SoccerWise - MLS Edition: Big Roster Rule Changes in MLS + Atlanta DP Search & Vancouver Coaching Hire

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Well Tom has been reporting on a new cash for trade internal MLS transfer system and well when it rains it pours. The news became official on Tuesday that it would go into effect in 2025 with a number of additional rule changes. David & Tom talk you through all of them and of course dig into Vancouvers new head coach & Atlanta's big DP connections.Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

SoccerWise is back, ladies and gentlemen. Everyone under the sun. David Goss, Tommy Scoops with you here for a big, big episode of the show. Tom, do you like soccer? I do like soccer. Goss, do you like soccer? I like soccer, but you know what I like more? I like accounting. You like more? I like rules.

I like everything else that you could talk about around soccer without actually talking about soccer. And man, is today manna from heaven from Major League Soccer. Roster rules after roster rules after roster rules. Just flying left and right, Tom. And you've been on the front end of reporting on all of this. Yeah, I have. My phone's going off the hook.

And yeah, things are going well. A lot of conversations. A lot of talking. But I've always got time for you, David Goss,oss as i blow up the group chat i hate the group chat more than you do and and and that's great where did the group chat come into all of this i'm just saying i always have time for it doesn't matter how many calls or or texts i have to take you guys are always priority i just wanted to know that i didn't realize you didn't potentially have time for me so it's actually more off-putting that you went out of your way to tell me that you had time for me unprompted. It makes me feel even more worried about the time that you have.

You were a little bit late to set up recording because you went and got a haircut post-Man Bond conversation. And I'm just going to say it. You're going full Sam Piette, and I absolutely love it. Since you've said that in the pre-show meeting it's haunted me and i've tried to redo my hair four times sam piet's a legend right i don't disagree i was just going you know probably more more zlatan than uh oh you were going for this no i'm just saying in this conversation we're talking about soccer players and man buns i probably prefer to be linked to zlatan Ibrahimovic Than Sam Piet

I think I can speak on the name of Matt Doyle here And say he'd probably tell you You look more like Zlatan's thumb Than Zlatan as a total figure Of a human being I am a little wide But we love you for it And we love you no matter what

And we are excited for this show. It has been, as I said, a big day of MLS news. We will dig into all of the roster rules. That comes off the back of Vancouver Whitecaps finally announcing their new head coach. It is not one of the names that we have reported or rumored on. It is not one of the names we had thought of or discussed. So we will dig into what that means for this club you have been at the uh front lines reporting about atlanta united potentially breaking another transfer record

in major league soccer and of course the ice cream shop is always open we have about what 37 lines of transfer stuff that we're going to go through at the end of this show as we fire through it. If you don't, for some reason, subscribe to us every single place you can, subscribe at any podcast platform. Leave us a five-star review if you can. We have some really nice ones in there. If you don't want to leave us a five-star review, you could do that as well, but I'd hope that you have reasoning for it. Subscribe to our YouTube page.

You can watch our show live there, or you can go back and watch it later. We've got some interviews coming up over the next few days that aren't going to be live, but I'm going to be trying to upload them as much as I can to the YouTube page as well so that you can go watch them there. We've got some really interesting around the game interviews that

we're going to be doing as well as some of the biggest names in the sport on the men's and women's side. So you can follow there and of course you can be a part of our patreon to get you access to our discord which so thankfully created a gif of me yesterday in which i was reacting to the chicharango trade news as you gave it to me live on this show it's why we love the live element of this show um discord was firing and of course the depth charts are available there. We're working to enhance them to make them even better for you and even more useful.

But right now they're live updating as well as the salary cap table. So now that we get these new roster rules in place, you can start to get an idea of where some of it all fits in and how some of these teams are set up. So you can go subscribe to our Patreon there and we're hoping to have more events this year

that will get you access to those and much, much more going on over the course of 2025. Tom you ready to dig in here? I'm ready to dig in let's talk about accounting. Let's talk about accounting let's talk about some MLS roster rule changes multiple things dropping over the course of this day let's start with the big one and one that you've been working on for a little while and then we'll get into some of the other rules that we've gotten. And it is a cash for player internal MLS trade market that has officially been allowed. So non-salary cap money, money what we call an MLS as discretionary spending from an owner's pocket can be spent now to acquire players inside of major league soccer each team is limited to two per season both internal and external inbound and

outbound i think that would probably be the right term so you can trade two players away uh per team you can also acquire two players per team teams can convert the money that they receive into GAM similar to a sale outside the league and any player who sits in a DP or U22 slot will carry that designation over to their next team what this means is an MLS team can go and buy another MLS team star player or buy another MLS team's player if they want to we talked about this right at the start of the transfer window with evander saying no team has enough gam or allocation money combined to acquire evander that has now changed tom and you've been reporting on this for a while so first of all this is very good this is a change that has been discussed or some semblance of in the works for several years

i even go back to was it 21 or 22 i remember talking to sources being like they were expecting it to come then it's not super easy to give the league a little bit of credit here it's not just a unilateral decision this has to be done with the players association everything else um but all that is to say this is a very good update and the easiest way to think about it again of course it had to be a little bit confusing with the wording and everything else this is just a normal transfer market like if you were buying chicho arango from columbia uh like lafc did for x like three million dollars whatever it was just think of that same transaction but doing it from within the league probably the apt um comparison here would have been a vander because a vander is the first name that comes to mind

with this new rule the same way that Portland Sambers bought him for 10 million dollars from North Carolina or wherever they had bought them from they another MLS team can now do that to get him from Portland so what it does is it keeps big name players in the league or at least the option to keep big name players in the league because in the past, like you said, there would not be enough allocation money for another team in MLS to acquire a player like this. So, again, the top-line stuff here, as we're going to get into the nitty-gritty, what you need to remember is this is just a normal transfer system,

kind of with a different name, a normal internal transfer system, and it applies to star players like this or rising young talents that can become U22. Like, the trade like giacomo veroni to montreal that will still happen for gam because with this rule as you said goss if a dp is traded they have to carry their designation you can still make trades for gam you can still make trades for international slots and whatever else this is for the lucho acosas and the evanders of mls uh one of the things that I mentioned, but should be noted,

is you can't combine this cash with other things. So you can't do one super draft pick and $12 million for Evander. Could you imagine if that's what held up a deal? No, no, no. Throw in your third round super draft pick. Ernst would be the one running to the door being like, does anyone need a super draft pick? I heard someone needs a super draft pick. It is obviously a big step for the league.

I think it's the start as well. Your hope is with a lot of this stuff moving down the road of taking away some of the restrictions and making things simpler and making things more straightforward. Now, of course, we've got five other rules that came out today in which you do need a legal degree to dig into and talk about. So we're not there all the way. But first huge reaction from me, and I think I said this to you in text, and it's what a lot of people have come back with, I think, is the ability for big name players, but good players to stay in Major League Soccer.

There is an inherent risk always, Goss Theram guy, of bringing a player in from outside of Major League Soccer. There is also inherent risk always, Gostherum guy, of bringing a player in from outside of Major League Soccer. There is also like a lack of efficiency with it. Not every player is going to hit. And so to be able to use funds inside the league that can stay inside the league and keep players that you already know can perform in Major League Soccer and then have the next team be able to do something with those funds, right? So in a situation like this, if it is a good player, I'm going to go back and say, if Georgi Mihailovic was sold inside of MLS instead of outside of MLS, that's a good player who stays in MLS.

And Montreal then can go and continue to acquire good players with that money. It doesn't always require an external entity to bring funds into the league. And I think that's going to be really exciting it also changes the conversation around the luchos and the evanders and players like this because as we said it was impossible to discuss a situation in which they stayed in mls before that has now become possible i totally agree and again those are the two players that i've been hearing you get even before that i was able to report that it was all done and this was about to be announced.

Those are two players I was hearing for weeks. These are the guys. And Lucho won was surprising to me because his whole thing was, I want to go to Argentina to be with my family. I want to go to Boca Juniors. Well, Boca Juniors bought Alan Velasco. And now all of a sudden it's like, well, you know, there's going to be a lot of teams bidding for Lucho Acosta in MLS,

which I think would be odd, weird, and disappointing, quite frankly, if he left for a different MLS team, when the whole guise of his reasoning to move was family to Argentina. But I digress. So those are the two players that immediately sources across the league are talking about. And this will have ramifications that it won't upset parity, but this is another way to kind of inch it towards, you know, more European leagues.

You know, Bayern Munich buys the best players in Germany. PSG buys the best players in France. It's not quite the same in England, but you kind of get the point here. Or even go to smaller leagues like Club Bruges buys the best players in Belgium or Anderlecht does. PSV, Ajax, they buy the best players in the netherlands so atlanta united i haven't heard anything that suggests for sure that they are in for either lucho or evander and these probably aren't good examples because those two are also big spending clubs yeah but atlanta united are the biggest spending club and if they decide i want evander guess what they're gonna get evander because they

have more money to throw it than anybody else the same way that when Byron decides, I want Joshua Kimmich, they're going to get him, right? They're going to get the best players within the league because they have the money. It won't, again, be exactly the same way because there's a limit here and there are still all the other roster rules that limits you to how many of these players

you can have on your team. But that is kind of what we're going to see. We're going to see more ambitious clubs get to do this and it changes the math on your scouting because as much as you love and trust your scouts, there is always a risk that a player doesn't fit or a player doesn't adapt or whatever. The higher floor here is like,

you know, Evander adapted to MLS, you know, Lucho Cosette adapted to MLS. Go on down the line, insert any star player in this league. It mitigates some risk. And you think,

Hmm, we can spend the same money and have a higher probability that this is going to hit or at least understand what the delta is of this player's uh expected performance so i think that these are all going to be manifesting over the next few months and years and everything else but i once again i want to say that this is an excellent addition to the league. This doesn't solve everything. This isn't the be-all, end-all for Russell Rose. Like you said, now there are four other ones

that have some interesting ways to describe that we're going to have to get into, but this is a positive step. I want to bring up the possibility, by the way, on the parity thing, that it actually doesn't negatively affect it. It shifts it in just, what if San Jose buys Chicho Arango instead of trading

allocation money. And then they have the allocation money to bring in another center back or another defensive midfielder. And I do wonder if there's a space we get into where let's say the Nashville's of the world are like, we'll buy your 29 year old DP maybe at a little bit of a lower level than what you'd sell him to a foreign club but you don't have to go through any of those hoops because you want to go out and buy a 23 year old dp and maybe that's a way that the league shifts coming off the back

of this of saying there are players who move inside the league not just from what we would consider small pond to big pond but there's more movement inside of that while allowing teams to remain a little bit more flexible and having those guarantees. Because I think one of the things that we've talked about in the past, like some owners, it feels like, they just don't trust the money being spent. And we have gotten a number of questions

over the course of this week about Bruce Arena and San Jose. What's happening in San Jose? Why are they all of a sudden spending money? I think it's proven over the last 10 years that Bruce Arena has enough sway that billionaires are like, yep, I trust you. You're going to spend my $10 million correctly. It's not that Robert Kraft didn't have the $10 million to spend. It was that he didn't trust anyone to spend it for him. And Bruce Arena is able to get that out of them. I wonder if for some of these front offices

it's easier to convince their owner let's go get a player who has scored 14 goals in this league over the last two years than it is to say um yeah if you've never heard of like circle bruges they play in bruges but they're the other team in bruges and there's three other teams in liege and like once we get through that let's talk Europa League then we'll get into conference then we'll talk about goalscoring cups like it's just simpler i think for some of these teams and some of these groups and again it keeps money inside of the league and that's money that if houston sells let's say coco caraschia to a team and gets allocation money they can then trade that allocation like you're just adding more funds internally which is hopefully going

to continue to grow salaries and grow budget charges across the league and make teams even better um we've gotten questions here in the chat about evander that is as you said the big name that comes up when you first think of this because it's not really clear why he doesn't want to be in portland and he's shown that he can play at an m an MVP level do you think it's clear he said it's clear he said the broken promises and I need to leave it he sorry he was one of the sorry wait let me let me do this let me post a moody picture say broken promises hurt me he put like a seven tweet thread he went and I want to leave Portland Timbers and here's why with a little thread emoji not exactly. But it was like what you would see on your For You page on the crap that is X right now. Just something like that.

Here's a thread of all the whatever, right? Like, that's what he did. Like, this wasn't a reported thing. He said it himself. Source me, bro. Oh, no, I get that. I'm just, he didn't say they broke this promise, this promise, and this promise, and this is why. Either way, he didn't say he didn't want to play in MLS.

Right. He said he didn't want to play in MLS. Right. He said he didn't want to play in Portland. So Rainman34 says, what's your favorite destination for Evander in MLS and why is it Charlotte? I could see Charlotte be one of the teams on this list because they have shown that they're willing to spend money on a big player.

Again, it feels like part of the Miguel Almiron search is approving commodity. They have struck out on other signings coming to MLS. I think they've more struck out on the options they wanted actually wanting to be in MLS or the teams actually wanting to sell more than actually acquiring the players and them not performing in the league at a high level. But that's one that you could see happen and you could see it make sense. Is there any

other big ones that come to mind i my my favorite answer for this is let's say lucho does get his way and gets out of cincy since he just goes and buys amanda i think that's the most seamless and the perfect like use of musical chairs i would like that okay um that you reacted as if i was reporting that as a fact that was no saying okay, okay, just make sure. No, I think there's nothing to me about Evander that says we'll counter press very consistently for your team. What about Lucho Acosta? He wasn't that player either when he got there, but he's become that player. I don't know that Evander has that step to take, but it's a really good point,

and it's a really interesting one. Charlotte would seem right now like they are a higher option in terms of one that they haven't broken promises but two they are closer to winning like right now if you're a player between the two that makes sense that since he since he's closer to winning than portland i thought you sure they never mind i wanted to make the joke that is he gonna beat out brandt bronico for the number 10 spot we're not sure so i don't know I thought, never mind. I wanted to make the joke that, is he going to beat out Brant Bronico for the number 10 spot? We're not sure.

So I don't know. Okay. Any other teams or any other names? No. Again, like there's a lot of people around the league that I talk to are excited like, oh, it's like they're doing a podcast too. It's like, oh, who are five trade targets that you think could move and like we're talking like it's like oh hey like who did you hear that's in for vander it's like oh like all right i heard that this team might be in for k for lucho and a lot of it is nonsense but it's fun it's a frenzy everybody's figuring it out

in real time as well everybody has their theories and what they kind of want to do but there's a lot of people that are calling me like hey what do you think what do you hear like it'll be fascinating who's the first one and what it looks like and sort of like that will be the trigger of like how does what do the numbers look like first are they going to be the exact number you think the player would go for externally or is it going to be a little bit less because it's a smoother deal and it's easier to get done or it's more guaranteed or it quicker, or is it just this is their market value if they went to AEK Athens or if they went to Shakhtar Donetsk, and if you want to pay it, you could pay it or not.

It will be also interesting to see if teams do this to teams close to them. Would you sell to a team in your conference? Would you sell to a rival, or is that considered too unacceptable to your fan base and it's safer than to say uh let's send this player outside of major league soccer so they can't hurt us in the future yeah and anything like that um let's dig into these other rules so some of the other news that broke on this tuesday is the first is a shift in the transfer window timing so the primary

transfer window this year will run from january 31st to wednesday april 23rd and then the secondary transfer window will run from thursday july 24th to thursday august 21st that's the big news of that the primary transfer window is essentially the same the secondary transfer window has been moved back um in the first part of this conversation i was giving a lot of credit to Major League Soccer. I don't love this. I don't think that this does anything. And again, I will say they're in a tough spot

because no matter what they do here, it's going to be some teams are going to complain it opens too late and others say it closes too early. I think this does neither because there's still 10 days left in the window in europe after august 21st and yes it's closer to the end i don't think that that's close enough to actually make that worthwhile and july 24th um we should have done a little bit of research but like it opened um july 18th july 7th something like that this year like st louis made a

bunch of new signings and they have like 10 games left if that right and then depending on when you sign players and when their visas come in you think of a guy like um like pet bl i thought that he was good but like he was just getting his feet under him in charlotte because he was signed on deadline day and then he had to wait for a visa to come, and then he's debuting in the end of August or early September. So this has basically shifted six days. Last year it was July. And I don't think that does it. American clubs were July 18th to August 14th.

Yeah, and again, so let's talk about Charlotte again. I'll use it as a real example. I truly, like, they believe that they had a much better chance of signing Miguel Marron if the window closed at the end of August because Newcastle's asking price was unreasonable at the beginning of August because they were trying to posture that like, oh, another English team is going to come in.

And then when you think of these best case scenario offers that never come, you circle back around on August 29th and like, all right, how much are you going to offer? Because our hopes and dreams didn't come true because that's just a metaphor for life. Your our hopes and dreams didn't come true. Because that's just a metaphor for life. Your hopes and dreams usually don't come true. But again, to give MLS a little bit of further credit,

I know that they want to move the transfer window to make it eight weeks in the winter and eight weeks in the summer. Eight weeks in the winter would mean that instead of April 23rd, it closes March 23rd, give or take something in that area. There are not many transfers between March 23rd and April 23rd. There just aren't. And so they want to move that time, but they have to be in line with the U.S. Soccer Federation,

from what I was told, would have no issues changing this. USO Championship, I didn't get much pushback when I was asking them when I was working on this story in the summer. It seems like they'd be on board. The problem is Canadian soccer. Canadian soccer is the reason why there were two different transfer windows last year. One for Canadian clubs, one for American clubs. So it's not like they can just unilaterally make this decision.

There were other parties, and they want to. So I'm trying to give them a little empathy for that, but I just don't think that this change does much i think that it hurts a little bit more because if you're a club that's trying to save a dp spot for the summer to make a change you better be good over the first two-thirds of the season because that new signing ain't getting much time uh yeah last year canada's uh transfer window opened six days before the u.s one and closed six days earlier. But those are four Canadian MLS teams. So those teams could register players with Major League Soccer,

but they couldn't register them with the CSA. So they had to get most of, if not all, the business done before. And obviously Canada has a second league in CPL that they're dealing with as well. So that's all what's going on. But as you said, the biggest factor in all of this is, for the most part, deals get done at the end of the window. MLS's window closes while most leagues around the world, especially in Europe, are still open. And therefore, MLS teams lose negotiating power or they lose the ability to swoop in and get players on better deals or players that they wouldn't have even considered because deals fall through and things shift as the window shuts we all have turned on sky sports for the final transfer day like things get crazy because things fall through and that's just the nature of how people operate and mls

loses an opportunity to be a part of that and we have seen some really good players come into mls because a transfer fell through at the wrong time because they couldn't go anywhere else because league windows were shut and mls takes themselves out of that or is pulled out of that ability to affect those moves because of the way that the transfer window is set up do you want to go into some of these other big rule changes and talk about some of the ones that interest us yeah and the first one is mls added a second bio and i think that is also very good because it'll allow the teams that want to spend more money say who cares like if we swung and missed again let's do a bio and let's spend more money it puts more money in the pool players as is their right

get every single dollar of that contract if they're bought out as they should it's not their fault that their team signed into a bad deal this is one I can say for certainty. The MLSPA, this would have been implemented last year. The MLSPA rejected it. And I don't particularly understand why, because yes, a player gets bought out, but that's still more money that's introduced into the league because then a team can just reuse that slot while that player still gets paid.

But I digress. That's the reason why this one took a little bit longer than it should have. But the second buyout is in again. I think that's another positive step yeah i talked to some people about this the assumption is like this is the type of thing that would happen it's probably going to happen to low ndp some tam players where you can't get out of the deal we've seen how the first buyout has been used like for the most part it's on a big name player who doesn't fit i think a giacomo

veroni could have been an example i think a carlos grueso is like an example that you could see san jose can't get out of the deal they're stuck with that extra dp things like that and so it just gives more flexibility to teams you could see for some players not wanting the fact that uh the player doesn't have to agree to it it's just set in by teams and so you have no control over the fact that team decides to buy you out but you do get the full contract and you do get the full money after that, which also then kind of helps other teams be like, Oh, well you're already getting paid. We'll pay you a little bit to come play for us.

And sometimes you get more talent to stay in the league and move around. The second buyout I think is going to be really big as well with all of this, which is the ability to start to adjust rosters a little bit more and have more flexibility. One of the other big pieces of information that came out today was that general allocation money never runs out. So GAM, up until this year, lasted for, I believe it was three transfer cycles. So like a year and a half after you got it, it lasted for it. That is no longer the case. Now it is forever. GAM is forever,

Tom. And so teams are not pushed to have to use it they are not stressed to have to use it for example fc dallas selling alan velasco converting some of it to gam there is no at the end of this year and a half saying oh we know you have a million and a half in allocation you have to use so we're able to push you for it teams are able to keep it and use it whenever they want for as long as they want except for the additional allocation money that you get for declaring that you are a team that has two dps and for you 22 so we've called it the 242 that extra million that you get for that setup or that extra 2 million um that has to be used in the year that you have declared yourself. But you now have more flexibility to shift from a 2-4-2 to a 3-3 or a 3-3 back to a 2-4-2. We initially had, it had been explained to us that once you announced which, what style,

what setup you were at the beginning of the year, that's how you'd remain for the rest of the year. They have now opened it so that from july 1st to august 21st basically during the summer transfer window you can convert from one to the other um as long as you have used less than a million dollars of the additional gam that you would have received if you were a 242 team converting to a 33 team this one is fun one it allows teams more flexibility especially in the transfer window to be able to make moves but i think it could be like a we're better than we thought we were move let's go win now and so adding a third dp in a summer and moving off a u22 or whatever it is could allow some teams to make that decision and some some teams may be the opposite, which is like,

there's no version of tanking in MLS. But this could be a version of saying, you know what? We'll get off of a DP because our team's bad. We'll pull in another U22 initiative player who's a future asset, and we could start to build for the future. Yeah, that's fair. So again, in like trying to use real examples, because again, as we're looking at the chat,

there's some people who are rightfully being like, man, this is all confusing. So I'm trying to anchor this as much into real possible examples as we can. So even going back to the second buyout, look at Chicago Fire. That's a team that spent as much money as they can, as they're allowed to. Now they can buy out Arno Suke and Chris Mueller if they choose.

Those are just two names I've thrown out, and those would be probably the likely names off the top of my head. But again, that is a real way in which this could help them immediately kickstart and help accelerate the rebuild under Greg Berhalter and staff. So for this one, I look at the Columbus crew. I was curious as to what were they going to do in terms of designating which roster building path? Because if they went 2-4-2, you want the allocation money,

but there goes your flexibility to add a third DP because they still can. Darlington and Agby can be bought down. So if they don't sign a DP this month, which maybe they will, maybe they won't, but I'd probably lean against probably not because they could still have the flexibility for the summer. But now they could do 242, and they could use $1 million of that allocation money to help keep a championship squad together.

Yeah. And then in the summer, if they get the opportunity to sign a DP, if they get an opportunity like that's the busier transfer window across the globe. Everybody I talk to says like that's it's just a little bit easier to get higher level players rather than, say, somebody who's not playing at a really big team or whatever it is. Right. It's just easier to do that in the summer than the winter now they can still use a million in allocation money for the first half of the season for a very very talented and then expensive roster and then they could still add a dp in the summer they want rather than like if they had to declare in a month they'd be weighing up like are we definitely going to sign a dp or not like what if well if we don't know for sure then maybe we should just take the allocation money now so that i think is going to be a DP or not? Like, what if, well, if we don't know for sure, then maybe we should just take the allocation money now.

So that I think is going to be helpful for a team like the Columbus group. Yeah, and I think pointing out that the summer transfer window is a better place to get good players for teams is a big part of like, you're not forced into whatever you can do before the season starts

because otherwise you've got the empty roster spot you can say let's wait for the transfer window to open talking about columbus we've got our staples in place we're looking for talent to add to this we can get there uh and i and then in a scenario like that you can bring in another u22 get some of the allocation money have that talent and then sell a u22 in the summer because, transfer windows are open around the world. That's a better time to sell. That's an easier time to sell. And then bring in a DP and switch from 2-4-2 to 3-3.

I like that someone in the chat says, Goss's excitement about talking about this means you know he's an NBA rules guy. We're not even talking bird rights yet. So we haven't even really gotten into it. I think the big thing to take out of all of this is, once again, it allows more flexibility to MLS teams and will allow more variance in the way teams choose to build their rosters, which I think is better for the league. I don't think we're in a good situation if every team in MLS says, we've got three DPs. We've got an Argentine

number 10, we've got a Colombian center forward, we'll go out and sign a TAM center back, we'll try and find a low-end DP defensive midfielder, we're all going to play the same style, and we're all the same team. You want to have the ability to have different teams with different ideas and different styles that can all compete at the same level. You only do that if you have different roster mechanisms that allow teams different options. And so I think this is big. It should help teams in the open market in their negotiating stand.

I don't know how many people, we say this all the time. I don't know how many people around the world read the MLS roster rules. But if they do, they know that if a team has four TPs on their roster in January, that they need to sell one and that you come in and you have the higher ground. This potentially can start to shift some of that in a summer window, as we said, because you can switch from 3-3 to 2-4-2 because you have a buyout because of all these things that you can potentially do to be able to turn your roster around a little bit more.

One other piece of news, two other pieces of news out of this. One is a designated player can be loaned out now after being in the league for one full year. And if the team that takes them on loan acquires their full salary, it opens up the DP spot to the team. I'm just going to call this the inter-Miami rule. The assumption is this is the way for a team like this to try and sneak out of a bad DP deal. The odds that this happens are pretty low, but it's out there and then there are a lot of things that have to do with homegrowns uh so the way that homegrowns affect the roster one being uh they are now allowed up to six mls league matches for off roster homegrowns this would

alleviate for now columbus crew's inability to have a goalkeeper on the roster last year because, man, Stanis Lapkis got there. Nailed it. What a legend. Would have been able to appear two more times for Columbus and would have been able to be on the roster. That includes, like last year, CONCACAF, Leagues Cup, U.S. Open Cup, Canadian Championship, blah, blah, blah. So it gives a little bit more flexibility for all of that uh and there's a little bit more flexibility as well as well um on age restrictions and what players can be and can't be off roster and supplemental and all those types of things that felt good tom i feel good right now

that that felt like you know at the end of anything that you sign up for the terms and conditions that are 72 pages long that nobody ever reads that's what i felt like so i appreciate you doing that because i would have been like ah whatever who cares uh drew says you may have had time to refill your coffee before i finish that i will say i'm going to go interview i'm going to interview a lawyer after this might be less complicated than what we just went through might have them uh dig into some of the work for us between that by the way this so we're gonna have a referee interview for you for into some of the work for us. Between that, by the way, so we're going to have a referee interview for you for the end of the week. So Goss is going reading terms and conditions,

right into we're doing a referee interview, right into a lawyer. What an unbelievably dry day for David Goss. I do it for all of you. Also, I'm going to trivia tonight to add on top of that. Oh, my God. Every week they announce the overall theme. Last week it was the year in review. This week it is the office.

So I just want – I'm putting the accountability out there, which is if I do poorly today, a topic on a show I've watched 7 million times, then I deserve to be roasted, and you have the right to do so. I'm writing this down right now to start the show with Thursday to ask you a full breakdown of trivia. When we come back on the show,

because if I can't get that, there's very little that I can do in trivia, unless next week's topic is MLS roster rules and MLS roster rule changes that have occurred over the last 12 months. Then I would be in a pretty good spot. My head right here. That is, it's almost worse than mine.

It's not worse than mine, but it's almost worse than mine. We still have Atlanta United DPs to talk about. We've still got a million other pieces of news to get to, but let's dig into one of the big official ones, which is Vancouver Whitecapsps have hired uh jesper sorensen as their new head coach in place of vanny sartini he's a 51 year old uh danish coach he most recently coached bronby in denmark was let go in the beginning of december as the team was sitting in fifth place in the league last year they lost they lost the league title on the last day. I tried to figure out why and realized that I wasn't going to get there, so it's fine.

I think they have a playoff system. I think they went and lost a home leg or an away leg by the wrong amount of goals inside of a playoff system. Otherwise, he has been the Denmark U21 coach, Bronby assistant. He coached in the second division for a while with a club called Federicia. And his former club.

Is that Italian? I have zero idea. That's literally how it's spelt. And I was like, no way. I thought it was fake. And I went to go find it and was like, there's no way this is a real team. And he was an assistant coach at his former club where he finished playing over the course of like seven years off and on. He is on a two-year

contract to be the new head coach of vancouver and tom we talked about this last show he was not one of the names we mentioned no so what i will say is this is an experienced manager they haven't done that a ton in the past their last manager was vanny sartini who hadn't had i don't even think before he was briefly an assistant coach for the Vancouver Whitecaps before he took over, and they set out that they wanted a more experienced manager for this head coaching search because they have a win-now type group. They have a team that's really settled in terms of salary cap flexibility

in that there aren't many changes to the playing roster that they can make. There are not really any substantial changes, maybe a U22 initiative, but this is a team that they feel has a higher ceiling than it did and they need to bring in a new coach to hopefully reach that he played three five two or three four two one has some variation played three at the back um during his time in bronby and that fits what this roster currently has um what club sources has told me is that they like his defensive stability and attacking creativity that he can allow to players, i.e. Ryan Galt, and that there's kind of an up-tempo, more of a pressing element to his game. Again, that's a big word salad.

That sounds like a lot of really good things. We'll see kind of what it looks like. I just want to play possession style. I just want to play beautiful football. I just want the fans to come and enjoy this. Yeah, I want to play beautiful pressing, but also possession and calm and control. But when Venni Sartini was let go, one of the first things I pointed to was I was very surprised that their style metrics were that they didn't do many transition attacks. And they didn't have a high

ratio of passes per defensive action essentially meaning they allow teams to play and then they don't kind of break quick which i was surprised about given how incredibly well great ryan gold is in space and stewart armstrong made this team better towards the playoff so with all that being said they did go get an experienced manager. I'm excited to see what he looks like in this league. It's the best to give the benefit of the doubt because there are, this isn't Manchester city, Liverpool, Bayern, Madrid, where it's like, you know, the 15 coaches that have the resume to get there in MLS. It's a lower level, obviously than the top, top, top of the game that there are a wider pool of potential coaches players whatever that could be successful here so just because we haven't

heard of him before it doesn't mean that he will be bad i will say didn't win the title of bronby bronby is i think it's fair to say the biggest team in denmark um so that's an ideal and it's a two-year contract which shows he didn't have much leverage or other options because coaches like the bigger name the coach obviously you have to spend on the salary but you have to spend in security to give more than a two-year contract yeah uh yeah the two-year contract uh copenhagen would be the other big team by the way in denmark i just had to make sure i had my countries right in Scandinavia on top of that. The two-year contract is not super promising from an external point of view, which is like, that doesn't allow stability to a club. And clubs that operate that way, one, they don't want to get

stuck with the coach, which means one, lack of confidence for a guy you just hired. And two, you're being cheap because you're more worried about the potential buyout on the back end of a contract of a coach you don't want anymore than saying, we'll worry about that tomorrow. Like we're all in. We believe. I think that stuff's very frustrating. I think that is very Vancouver of them. And I think that goes into the signing, which feels like from everything that's come out from Vancouver and what you just talked about, it is very much like this is a coach at our level that's attainable and the belief which i think is a fair belief yes which is if you get every if you have stability

and the floor is high and you get everyone on the same page this team can contend with teams that spend more than them and i don't think that's a wrong idea to have i don't think it's wrong for actual schuster to look at this roster and say if everyone's on the same page we can have i don't think it's wrong for actual schuster to look at this roster and say if everyone's on the same page we can have we won't have the weakest link on the field we'll have some match winners in orion gold and if it's the right system can sam adekube be one of those can pedro vite be that like there are pieces in this team that in the right system could be that and i think that's what you're hoping for from this there was maybe the feeling that they were going to do something special and then all of a sudden you

have this huge high-end potential that could happen but coaches are coaches and I don't know how much that was really possible and in the end I think you kind of got a Vancouver-like signing in this position and I think it's fair to be hopeful about what he can do he has never coached outside of Denmark that's something to be noted uh what he can do. He has never coached outside of Denmark. That's something to be noted. It was said in our chat, and I found this in an article as well about him, that his wife worked in Toronto as a doctor.

She might be from Toronto, that I'm unaware of. And so he lived in Canada for over a year at some point over the last five, six years. So has a little experience there. That's a little bit better than nothing but it still is a level of unknown for him he is going to meet the team in spain for preseason so he will have not come to canada until the end of preseason as this is ready to get kicked off again we've just spent another i spent the day at media marketing hearing players who have not been in mls before

talk about travel and all those things being huge factors. It's an experienced Vancouver squad. I don't think that will be huge. These are all things he's going to have to learn and all things he's going to have to adjust to on the fly in what is, as you said, a win now team that the gamble was we can't move things on the roster. If we move something off the roster, will that shoot us up because everything else is pretty much set up and that's a huge question mark i thought this quote was interesting from renko veselinovich yesterday in which he just said about the offseason we did not expect any of that with the coach and especially the ownership but we couldn't do anything it was out of our hands

we just have to stay healthy fit train do what's up to us and the rest of the club i just thought it was interesting that one of the players mentioned sort of how unexpected vanny sartini was because that's how i felt at the time and then you start to like process it as time goes along but i think it was a good reminder of last year was not a bad year for vancouver and they let vanny sartini go and so jesper sorenson's not coming into a broken locker room but he's also not coming into a broken locker room, but he's also not coming into one that maybe had turned on their previous coach. And he might have to win some people over as this season starts.

Yeah, I thought that was very interesting as well. And that is a good reminder. We haven't touched upon that, that the team is up for sale. There's a lot of uncertainty around this team outside of the playing roster. I think that's the thing that is the most settled. Again, the starting 11 essentially picked itself if they have more continuity both tactically and personnel wise because this was another team that would tinker a lot um there's hope man and again just look no further than the wild card win over portland five nil and the way

that they played against uh lafc in in round one that was like if that team plays 90 to that level if that's their peak if that's their peak they can compete in the playoffs in the western conference if they play like that's their peak they could compete in the regular season earn more home games and then play them on the road because they don't have their stadium open hopefully there's no taylor like they had the taylor swift eras tour for uh uh the weekend of mls cup which again we said it on the show the right decision just show, the right decision. Just straight up the right decision. If that's the only weekend, I don't care.

Well, that was not the problem. The problem was the wild card game and the super motocross. That was tough. But if they play like that, if they play again 90% of that, they're going to finish fifth in the West. And so I think that that is a realistic way to look at this team. So there's going to be pressure on Sorensen, maybe not immediately because you got to give a little leeway for a new coach coming in. But if this team stinks or is really struggling halfway through

the season, like that's going to be a disappointment because this is supposed to be a team that was ready to go like and ready to compete day one this year. Like this is a hire and I'm certain that this came up in the interviews. This is a hire, and I'm certain that this came up in the interviews. This is a hire that they want to get the most out of this year. This isn't a build it for several years, complete rebuild. No, this is a team that's ready to compete. Let's go compete. Let me say from what you talked about with the way he sets his team up

formation-wise and what we've seen in the past, I do like the fit for this roster. I love Laborda as a wide center back. I like Adekube as a wing back. I like him even more as a wide center back. I like Adekube as a wing back. I like him even more as a wide center back, if that's what they end up doing. They probably have one number too many in that center back sort of room, if that's the case, which is a great asset to have to move around in Major League Soccer. If someone's always looking for that, do you offer them a Tristan Blackman?

Do you offer them a Laborda maybe? Change things up. I like the central midfield. I love Gould sitting behind Brian White. I think Stuart Armstrong fits alongside him. Your hope is Ocampo can give you a little bit of spark as well, whether it's at the wingback position or in that second forward spot. I like how a lot of this fits together.

And so I think it could be a really clean fit with this coach. Let's finish on this we did this conversation on friday and the two names we had said were david wagner which we weren't sure how close and geo savarese who was a finalist we also heard geo savarese was a finalist for the toronto job i think you put in your article a couple others as well geosav race uh geosav race was the final two at several clubs um i want to start this it's going to be a passionate rant i want to start this by saying individually nashville toronto vancouver the teams that came closest to geosav race i understand on a single case-by-case basis i don't know every single one because again i'm

impartial i i truly believe that Gio Savarese should have a job right now in MLS. But I want to be on the front end that this is no disrespect to BJ Callahan, Jesper Sorensen, Robin Frazier, anybody else, because I think that all of them deserve jobs for, again, particularly the ones that we know. What I will say, it is unbelievable to me

that Gio Savarese did not come away with this coaching cycle with the job I'm shocked that he wasn't picking between multiple offers let alone waiting for one he was again in the final two at several clubs this is a manager that has displayed winning tendencies winning history in major league soccer yes the portland tempers teams that he had had good talent what i loved most about those teams he maximized your best player he maximized diego valeri he helped build around diego chara in in the midfield right and the rosses weren't always perfect they were talented i'll give you that and then shifted the team to sebastian blanco exactly geo salvarese is is a coach that should be a head coach in Major League Soccer. It's just that simple. And it should have been whether he wanted to or not. I know that he wants to, but it should have been, here's an offer, do you want to do this? Rather than him pitching himself to all of these different teams about why he should be the head coach. So I'm frustrated in that. And a lot of the background I have is, my opinion, maybe it doesn't matter.

That's fine, right? I'm getting calls from clubs around the league. Why wasn't Gio hired? What is going on? I've been told that every club that reached out to the Portland Timbers to do their background stuff on Gio and hey, they speak glowingly of Gio Savarese. And I think that that is another point in the bucket for Savarese,

is that even the place that he was fired from, because that happens, coaches get fired, they love him there. And they are the ones that are as shocked as anybody that he doesn't have a job somewhere else in MLS, right? We get so focused on retreads, or the word retread, and the negative connotation it is that you're not a brand new manager and thus don't have this huge unknown. Ben Olsen was called a retreads or the word retread and the negative connotation it is that you're not a brand new manager and thus don't have this huge unknown ben olsen was called a retread houston dynamo go back to the tweet when i broke the news or whenever it went official that ben olsen was the new head coach of houston dynamo nobody liked it everybody said this is unambitious this is stupid awful you

guys suck he sucks everything sucks he just displayed some of the the prettiest soccer in major league soccer over the last few years i think phil neville was a good hire for portland so i'm gonna stay on that i know that that's not you know a universal opinion like ben olsen was robin frazier is another guy who i thought deserved a job in this league for what he did in colorado again i know he had chief us a long long time ago but this notion that you're a retread and that's super negative, and that's awful is just really weird and odd to me. And kind of my final point on this is that there were a couple, couple managers that kind of in situations that mirrored the NFL, right?

Pretty easy, the Belichick and Bruce Arena. Like Bruce wanted a job last year, Belichick wanted a job last year, neither of them got it. They both had to do some image rehab. Obviously, Belichick had to go end up going to college rather than the NFL but Bruce got his job Gio Savarese reminds me of Mike Vrabel was very clearly a good coach in the league somehow walked away from the cycle without a job and then guess what Mike Vrabel got hired a day after the season ended by the Patriots and somehow Gio Savarese didn't like the soccer world is bigger there's other places it's just I don't know why we're so fixated on this guy's a retread it's not like he's had 15 jobs he's with Portland for a long time longer than most managers are in their jobs and I just

don't understand why that's being held against them and I'm just very surprised and frankly disappointed he doesn't have a job in MLS right now you would assume based off the way these have gone that he will be the first person called for the next opening that comes which based off last year could be pretty early in the season and you'd assume with how he's kept in touch being a broadcaster around the league and obviously his lifetime in the united states college soccer all the way through lower divisions um that he can pick up pretty quickly. And that will be a big bonus for him for whoever's looking for someone. I think Vancouver, I get not hiring the former Portland coach.

Like we talked about this, the roster is really set. So recruitment's not a huge part of what you do. I think Toronto probably came down to the fact that Robin Frazier has those connections. Nashville is the one that really confuses me. I thought that's a really clean fit because one of the things geo gets you talk about like top end talent sam surge and honey muktar but also like energy and passion and it felt like that had come out of nashville and after

building geotis park we haven't really seen that and it should be right you should be tapped into that fan base you should be one of the hardest places to play and bj callahan might do that but that's i think where you ended up with one of the retread verse non and the unknown and the potential verse the known somewhat but as you put a mention not only did people think ben olsen was a retread we had never seen a ben olsen team play soccer the way houston has played soccer over the last two years and like there is more for a lot of these people you kind of get in situations and things shift and we both I think hope that Gio Savarese gets a job because he's a great person around this league he cares about the sport in this region he cares about the sport in this country and we both enjoy

talking to him and I think a lot of fans really enjoy rooting for his teams because of the connection he has with them um let's go into atlanta united stuff now you have been reporting on this atlanta is going big game hunting in the deep end of the pool and they are in some negotiations against premier league clubs for some big time talent yeah atlanta united have made a bid that would be a new league record if it's accepted and gets done for Middlesbrough, Ivorian International Center forward Emmanuel Latelath. He's 26 years old. He has 26 goals and 56 appearances for Borough.

He's their leading scorer this year. I think it's like 10 goals and 16 appearances. He's got a ton of pace, excellent finishing ability, and understanding of spacing that I think would fit really, really well with what Atlanta want to do. Their other top target is Edison Odoard, the French Crystal Palace striker who's on loan at Leicester City. He hasn't played much at Leicester City this season,

which makes a potential deal this winter possible just because they don't have to worry about breaking the loan because he's just not playing that much. And what we see with these two players is they very clearly want big money somebody reliably scores goals somebody who scored goals in multiple leagues that's both latte laugh and edward and a player with pace that was really going to threaten in behind that can combine that physical ability with the technical quality and finishing ability but as i'm kind of reporting you keep on seeing me talking about Emmanuel Latte left. And I think you should read into that

as to where their priorities are and what's going on. Again, the bid is north of 18 million, probably in the range of 20 million. That would be- Yeah, several million more than Cincinnati just set the new league record transfer on Kevin Danke. That was 16.2. The next four are Atlanta United signings.

So Atlanta want to take that record back really quickly and they have a ton of money to spend from the sales of jago amara caleb wiley george gershaka makis and then a sell-on percentage that they got from zico barco but even without that this team's always going to spend money and their ambition financially is unmatched everything else that they kind of do as a club so i was expecting them to be in this range again i didn't know 100 sure if they were going to set a new league record transfer because again maybe something comes in at 12 million with a huge salary right or give or take whatever right but it is completely unsurprising that they have submitted a bid that would be a new league record for manuel latte laugh um the latest that i'm getting nothing has been decided yet by

burrow but but that usually means that they're deliberating off of crap, we kind of need to accept this, right? Like, I would be I guess optimistic on this side of things they still obviously need to finish personal terms and then look, maybe if a bid does get accepted, maybe that jump starts a couple other English teams

in action, I've heard leads in for him, I've heard some Premier League clubs that are at least loosely connected to him. And if those interests are serious, if Borough is either close to accepting a bid, they're going to go to those clubs to try to get a bidding war. Or if they do, that might kickstart some other teams.

So that's where everything stands on Emmanuel Lateloff. And Atlanta United aren't going to wait around forever. We'll see if this moves quickly. Yeah, I think West Ham is one of the big ones that got mentioned and they're talking about being in that bidding war uh as they look for center forward support and like consistency this well the name sort of surprised me the profile fits what you'd expect um it is a 26 year old in his, just got called into the Ivory Coast national team.

26 goals and 56 appearances in the championship over the last two years. Was with Atalanta before, kept getting sent out on loan, so never really had a chance to play with Atalanta. But put up numbers in Switzerland, put up numbers in the lower divisions in Italy. I think the hope is you're getting a player of higher quality who is maybe a late developer because of all those moves. And so maybe the $18 million actually, or $20 million, is a deal for a player like this. They're not at their peak, and you can continue to get performances. But where he sits in his career, I think, fits the profile of

it's slightly more experienced than Cuco, but in a similar space, right on the verge of the Premier League, right on the edge of the Premier League player, who's broken into their national team slightly, as Tom brings the dogs in to the show. This is not Melo, though, right? That's Molly, yeah. That's Molly, got it.

Molly, a little bit more of a center stage. Melo, a little bit more behind the scenes. She thought that my wife was in here. Now she's disappointed that it's just me. We feel the same way sometimes, Tom, so we totally get it. So it's an interesting signing for Atlanta. It also goes in line with what they've done. You talked about those transfer records like Araujo.

Guys like that, they've been in the 25 to 27-year-old range, coming in off teams that some would say are sort of at the level of Major League Soccer at the time, rather than coming down maybe from a big team. Because that was the other thing I thought Atlanta might try and do here. Could they pick someone off on the edges of a huge club in Europe or maybe a team in a bigger league where the 11th, 12th guy on the roster is looking to come and become a star. Lath is not that exactly, but he fits, I think, a lot of what MLS teams have been building. The championship hasn't always led to results. We just saw Matty

Crooks, but none of them have been players at the level that this is. And so it makes a ton of sense for Atlanta. it makes sense with garth and chris henderson's background of like what they look for in players i think you mentioned this in your article they like players that have already moved leagues more than once to show that they can settle in they like players as well in this age range who can probably play through their peak with the club so you can have consistency and not, there is still some potential sell-on as you move forward. If it fell to Edward, it would be okay because he played for Celtic, and that seems to be this weird Atlanta United thing from Yakumakis

through to the potential signing that we thought was going to happen last week to Edward. As long as they played at Celtic, it seems like they're okay. I do think there's some similarities to Yakumakis in this signing, and Yakumakis had a ton of success, and so I think there's a lot of hope for Atlanta that he could be the one. Now, Atlanta has two DP signing,

two DP spots open. We are talking about two players here, Tom, but we're talking about them for the same role. So Atlanta fans are asking, what should we be thinking about the other spot for this club um very ambitious i don't know again like they would not be opposed to spending 20 million on a center forward and 20 million on a winger or attacker right again i don't know exactly if

they're going to do that but because that they've spent 20 million if they get latte loft that doesn't mean that the budget is down for the other dp spots so i'm expecting it to be very ambitious i will say it's you know how usually the la galaxy or inter miami are used as like mls seems interested yeah since the the internal trade market the internal transfer market has been kind of about to be announced they're the new oh good atlanta right insert any big name across mls we've gotten evander in the chat about 15 times evander luch again i'm saying that this like i don't know if any of this is real and i'd probably assume maybe not but like now they're oh who in mls are they going to spend 50 million dollars on like so it could be anywhere again maybe they do that maybe they go abroad but um I know that they want, they wanted more pace because Alexey Maranchuk, his elite quality

is three balls. And Sabalov Janice has benefited from that. Whoever the center forward is will benefit from that. And then do you get a 10 and have Maranchuk as an inverted right winger? Or do you have Maranchuk centrally? And then you put more pace on the wing. So I'm curious to see where they're going to go. But again, it is going to be very ambitious and

probably very expensive um yeah from what i've watched with loth like he runs the back shoulder well but he uses his body really well he's big so he can finish off service from the wings which i think is huge with amador was one of your pieces brooks lennon obviously out with injury but like your hope is he comes back and you are elite at the fullback or wingback positions however you're set up but seems really comfortable connecting and linking up the evander stuff to go with what you just mentioned with positioning maranchuk is a passenger for large parts of the game so i can understand bringing in a 10 so that maranchuk doesn't have to dictate all of the game and he can pop up where he wants to. I can't imagine trying to cover defensively for two players who are similar to Maranchuk.

If you're talking about Evander, again, you're talking about someone off the ball who covers a similar amount of ground. It just seems like a wild setup for me. But if you're able to overload and say, you know what, we're going to score five goals a game and give up four then you're going to win every single game and Ronnie Dyla and Chris Henderson have forgotten more about soccer in the last 30 seconds that I've ever known so if that was the moves they chose to make I would trust them we obviously have to add on Matty Click a part of all of this he's going to be a really good piece to cover some of that ground centrally, and he can do so alongside, whether it's Miyumbu or Sleaze, whoever it is, that you have a lot of quality in that central midfield. And I'd hope that they would add some more even at center back. But Gregerson, I think, will be even better this year

after having a year to sort of settle in. Tom, you want to give me something? No. We were going to go on to cincinnati or we wanted to do more atlanta no you said you had something no can you read the text that i sent you read it out loud oh i didn't realize what that meant i thought that meant you had to leave i thought you have something that i'm trying to report but unfortunately i'm going to need confirmations that i cannot do it on this show. I will keep you all posted, of course. Great.

Thank you, Goss. I appreciate this. I thought you had to go to the bathroom in 15 minutes, so you're trying to get it in now before you went. Once again, anyone who listened to the show over the holidays, you will know what that is a reference to. Shout out to the real ones in there who listened to first download of that episode that I left the edit in. Let's go into the ice cream shop. Tom, you want to start with Cincinnati? Yeah, I do. So Lucho Costa, as I reported, did not show up for preseason.

And then as I think Laurel Fahler and Pat Brenner reported, guess who else didn't show up? Luka Origano. Luka Origano was a subject of interest from Cruz Azul. And Cincinnati came out strong and said, there is no chance that this is happening and well luca oriano is not has not returned yet for preseason and the club are still as far as i heard an hour ago still taking a hard stance on nope he is not leaving he is going to be planned around

for 2025 but that's uh another another arch in time that hasn't showed up to preseason um added to the counter it would be backbreaking if you lost Orjano because he hit the ground so fast last year. He showed his versatility playing multiple positions. If they have to cover for Lucho Acosta, he is going to be a central part of that. If you have to now pick up basically all of your creative force and bring in new pieces,

it's going to make Denke's adjustment harder. It's going to mean this team starting behind the eight ball to start the year in which they're in a spot now where like they could cover for Lucho, even if this goes wrong and they end up having to sell it, sell with their backs against the wall at the end of the window. And they don't bring in a replacement like with Orojono in there, with Denke in there, with the center backs that they have, they could last until the

summer and still be in an okay position they would not be capable of that without origano so that would be a really big blow for this club they also signed brian tanungana um from nashville shout out to the usl charleston legend uh hoping that this is the spot that fits but another depth piece for them all right tom, Tom, keep rolling. The Chicago Fire made a bid for Fiorentina French winger Jonathan Okone. Okone played on the 2020-2021 Ligue 1 championship team. I say that because he and Jonathan Bamba were kind of two big targets for MLS clubs around that time, and then Atlanta signed their teammate Luis Araujo.

As we know, that didn't work out well. But I was told that this isn't something that's super advanced and he's definitely not the only target and i don't believe that he's the top target but that all that is said they he they did make a bid this is a very talented player he moved to fiorentina for like 16 million year and a half two years ago and chicago at least have interest but we'll see kind of where their dp search ends maybe it's him maybe it's somebody else i love icone's game i thought he was better than arujo i watched them play they prepared to make that move and i would say jonathan bomba would be would have been above the yeah fair so it would be nice to see him in the league but it would be nice also if they went even

bigger chicago uh officially signed sam rogers i believe from i love this leelstrom i love this move i love this so. I love this move. So he's a one-time U.S. international. I don't think that cap was technically under Greg Barotha. That was in the, hey, we're taking a break phase. We weren't broken up yet. We were just taking a break that January camp. But this is a really talented center back.

The only issue with him has been health, that he's had some injuries. I don't know if he charts out as a definite starter right now, and I think that's the best way to sign this player because if you're relying on him and then he gets injured, that's really disappointing, but it's going to be more bonus. And I think that he has a real chance to win that starting spot next to Jack Elliott if he stays fit.

I just really like this move. Is this a world in which you think Carlos Teran's not on the roster or one where he's on the roster? I know that he wants to... I'm just asking if you think he can beat him out or you think this gives them depth and flexibility in case they lose him. A little bit of both, but I do think that he has the ability to be a starting center back in this league.

He is a GA Cup legend. I believe he was on the Generation Adidas Cup championship winning team has the ability to be a starting center back in this league he is a ga cup legend i think he i believe he was on the uh generation adidas cup championship winning team for seattle sounders with danny leva which is the greatest team in history of sports so he already has my sword uh skipped college to play with tacoma ended up with okc energy i believe at the time and then went to norway in which he's moved his way up from the second division to the first division. It reminds me a little bit of the career path of Brendan Heinzeik, who's had his up and downs in major league soccer.

I think it just sort of gives you a level he could come in at, but I think it fits, as you said, that whole depth position. They also lost Wyatt Amsberg who has been always injured, but anytime he's healthy has looked capable of being on the field in MLS. And so they needed another body at that position. And to get a 25 year old where if it goes right,

he could be there for a couple of years is a huge point of stability. And maybe a sprinkle finally, because we got a million questions last week about like, why is Greg Berhalter not at the front of the line for some of these USMNT players who are available? Maybe the first sprinkle of sort of his background there being helping his team get that over the line. The Revs, of course, signing Wyatt-Omsberg just a few minutes ago.

That's why that news comes out as well. Let's move on to Charlotte. You broke the news, I believe, after the show last week that Eric Williamson is going to be traded from Portland to Charlotte for $100,000 in allocation money plus add-ons. We had rumored of 15 teams he could fit on. I love this fit we did not say this team but this is a huge part of what this team has needed for a long time which is you're going to have a true 10 you need someone who can play between the lines someone at that eight who can help you progress the ball from the back line to the front line, who can connect the game, who can cover some ground and be an option for all your wingers or fullbacks, whoever's getting into the attack.

This is like the type of player they have been looking for for a long time. And so if he's healthy, he's a player that you know can do this job in Major League Soccer. You're going to need to have quality at the defensive midfield position. It feels like they've taken care of that over the last year with some of the moves they've made so i love this fit for him i do too but i see the downsides of this is a player who's torn his acl twice playing on turf it's not usually something i look much into but i feel like that that should be mentioned but two he wasn't playing as much in in portland because they didn't think he was doing enough defensively and he just kind of wasn't preferred i would assume dean smith would hold harder

standards on that and then particularly if charlotte fc signed a dp10 then yep it maybe makes it a little bit more difficult to see but again i would bet on the talent i think that this is a very good i think it's a very good deal one year left on his contract worst case scenario it doesn't work out everybody moves on in the offseason but you're taking a fly this is a very good, I think it's a very good deal. One year left on his contract. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work out. Everybody moves on in the offseason. But you're taking a flyer on a very talented player, somebody who his best season is 2020 before one of his ACL tears. If we see that player, this is a steal, man.

And again, both you and I, I think, are big fans of Eric Williamson. So I'll be optimistic on this one. And let me throw in with the ground coverage and sort of what's required in central midfield. If the team lines up the way we think they're going to line up, Tim Rehm is your starting left back. And you've got two guys in Melanda and Privet who are comfortable stepping into midfield and helping. So I think you can change your shape in the flow of play in ways in which you can mitigate some of the risk of having a guy in Williamson who's maybe playing a little bit higher and more focused on possession and attack alongside a true 10 it also again takes some of the pressure off we talked about with Pep BL they've got like a DP and a non-DP number this is another spot where if

the player doesn't work out in this window you could go into this year with BL and Williamson in midfield and you can be competitive if Abada hits, if you get more from Curran Vargas and all of that as well. All right, Tom. What's next? What do we got? Austin fans want their update. Yes, they do. Sebastian Drusi. Nothing new from what I reported yesterday, I believe.

All these days are blending together with the Drusi updates. He still has not reported for preseason, and they are still finding him in line with the cba and what happens for players missing mandatory events they still have not agreed to deal with river plate he wants to go to river plate the studio contest came in and said we will pay you your asking price and they said okay you can talk personal terms and try to close the deal and it has then since been reported in south america i think this was a direct quote from either him or somebody in his camp that said, I am only going to River Plate.

But that is where I'm assuming this ends. But Austin are making a point to, hey, if they don't, they're not going to get him for cheap. If they don't pay up, then he's expected back for 2025. And that just is what it is. Drama, drama, drama in the Austin FC camp. CL Merlo reporting on the back of this that nicholas duber sarsky a 20 year old defensive midfielder from argentina uh is being connected to austin fc they obviously need to fill in strength in central midfield we brought saw them bring in ilia sanchez they need more numbers and they need again ground coverage in that position and this would seem to be in line

with this uh full details finally coming out on the alan velasco sale to argentina it is 10 million dollars up front with two million dollars in add-ons and a 15 sell-on fee which i think is a really nice spot for dallas to be in because part of their expectation was he would be central to their team this year part of the expectation was he might be an argentine full international there might be a huge number that can be connected to him in the future they get a lot of money up front here to make the deal worth it with still the potential that if he slips into the argentine national team and he's playing and all of that and it becomes a 50 million dollar signing that you get a piece of that and you don't feel like you kind

of got left out i agree i think we said it all in the last show that um both things can be true this is an excellent deal is wonderful but also being upset that that they were planning on alan velasco to be here um and they weren't expecting the level of the bid to reach velasco wanted this move and he got some moves so excellent excellent financial detail uh deal for dallas though it'll be difficult to replace a player who they were hoping to get the best of in 2025. Let's talk goalkeepers. Let's start with Matt Fries. You're reporting potential European interest in him.

He has a German passport, so it would make it easier for him to get there if he wanted to. Correct. Clubs in Germany and the Netherlands have serious interest in Matt Fries. There has not been any offers. I don't know what the levels of expectation for money is. I think he's in an excellent spot right now in NYCFC, but he could get his debut with the U.S. national team this month in one of the two friendlies. He's at the senior national team camp, his first co-op team camp, completely well-deserved.

I love Matt Fries. I think he's an excellent player, awesome player. He has a German passport. So in non-Premier League England countries, he counts as an EU international, so that's domestic. In England, he would count as a foreign player because Brexit, mate. But in Germany and in the Netherlands, he would count as a domestic player, which makes it a whole lot easier to move.

He had a great year. He finally got his starting spot, which was huge. I could see this happen. I think it would be a little unfortunate. I think NYCFC are trying to build something. They have most of the roster under contract from last year to this year. He's a huge part of that. I think he's a leader in all of that.

I think it would be cool to see him win with NYCFC, and I think he could be a staple to what the next few years look like going into that new stadium. But also, you could see him go to Europe and try and contend and see if he can get himself into pochettino's camps more often from there max morales has been re-signed he came off the acl last year he had two goals seven assists he is still a very effective player and shout out to prince on ponsu who signed a homegrown contract with nycfc left-footed center back who went to wake forest out of the academy i talked about him when these rumors came out earlier in the offseason.

He is one of my favorite center backs in the youth development pool, and so I'm excited to see him get his opportunity. Speaking of young players, Gavin Beavers is going to get his chance in Denmark. He has been sold to Bromby from RSL. Tom, what do you make of this? Yeah, this is a chance for him to play. I don't know the exact details on what the expectation is of, of if it's first team right away or not, but this is a highly, highly talented young American youth international.

He is moving to another club owned by real Salt Lake majority owner, David Blitzer. So that kind of makes sense here. He wasn't going to be the definite starter in 2025. They are going, or planning to sign at least, another goalkeeper to be the starter, and then they'll have that new goalkeeper in Zach McMath, so no room for Gavin

Beavers. I love that they're sending him on to another club using those connections, and hopefully he'll be playing. Again, whether it's initially with the second team or whatever, this is a super talented kid. Newcastle have been here to scout him. There are other teams around Europe that have him on the the radar and now he's moving to brunby where again there will be a lot of teams continuing to watch him there and then rsl on the backside bringing in a player in kobe henry a center back young american player on loan for a year from

rims with an option to buy and he played originally for orange county sc friend of the show if you haven't gone and listened dan ruttstein the president of orange county was on our show during the holiday season we did like an hour interview about the economics of usl promotion and relegation how it could work where it could work the u.s open cup all of these good topics that he gave i think a ton of insight on so that's a chance for us to plug our own show. And Tom, you were the one reporting this. So a chance to plug you as well. Hey, thank you.

And they, they also signed a Australian forward named Arath Peel. If I pronounced that right, 20 year old Australian, three goals in one assist in like 400 league minutes this year. I know I was a little bit confused that a few people were like, this is an underwhelming Chicharango replacement. This is not a Chicharango replacement.

This is another talented young player that they're looking to bring to the group and see what he can do. Also, let's be real. He just wants to shred. So try and get to Park City as early as possible so that he can get as many runs in on the mountain as he can. Obviously, no Deer Valley for him, though, in all of that. Let's go to San Jose. They broke my brain last week when they traded for Chicharango. And now they've done it once again

tom as you've reported that the legend joseph martinez who we thought was done in mls is coming back for one more ride absolutely cooking they have officially signed joseph martinez after i reported this weekend that they were very close on a deal and they got it done and they have joseph martinez and chicho orango which leads me to believe are we going to see a little proper 4-4-2 mate because i don't think so i don't think you signed joseph to be a backup interesting i don't think joseph i don't think joseph accepts yeah i mean maybe who's sitting in this yep so maybe maybe you play a four triple two and the other thing is pellegrino was a forward has been like he could play in that 4-4-2 as well if that's how you set up. He's going to get a ton of minutes. He's going to get a ton of minutes.

We saw Gustavo Bowe and Buksa play in this. I mean, they're different players, but sort of playing that setup. And you had Buksa stretching the line and Bowe sort of dropping in and Kiel sort of making the game wherever he wanted. I just think this is one where a lot of teams weren't going to take the risk on Joseph because they weren't sure if they could handle him if he wasn't playing and Bruce has the cojones you could say to take that risk and so the potential here 11 goals three assists last year in a bad year when we thought he was done is higher for Bruce than the risk where for other teams I think the calculation was the opposite

and he's also just trying to bring in experience of people who have built locker rooms, who have won things, who expect to win things, who expect more from themselves. And that seems to be in line with sort of what this is. If, if Joseph wants to come back,

the other big thing is it's a one-year deal with an option for another year. So there's very little risk there. And if it goes well, you sort of control the situation going into the following year, as much as anyone controls anything when they are in a one-on-one negotiation with Joseph Martinez. We are ready to get out of here. A bunch of other official news went in that you can go, obviously, and look up at Tom's feed. If you don't want to be on Twitter or Blue Sky, you of course subscribe to our patreon and inside of our discord we have a channel that just um immediately pushes everything that tom skeets

out i believe it is right now uh so anytime that news breaks you get it there without having to be on one of those platforms but we got to do some david goss nerd ones first so the first one is you reported that uh eric duenas is signing with the Houston Dynamo. I love this move. Eric Duenas is a good soccer player. I don't think he's a future international, but he is a clean player. He showed his ability in central midfield with LAFC after coming through as a right back. Tidy possession player who likes to connect the game and sort of buzz around.

I love that for Houston. Or a change of pace backup toin dorsey if they need to that's a big one and obviously the legend the maracas are back mason toy signing with sporting kansas city congratulations sporting kc on your 2025 mls cup championship you can make space for the Golden Boot Award as well. You've got one in me now as Mason Toy is officially signed as a Sporting Kansas City free agent. They are also connected to, surprise, a Barca B player. A club that loves a Barca B player.

This time it's Unai Hernandez, captain of Barca B, only 21 years old, so it could be an interesting signing. Reminder, Alan Pulido has now gone. The DP spot is open, but we don't know how they are going to use it going forward.

All right, Tom. A lot of rules to dig through. A lot of specifics. You feel good? Eh. Does anybody feel good? Oh, I shouldn't have asked. I should not have set myself up

for that one. Yeah, that was my bad. Thank you to all of you for listening thank you to all of you um for watching live and commenting and to anyone watching the pot or listening to the podcast or watching later rate us subscribe leave us a review all those good things as we continue to cover mls we'll be back on thursday we've got a big show coming up on Wednesday. I think we're going to dig into the Canadian women's national team with the hiring of Casey Stoney. Stick around to Sacralize for all of that going forward. And we'll talk to you again very, very soon.