-season MLS games — every minute of every game but one, missed due to yellow card accumulation.

He also pitched in two goals and an assist, bringing his career totals to 10 goals and 5 assists in 150 games. And in the Eastern Conference semifinals, he scored in the penalty-kick shootout with all the calmness you’d expect of the Union’s most levelheaded player.

Elliott played every minute of the Union’s run to the Concacaf Champions League semifinals, and the first two playoff games before COVID-19 protocols took him out of the Eastern Conference final. It wasn’t a stretch to claim that no single player’s absence mattered more.

Tuesday’s announcement means that over the last 12 months, the Union have agreed to multiyear contract extensions with all five players of their starting defense: goalkeeper Andre Blake, left back Kai Wagner, right back Olivier Mbaizo, and centerbacks Elliott and Jakob Glesnes.

Obviously, any of those players could be sold abroad if the price is right. But for as long as they stay, the Union will have stability in the part of the field where that trait is especially important.

And if you’re a Union fan looking to buy a jersey this winter, you might want to give Elliott’s name and number 3 some thought. Sure, he’s not going to get as big of a spotlight as an attacking star. But if you want someone who might be here for a while, Elliott has proved by now that he’s just as much of a foundational piece of this team as Blake and Alejandro Bedoya.

“I’ll be happy to be that guy,” Elliott said, before going back to doing the work that made him so.

Not everyone was present as the Union went to work on an indoor field at the 76ers’ Chase Fieldhouse in Wilmington, but everyone was accounted for.

That included two players who were gossiped about plenty by European media outlets during the MLS offseason, Wagner and Stuart Findlay. But all the chatter has come to nothing so far.

Kacper Przybylko recently told the Kanal Sportowy show in his native Poland that he has a major offer on the table from the Chicago Fire. The deal would give him a new guaranteed contract for longer than his Union deal, which has this year guaranteed and next year as a team option; and would net the Union $1 million in allocation money.

But the Union haven’t decided yet whether to take the deal, and Przybylko was on the field Tuesday.

Also notably in attendance was academy-bred left back Matt Real, whose contract expired at the end of last year. The Union made him an offer before the season ended and he did not take it. His presence Tuesday may signal a potential change of mind.

The main absentees were Jamiro Monteiro and Olivier Mbaizo, who are with their national teams at the Africa Cup of Nations; and Jakob Glesnes and Sergio Santos, who are dealing with visa matters.