What’s motivating the Union in their final regular-season game? Finishing with the club’s best record. Ever.

While a win or a loss doesn’t affect postseason matters much, Union manager Bradley Carnell stepped into his Thursday afternoon press conference and gave the distinct impression that the club still has everything to play for in the regular season.

And for Carnell, there is one thing …

“We put all our eggs into this next game because we feel we want to end off as the most successful team ever” in Union history, he said. “This is something that personally drives the club, drives the staff, the players. We want to end off on the best note possible.”

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With a win Saturday at Charlotte (6 p.m., Apple TV), the Union will finish with 69 points and a 21-7-6 record in MLS, which would be the highest point total and best record in the 16-year history of the club. The 2022 team finished the regular season with 67 points and qualified for its first MLS Cup final.

Carnell indicated that his lineup might not change much against Charlotte. Many believed that the Union might give regulars more time to rest to better assess the team’s depth against top competition in the finale, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

At least not in the coaches’ room.

“I think [from] Matchday 1 through [Matchday] 33, we’ve tested our depth,” Carnell said. “We’ve been forced to test our depth. We’ve seen what the depth can do. And I wouldn’t be true to myself if we now start thinking about playoffs now, especially when we have no idea who we would even be playing.

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“It’s going to be a good game. I think [Charlotte] has the experience. They have the youth; they have the balance. So they’re going to be a tough nut to crack. But we’re excited about the prospect of that. And we’re going to go there with obviously the confidence of knowing that we ended the regular season where we are, and we want to try and finish on the [best] note possible.”

Carnell didn’t mention that the team gave Union midfielder Cavan Sullivan the green light to join the U.S. national team for the FIFA U-17 World Cup next month in Qatar. In fairness, he wasn’t asked because it wasn’t known that the roster would be announced a few minutes after he spoke.

The tournament runs Nov. 3-27, and the U.S. team’s training camp starts Tuesday. With 48 teams in the field and the knockout stages starting with the round of 32, Sullivan likely would miss at least the first two rounds of the Union’s playoff run. The U.S. hasn’t gotten past the quarterfinals of an under-17 World Cup since 1999, but this year’s squad is highly touted.

Although clubs aren’t required to release players for youth tournaments, the Union long planned to let Sullivan go to this one. But there were questions after his older brother, Quinn, tore his ACL late last month. Now there’s only one true backup to starters Indiana Vassilev and Milan Iloski — Jeremy Rafanello.

With the Union returning to action following the close of FIFA’s international window, Carnell noted that it felt good to have his full squad back as it looks to finish strong. In all, the club was without nine players because of various international tournaments and friendlies.

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“[The goal] for us now, it’s making sure that we get everybody back healthy from the national team, of which everyone’s coming back in dribs and drabs this week,” Carnell said. “This morning, we finally had a full contingency of players. And now we’re ready to to get on that plane and head out to Charlotte.”

The Union will play Charlotte on Decision Day, MLS’s final day of the regular season, offering the opportunity to see how the playoff picture will shape up. Charlotte (18-13-2, 56 points) has already secured a playoff berth and has more to play for. With a win, it will lock up home-field advantage for its first-round series. A loss would drop it from fourth to sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

Carnell knows that alone means his club is in for a match — whomever he decides to trot out.

“They’re playing for their fourth spot, and they’ve done an amazing job getting up to that point with that historical run of nine [consecutive] wins,” Carnell said. “They’ve been in contention now for a couple of weeks and they’ve done a great job. … I know they’re a strong home team, and I know the fans get behind them, [so] we have to build the right tension in our bodies and the right mentality to go there and play in that environment.”

Cavan Sullivan was one of four Union youth players called onto the U.S. U-17 roster. Defender Jordan Griffin and forwards Jamir Johnson and Kellan LeBlanc also are on the 21-man roster. … The U.S. will play its first match of the competition against Burkina Faso on Nov. 5 at midnight Philadelphia time. The team also has group matches against Tajikistan (Nov. 8) and Czechia on Nov. 11.

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