Jovan Lukić has fit impressively fast into the Union’s new-look midfield

If a fan who watched the Union’s first two games didn’t know the guy in the No. 4 jersey was a newcomer, it would have been hard to tell.

That’s how quickly midfielder Jovan Lukić has fit in with the club, despite arriving just over two weeks before the season started. The 23-year-old Serbian went straight into new manager Bradley Carnell’s starting lineup on opening night and played every minute of the first two games until being subbed off late to warm applause in last Saturday’s home opener.

Perhaps it should always work that way, but Union fans know too well that it doesn’t. The team has a long history of signing players close to the start of a season who’ve needed time to integrate.

When Lukić took the field in Orlando on Feb. 22, it had been two months to the day since his last official game. So it would have been understandable if he had some rust to shake off.

On top of that, a player who stands 5-foot-11 and 141 pounds isn’t going to be tagged as someone who can jump into MLS’s physicality from the start. At least not by outsiders who hadn’t seen him before – which many hadn’t, because his previous club was a middling one in Serbia’s first division.

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Those doubts have been put aside now. Lukić has shown not only a strong defensive work ethic but also the kind of strong passing eye that made José Andrés Martínez so vital to the Union. And he did not mind jumping right in.

“This is the point of a player — everybody wants to play in the first 11 from the first minute,” Lukić said. “I didn’t expect, like, immediately, because I’m not in the club for a long time. But still, I think I’ve shown some things, what everybody wants to see, and what this club and team need.”

Every position is essential on a team that high-presses the way the Union wants to, but defensive midfield is especially important. Martínez showed that when he arrived, delivering the tenacity that Haris Medunjanin lacked. This taught an era of Union fans what the position could be.

Now Lukić is starting the club’s next era as part of a changed formation. Carnell’s box-shaped four-man midfield deploys two defensive midfielders side-by-side, so Lukić lines up next to Danley Jean Jacques.

“He’s come in, bought in, [and] the players have welcomed him with open arms and he’s a good character to be around,” Carnell said. “He has this infectious friendliness around him, but when he’s on the field of play, he means business. It’s great to see him jelled in so good with the team so quickly.”

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Because the Haiti-born Jean Jacques doesn’t speak much English, he and Lukić are limited in how much they can communicate. But the language of soccer is universal, and they’ve quickly started to figure each other out.

“Me and Danley, we have an amazing relationship, like we’ve known each other two or three years, not one month,” Lukić said. “For now, we speak only [about] basic things — like left, right, go, stay, the normal things —and we understand each other so good on the pitch. And even off the pitch, with hands, with something, you know, he tries to understand and tries to learn.”

And as he put it about formations: “At the end of the day, you just play football and give your best. There [are] tactics, but football is a live game, so the formation is always changing every second.”

As prominent a role as a defensive midfielder is with the Union, it isn’t always that in soccer as a whole. Who grows up wanting to be a muckraker in the sport’s engine room, instead of a playmaker or striker?

“Of course, we are the guys who work the most on the pitch, but nobody sees that,” Lukić said. “But that’s OK. That’s part of football — strikers take all the glory.”

That said, if you grow up in Serbia, there’s quite some glory in defensive midfield. Dejan Stanković starred for Italy’s Lazio and Inter Milan and played 103 times for his country over 15 years as it evolved from Yugoslavia to an independent Serbia. Then came Nemanja Matić, whose many clubs over the years include England’s Chelsea and Manchester United.

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“Nemanja Matić was, I can say, my idol when I was a kid,” Lukić said of the now-36-year-old, whose current club is France’s Lyon. “I also know him – a couple of times, I saw him in person, and he’s an amazing guy as a person also. … I always watch him, the way he plays, and a lot more players. It doesn’t matter if they’re from Serbia, I just try to learn from from very good players.”

Europe’s big stages remain the ultimate goal for a Serbian player, or any player. But these days, MLS has become an attractive stop on the way. Of the 27 Serbs who have played in MLS all-time, seven are in the league right now.

They include striker Dejan Joveljić, who won a title with the Los Angeles Galaxy last year and then earned a $4 million move to Kansas City. Two others are players whom Lukić played with in the past, Charlotte midfielder Nikola Petković and New York City FC centerback Strahinja Tanasijević.

“Everybody’s dream is to come to America, because it’s like a movie dream, and everybody likes to have that kind of life,” Lukić said. “The Premier League, that’s the biggest level of football. Of course, that’s not comparable with MLS at the moment, but MLS is an amazing league now. It’s growing year by year, growing so fast.”

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Lukić will probably earn his third straight start when the Union visit the New England Revolution on Saturday (7:30 p.m., Apple TV). It will be his introduction to one of American soccer’s quirks: games on artificial turf in stadiums built for NFL teams. He will see the others, from long air travel to volatile weather, in the months to come.

“The first day, I said everything is different,” Lukić said. “This is America — compared to Europe and especially Serbia, everything is different. Every small detail. I said a couple of times, everybody [was] laughing, but even the flush in the toilet is different.”

But at least artificial turf is something he’s seen before.

“We also have some pitches [in Serbia] where you play on turf, so it’s kind of normal,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s just football. Everybody plays on it, so I have to get used to that.”

From turf to tactics to toilets, Lukić has shown he’s a quick adapter. If he keeps playing this well, the Union will have found another underrated gem.

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