D.C. United trade international slot, and more: Tuesday Freedom Kicks
Hello, everyone, on this very cold Tuesday. With the long weekend and dominance of political news, I don’t have a lot of new soccer stuff today, but here’s what I could find.
First, Steven Goff reported that D.C. United has traded away an international slot. Any thoughts on what they might be doing with that $185K?
Washington Spirit sign Scottish GK Sandy MacIver (The DP)
I took the opportunity of this signing to also report on the trade with Orlando for an international slot, Nicole Barnhart’s hiring as an assistant GK coach, and the puzzling state of the Spirit’s roster numbers right now. Check it out!
Sources: Neymar eyes Santos return over MLS (ESPN)
Would this guy just make up his mind already?
Are the class of 2025 really the worst Manchester United team of all time? (The Guardian)
After Ruben Amorim’s comments this weekend, The Guardian decided to investigate the worst Manchester United squads of all time.
Have a good week, and take care of yourselves!
I would love someone with a better feel for MLS capology to take a stab at this, but it sure seems like DC is sitting on a decent amount of GAM still. They had an above average amount when MLS shared every team’s GAM amount in December, got a little over $1 million more from selling Akinmboni, and have the potential to be adding $2 million more if they go with the 2 DP/4 U22 model (although they’re currently short an actual DP and a U22 player).
United spent some money to bring in Peglow, Rowles, and to get Kijima. They probably spent a transfer fee on Kim Joon Hong, but since he’s a U-22, I don’t know if that transfer money comes from GAM or not. There was also a little bit spent on MacNaughton, Barraza and Farr, but not that much.
I’m not sure what the situation with Klich is. He had a max cap hit of about $600,000 as a DP, but the rest of his salary had been paid by ownership. Atlanta sent $300,000, but does the rest of his over-cap salary still be paid by ownership? Only a certain amount of a DPs salary can be paid with allocation money (and is there a difference here between Targeted Allocation Money and General Allocation Money)?
Anyway, it would seem like there’s still a decent chunk of allocation money still remaining to make one pretty nice signing, or maybe two so-so signings. Maybe Mackay has his eye on a trade, but Lesesne has also said they might add one or two players, but probably nobody else until summer. Maybe that will be a signing of note this window, but it seems more likely to be one of the young trialists or perhaps an Academy signing.
Ok, so maybe they’re sitting on all that GAM that I suspect they have until summer. Maybe that’s when they will be signing a new DP or new U22 (or two new DPs if Fischy’s hunch that they can get Klich’s salary low enough to be bought down). That might explain hanging on to the GAM, but who knows if that’s possible. I suspect it’s not.
Even if they do bring in an impactful player in the summer, they’ve gotten rid of any open international slots. They can buy another, and it will be at a discount, so they’ll have made ~$90,000 in GAM for an international slot that they probably weren’t going to use for a few months.
Or maybe they just realize that this year is not going to go very well. Now GAM has no expiration date, so maybe they’re just going to sit on it to try and maximize a run in 2026. Hard to really believe that’s the case, though.
As far as I am aware, the Kim deal should have no bearing on GAM amounts. With him being a U22 signing, any transfer fee paid for him essentially doesn’t exist with respect to the cap, with the way that I understand it. U22s were designed so that you could pay large transfer fees for young players, and the players would always hit the cap at the same amount, which was equal to a Young DP (I think that number is in the ballpark of 250k). So at this point, Kim, Pirani, and KDP should all hit the cap at that roughly 250k mark.
I think some amount of GAM is being put towards buying down Peltola. Last year as a young DP, he hit the cap at 250k, but actually made like 700k. There is inevitably GAM being used both to buy down what he’s getting paid so that he is no longer a DP, as well as covering whatever amount of transfer fee that was paid for him that gets spread over his contract.
Now, based on your math, there should definitely be a sizable chunk left over. My only thought is that it is getting saved until summer, or, like you noted, maybe there’s some sort of trade they’re saving up for. But that’s difficult to say until we see it happen.
They are expecting at least one of the current internationals to get their green card. Not sure how the change in administrations will affect the state department unfortunately.
Regardless, it seems evident that we’ve pretty much got our team. It remains to be seen whether the high earners we signed to replace the previous high earners will get the job done. We have two notable injuries before the season has even started, among the younger players (who I would imagine could keep up our heavy pressing better than say, Santos could).
I’m expecting us to have a similar season to last year in terms of points and results. Maybe the blowouts will happen earlier in the year (unless our new GK has something to say about that), because I can’t imagine we’ll just neatly swap CBs and play organized defense right away. I think we’ll be more athletic and that will allow us to snuff out some dangerous attacks that we previously had to just pray about.
I don’t think any fan knows what the plan is with the GAM hoarding, but I am pretty confident that we’re gonna hurt and not reach the bar of last season.
It seems that Klich’s legs are going or about to go, or we would have kept him another year. Given his age, that makes perfect sense. We’re bringing in mostly new players to raise the overall quality of the team, and maybe they will. They may also take time to bed in, as they’re not familiar with each other and have never kicked a ball in the league.
It’s worth remembering that last season we had a pretty damn solid start, then struggled midway and skidded just short of the playoff line (which, being in the top three quarters of the East is pretty much all you have to do).
If we start strong, we have a chance, but due to all the uncertainty, and lack of familiarity with each other and the league, I don’t see that happening. It’s more likely we limp badly out of the gate, and have to play catchup… with a squad that doesn’t have the star power to even keep pace.
Rough, is what I’m predicting. And even more frustrating.
The big problems last year were our 11 game winless streak, our abysmal home record, and a thin roster.
But yeah, if I see us improving at all, I think it’s to 8th at best.
Sneaking into the playoffs may well be our ceiling, but our floor is pretty much impossible to calculate till we see some of these players in action.
My heart sinks when I compare this experience to us eventually hoping Gladiador and that other Brazilian youth would turn into superstars halfway through the 2013 season. If we’re demanding the same from the likes of Peglow, that’s lottery ticket stuff.
There’s at least some key differences between Peglow and Gladiador. Gladiador was a DP and a striker. We were expecting him to score goals. Peglow is just a supporting player at most. He might score a couple, but he’s there to feed Benteke, as is pretty much everybody else.
But yeah, Peglow’s an unknown. Everybody’s an unknown. Our most “known” acquisition is Leal, and he spent the entirety of last season injured. How well has he recovered (to his not overwhelming form before he was hurt)? Unknown.
I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong, but right now I don’t see how we got much better. A little better? I hope so. Santos wasn’t very good any more, and yet DC United were more effective in attack when he was on the pitch. Hopefully, Leal and Peglow will be an improvement on Santos and and Dajome — but right now there’s no reason to think they will be.
I do think our central defense should be better. Though I’ve never seen Rowles play, he’s got to be an upgrade over desperation defending McVey. McNaughton will provide better depth and Tubbs has a little more experience. All that should help Herrera push forward more. Having Schnegg for a full year should be a good thing. Maybe that will make the team better in attack as well as defense.
Goalkeeping is a huge unknown but I have great hope that Kim Joon Hong will be a success. This is a young man who has definitely succeeded at the youth international level and climbing the ladders of South Korean football is no joke.
But in the end, even with the shoddy defending, the team’s biggest problem last year was that only Benteke was a reliable scorer. I don’t think that’s changed much. I hope Peglow can strike a good corner kick. And that Leal, Peglow and Pirani can start scoring, too — but hopes have to be based on something real. We’re not there yet.
Yeah, I’m with you. The biggest source of hope is that we underperformed both our expected goals and our expected goals allowed, so just a return to the mean should help us.
But yeah, maybe goalkeeping will be better. Kim’s rate of clean sheets is genuinely impressive. But I didn’t think Bono was too bad last year.
Rowles and MacNaughton should be better, particularly at man marking. Schnegg is probably better, just by default. Will he stay healthy though?
Peglow could be okay, but I’m kind of imagining just another Dajome. Quick, a gamer, but not necessarily a ton of end product. Leal has a better long range shot than anybody had last year. Pirani got better at goal-scoring towards the end of last year, and that might continue. Jared Stroud had a career year, and we’re going to need that again. Benteke won the Golden Boot, and we’re going to need close to that too.
I’ve seen some good stuff from Enow, and I’ve also seen performances that made him look like the worst signing we’ve ever made. Hopefully he and Peltola can hold down the midfield. What happens when both are away on international duty? Who knows!
So yeah, I’m thinking that if there’s an improvement, it’s to 8th.
Yeah, the rumor is that Lukas MacNaughton is going to get his green card (Canadians shouldn’t really count, but that’s a different topic). That means our international players will be Benteke, Peltola, Schnegg, Enow, Kim Joon Hong, Rowles, and Peglow. Seven slots for seven players. You’d think that Benteke would be close to a green card, especially when Pirani has already gotten one. Maybe his residence in Dubai is making that more difficult, but I’m sure other international players continue to live internationally.
I dunno.
At least in Major League Rugby, Canadians count as domestics and that’s with no Canadian teams in the league anymore since Toronto folded after the 2023 season.
Breaking news: Naomi Girma reportedly heading to Chelsea FC for 1.1 million.
Deserves it fully, still amazing that that’s considered a massive fee for a player of her aura.
Ryan Meara has retired. Hats off to him for always inspiring the Red Bulls to find somebody else to play goalkeeper instead of him.