What a year it’s been for Lucas Herrington.

Last summer, the 18-year-old center back was in the middle of his second season as a first-team player for his hometown club, Brisbane Roar, of the Australian A-League. He joined Colorado Rapids in January to start a life-changing year.

After becoming a day-one starter in Major League Soccer, Herrington made his first international appearance with the Socceroos’ senior national team in March. Sunday, he was officially named to Australia’s 26-man roster for the 2026 World Cup.

In his first MLS season, Herrington has been a fixture in first-year coach Matt Wells’s back line. He’s started all 15 of Colorado’s league matches and been on the pitch for all 1,350 minutes. The rookie needed just two games to bag the first goal of MLS his career, heading home a corner kick in the 53rd minute of the Rapids’ 2-0 win over Portland.

“His maturity stands out,” Wells said after Herrington’s first goal for the club. “For someone of his age, the way he’s dropped in seamlessly, he’s impressed me so much through the preseason. He’s a wonderful character. He has a good mentality. He’s got all the tools to improve, and he will improve as a player because there’s so many elements that he can continue to work on.”

The big stage wasn’t an issue for the teenager when the Rapids hosted Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in front of 75,824 fans at Empower Field at Mile High Stadium on April 18. With the Rapids down a goal in the 62^nd minute, Herrington lofted a ball over Miami’s first two lines and between a pair of defenders, leading to Darren Yapi’s equalizer.

“It’s just any other game, you know?” Herrington said after Messi’s 80^th minute strike gave the visitors a 3-2 victory. “We prepared for it the exact same we would for any other game, so we went in with the same mentality – just play our football and we’ll get the three points. I think we were really unlucky.”

The MLS schedule is on a break during the sport’s grandest event. Colorado heads into the break 11th in the 15-team Western Conference. Despite a plus-one goal differential, the Rapids are 5-9-1 to start Wells’s tenure.

Herrington started and played 89 minutes of Australia’s 1-0 win over Mexico in a friendly Saturday at the Rose Bowl. One day later, manager Tony Popovic included him on his first World Cup squad. He’s the youngest member of Australia’s squad.

“What we have is a lot of young exuberance, a lot of exciting talent,” Popovich said at a news conference to announce the team. “Will they be better in four and eight years? Without a doubt, but that’s not to say they’re not good enough now.

“I want them all to give me a (selection) headache every week, and I believe in these young boys.”

Australia will compete against the United States, Paraguay and Turkey in Group D. The Aussies’ run starts against Turkey on June 13 in Vancouver. The matchup against the United States is June 19 in Seattle.

So far, Herrington is the only member of the Rapids to be named to this year’s World Cup roster.