JONES TO PLAY IN NASHVILLE FOR 2019 AND BEYOND
NASHVILLE – On Wednesday, Nashville Soccer Club made a move to benefit the present and future with the acquisition of midfielder Derrick Jones from the Philadelphia Union for $175,000 in General Allocation Money. Jones will join Nashville SC immediately on loan for the remainder of the 2019 season before joining the MLS side in 2020.
Jones is just 22 years old and has already logged over 1,000 minutes at the MLS level in addition to plenty of experience with the Union’s USL Championship side Bethlehem Steel FC. He has also made his way through the U.S. Youth international system playing for the country’s U-20 and U-23 teams. That combination of youth and experience, both domestic and international, is hard to come by for any club.
“It’s really tough, especially a domestic player,” said head coach Gary Smith of finding a player like Jones. “Somebody that knows MLS, somebody that’s come through a very good system in Philadelphia that produce some great young players, and I’d have to say the majority of players that come through look like they’ve been schooled so well. Derrick’s no different. He’s a strong personality, and he’s a good individual from the investigative work that we’ve done, and we’re after bringing in good characters to this team, as well as good players. Our hope is that we’ve got him around for a good period to come, and we can see Derrick grow.”
Jones rose through the Philadelphia Union Academy and became the first-ever signing for the Union’s USL side in Bethlehem on December 6, 2015. In his first professional season, Jones scored five goals in 26 matches. During that season, he signed a homegrown contract with the Union as well.
Making his MLS debut in 2017, he played in 13 matches across all competitions for the Union and scored a goal in a U.S. Open Cup fourth round win over the Harrisburg City Islanders. Since that 2017 season, he has split time between Bethlehem and Philadelphia, spending about half of each season with each side.
Because Jones will be loaned to the Nashville SC USL side for the 2019 season, he will have the chance to continue his development and get to know Smith’s systems and style before making the leap to MLS. He can grow and build his game at the USL level before becoming a part of Nashville’s MLS future as he enters the prime of his career.
“We have a 2019 runway to the 2020 MLS season and the opportunity to have a real-life laboratory to experiment with combinations of players with Gary, integrating those players into the culture of our organization and our city,” said Nashville SC GM Mike Jacobs. “Having players arrive here in Nashville early will only aid in their adjustment as they prepare for MLS, and also enables us to pursue some players that we can plot into our plans straight away, opposed to trying to find a loan option to park them until January. It also enables us to be proactive in pursuing players maybe a little earlier than the traditional expansion process – where we look at best practices of past expansion teams that have found success, we also want to blaze our own trail with strategies and concepts that we feel are unique to our franchise and staff.”
For Nashville, Jones could become a perfect midfielder for the modern MLS.
“I think Derrick epitomizes the modern central midfield player,” Smith said. “He’s a terrific athlete, he really is. He covers ground immensely well. He’s technically very efficient, he’s got a lot of strings to his midfield bow. He’s creative, he chips in with a few goals, and he’s also very competitive. If you look at the best midfield players in the world in that central role, they’re able to really cover quite a lot of those attributes. The fact that he’s 22 means that we have plenty of time to be with Derrick and to really mature his game now. He’s got all of the qualities necessary, but it’s going to be that experience, that know-how, and probably more than anything, those opportunities that are going to make the difference now for Derrick.”
