Personal touches by Union have Jovan Lukic singing new tune

CHESTER — Jovan Lukic turned 23 just a month ago. But in a soccer sense, he’s lived many years beyond that.

The Serbian midfielder has already made a move away from his home country, seen it unravel, and found a way to make the best of it. He’s found a solution to a club problem only to see that solution no longer be viable and hasten his return home.

So when he sat down with the Union in January to discuss a move across the Atlantic, he had at least some idea of what could go wrong in vetting what about the move to MLS felt right.

“I learned a lot of things in the way I have to speak with people, how I have to negotiate,” Lukic said, in impeccable English Thursday at training. “But they see me as a project here. I’m young, and that’s what I was always looking for. It’s not about the money. Of course you have to look for those things; that’s kind of normal and that’s your job. But I want just to play and to be happy. … And for now, they give me that opportunity to be happy.”

Lukic is a project, as the Union’s ongoing rebuild from the core that delivered six straight playoff berths but withered to 12th place in the East last year and was in desperate need of replacements. In Lukic, the club believes it has a dynamic player on the rise, one who has fit in quickly off the field and whose ball-winning and communication ability have drawn early plaudits.

This wasn’t Plan A for Lukic. Eight days before he turned 21, he signed with LASK in the Austrian Bundesliga. Unbeknownst to him, the club planned to immediately loan him to Portuguese club SCU Torreense.

It came as a shock, a moments of surprise in a business that is often less than scrupulous. But Lukic found a home in Portugal, adjusted on the fly and even negotiated a deal to remain beyond his six-month loan stint before matters called him home, on a deal with Spartak Subotica.

Eighteen months after that ordeal, a wiser and more circumspect Lukic has landed in America, hoping that the Union represent, “a great step for the next one, if I can say that.”

Lukic’s research on the Union involved making calls to fellow Serbians, including New York City’s Strahinja Tanasijevic. It required shaking off the disappointment evident from the first bid to leave Serbia.

“I’m very grateful to these moments because I learned from those moments the most in my career, in my life as a person, as a football player,” he said.

Lukic has made an early impression on teammates and coach Bradley Carnell. He’s comfortable with the counterattacking style, similar to how he played at Spartak, where he logged 37 games in the last season and a half.

His English has helped him adapt quickly to concepts, and it’s a reason why he’s high on Carnell’s depth chart for Saturday’s opener against Orlando City (7:30 p.m., AppleTV). That’s required a bit of an adjustment in trying to connect with likely central midfield partner Danley Jean Jacques, whose acclimation to MLS has been hampered by communications hurdles. But Lukic has resorted to “a little bit of pantomime” to stay on the same page.

There’s still an adjustment to the style of play in the U.S. Lukic stands 5-11 and 140 pounds at a bruising position, and the physicality and speed is an adjustment for many an import, especially from Europe.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect that,” he said. “I didn’t know in MLS, in the U.S. in general, it’s this intensity. I was surprised, the first training when I got here, I was like, What is this? It’s a really big intensity, a lot of running. So for me, I’m that kind of player, so it’s kind of good. And I think I adapt very well with the players, also with the staff, with everybody, in a personal way.”

One of Lukic’s first impressions on the team, Carnell reported this month, was a rookie hazing in which he sang for the team at their camp in Clearwater. It’s not hard to picture Lukic, who smiled through his first meeting with Philadelphia media, banishing nerves before a hotel ballroom of his peers.

“I’m just like that. I’m an open guy,” he said. “My singing, I’m not impressed about that. I think I’m not a good singer, but they think I’m good. So I don’t know. I like when people say that.”

It’s a microcosm of Lukic’s biggest takeaway from his first month with the Union: It’s a place to grow, a place that will put its faith in young players, and a place where he can find happiness. That latter point, he might not have known to ask for before his ill-fated Austrian adventure.

Lukic learned the hard way the importance of the personal element, of trust and forthrightness between player and club. He hopes he’s getting to glimpse the positive side of that equation now.

“I’m just surprised how people here are kind, how people treat you here as a human being,” he said. “I had some bad experience in previous clubs and things like that. That’s what I like here the most, and I’m really happy.”