DC United is now officially starting to look toward next season. Today, the club announced their end-of-season roster decisions, which inform everyone who they’ve decided to retain by exercising contract options.
“Roster decisions are never easy, but they are a necessary part of building a competitive team,” said general manager Erkut Sogut in a statement. “We thank the players whose options were not exercised for their contributions and wish them the best moving forward.
The biggest news from their roster moves was the decision to decline the contract option of captain and Designated Player Christian Benteke. However, the Black-and-Red are working on a non-DP deal with the striker – who turns 35 on December 3rd – to hopefully return to the club. But, Benteke will have options as a free agent. DC United has been vocal about their desire to fill each of their three Designated Player spots with offseason acquisitions.
“Although we declined Christian Benteke’s contract option, we remain in discussions with his representatives regarding a potential return in 2026,” Sogut said. “We are also actively working to identify and recruit top-level talent, including Designated Players, as part of our broader roster build moving forward.”
One of those players could be Romanian striker Louis Munteanu, who has been linked with DC United in recent days.
Conner Antley, Caden Clark, Jackson Hopkins, Hosei Kijima, Gabriel Pirani, and Garrison Tubbs had their contract options exercised for the 2026 season. They will return to join the 16 players who already had contracts for 2026.
After the roster decisions, here is the current DC United roster:
GOALKEEPERS (2): Jordan Farr, Kim Joon Hong (U22)
DEFENDERS (5): Lucas Bartlett, Aaron Herrera (TAM), Kye Rowles (TAM), David Schnegg (TAM), Garrison Tubbs (Homegrown)
MIDFIELDERS (10): Oscar Avilez (Homegrown), Caden Clark (U22), Boris Enow (TAM), Jackson Hopkins, Hosei Kijima, Matti Peltola (TAM), Gabriel Pirani (U22), Brandon Servania, Jared Stroud, Gavin Turner (Homegrown)
FORWARDS (4): Dominique Badji, Hakim Karamoko, Jacob Murrell, João Peglow (TAM)
The biggest priorities for DC United and head coach René Weiler seem to be getting the full complement of Designated Players, including a playmaker on offense as well as shoring up the defense. As free agency nears as well as the various drafts and transfer window, we will stay tuned to see what moves DC United makes to try and get out of the MLS cellar.
With two goalies, do we give Joon and shot again and sign a back up/3rd keeper? Too early to give up on him.
Get a competent goalie. Joon cannot be trusted. (sorry, but he was a deer in the headlights)
The lack of an MLS Next Pro team is really hurting Joon. He needs game time.
So true!
I have to think we bring in a goalie to at least compete for the starting spot. There are several good free agents available that we’ve talked about before. Kim could’ve grown if we had a competent defense for him to work with. He probably needs to go out on loan just so he’s not fighting for his life every time the ball gets into our half.
I think part of the reason an inexpensive Barraza wasn’t retained was that even though he’s a good showstopper, Weiler wants someone who can distribute better, play off the line more (even if it isn’t as a sweeper-keeper), and organize better. Those were not strong elements of Barraza’s game so even though he was inexpensive, he’s gone.
That’s exactly it. I really liked Barraza’s personality and he was not a bad shotstopper, he just made everything hard for him and the rest of the team by way of his bottom-tier distribution. It might not even be all his fault – either there was direction to boot it up the field more or his teammates couldn’t play from the back.
Looking at their current roster, they really need a good goalie. Then they need help in the attack. They couldn’t score last season. I think they have to be thinking trades to makeover the roster. Can they rely on just DP’s to improve? I don’t think so.
DC United will be fine with a new offense, a new defense, and some rule changes.
Yes, that’s true. LOL. I think defense gets an upgrade in the summer cycle. If I were prioritizing it would be MLS starter level goalie, a forward or two that can score, and then a defensive center back.
Let me change center back to attacking mid and then center back would be last.
I can’t imagine they’ll only add players, yeah. Productive DPs are ultimately what get you wins in MLS even if your team is flawed (see Cincinnati and Miami). They’re more productive when the guys behind them have a set job and know how to do it.
There’s just very little in the way of desirable pieces to trade. Herrera, Kijima and maybe Bartlett are the ones I see as most realistic (and I wouldn’t want to trade Bartlett even with our defensive numbers last year). Only Herrera would probably bring value in.
Just buying out Enow would go a long way in terms of opening up cap space and TAM
No idea why he’s back. I’d say the same about Kijima. And Badji.
Enow and Badji already had contracts for next year. Without looking it up, I think Enow’s contract is through 2028 or something. Terminate the contract, trade him to somewhere for a bag of balls, mutual termination, whatever. Dude makes waaaaay too much to be 4th or 5th choice in central midfield
Enow’s making $500,000. It’s not nothing, but it’s not a ton either. It’s the length of the contract that’s the killer, versus the cap hit. He’s also taking up an international slot, but he’s been here the same amount of time as David Schnegg, and Schnegg has managed to get a green card. So that might be in the offing this offseason.
If we hadn’t sunk so many resources into Peltola and Enow, I’d say that getting a CDM with one of our DP slots would be advisable. As it is, I’d say go for a striker, a right winger, and and a CAM. Then try to land one of the great crop of free agent goalies in MLS (Coronel, St. Clair, Crepeau, Johnson, etc.) and try to sign a Rowles-level or better CB. That’s five big impact players that would all need to hit, but if they can do that, we’ll be in pretty good shape, and we’ll have the #1 draft pick to possibly help out. This year’s #1 is starting in central defense for a team in the Western Conference final (next to Christopher McVey).
I do kind of wonder if the team will go for 2 DPs and 4 U22s plus $2 million GAM. There’s not all that many roster spots to fill – I’m assuming at least one of Fletcher and Benteke will be back which would give us 23 players, although Avilez and maybe Turner will probably go out on loan – so having the extra GAM to make some impactful moves within MLS or buying down some TAM level deals could be useful, because we’re going to need to overpay.
I do like what I’ve seen of Munteanu, but I also think he’s going to be at his best if he’s surrounded by other top players. And Levien has spoken about filling all three DP slots.
I don’t know much about what’s available — some dude at Draft Utopia did a mock draft, but I have no idea if he knows anything. He has DCU picking a sophomore from Clemson. No. 2 was a former high school teammate of his at St. Benedict’s and at PDA — a freshman at Grand Canyon leading the NCA in goals, but they play a crap schedule.
He did note though that DCU could still pick up their 2nd rick pick from last season — a striker at Princeton named Daniel Ittycheria.
I’d mention a senior named Palmer Ault who is leading the NCAA in total scoring at Indiana. There’s another senior slightly behind Ault, a Spaniard who was picked in the 3rd round by NYCFC last year. But, maybe there’s a defender or a goalie worth picking at #1.
Whoever we pick, it would be swell if we had an MLS Next PRO team to give them minutes.
I think they declined 5 people who will not be back, so they have a few they can add. Hope they are smart about it.
I forgot, there were a few vacant/unfilled roster spots for the whole season. They could fill those,too. But will they spend the money?
Stunning to me how many useless pieces they’re hanging on to. Not encouraging.
I think the contracts they have are hamstringing the rebuild.
This isn’t going to be a quick rebuild. Figure 2-3 years to turn over the roster.
I don’t think they’re “hanging on” to all those players. In fact, I sure some of them will be cut later on. Weiler talked about how the overall talent on the roster was poor, not just 3-5 under-performers.
At this point, the deadline was about contracts that were expiring and options that needed to be decided on. So I wouldn’t be shocked if a bunch of players who are still officially “on the team” are not on the team come cut-down day for the official start of the season roster.
This is what I’m expecting as well. We’ll take a bag of corn chips in exchange for some club anywhere in the world to take at least two of these guys on loan and get them off the MLS budget. Even Badji might have an interested suitor elsewhere in the league who would take part of his salary. There are a lot of competent veterans floating around now who would elevate the level of play here and would hold a more reasonable chunk of the salary budget.
We should have the ability to buy out two contracts this year. I’m not sure if we will or not, but the possibility is there. My two top choices for this are Jared Stroud and Dominique Badji. Everyone else is signed beyond 2026, and I find it hard to see them buying out multiple years.