When Inter Miami flamed out in the CONCACAF Champions Cup about 24 hours after news of potential changes to roster rules this summer, and with MLS registering zero wins in 14 games against Liga MX teams with a minus-23 goal differential, the punchline wasn’t difficult to find.
The jokes from team sporting executives within MLS I spoke with last week all had a touch of the same theme: “Don’t worry, a fourth U-22 slot and an extra buyout is coming!”
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But even with their sarcasm and snarkiness, all of the executives understood the way forward with MLS’s latest changes to its roster rules, which were voted on by the league’s board of governors last week. Onboard the changes, do the best you can to make it work for your roster and hope more and bigger change is coming in the winter.
Under the most significant of the new rules, teams can have either three senior designated players (DPs) and three U-22 players, or they can have two DPs and four U-22 players, plus $2 million in general allocation money (GAM). Then there is the aforementioned extra buyout per season. More detail and analysis of the changes can be found here.
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When asked how they planned to operate once the new rules go into effect this summer, some executives said they were planning for buyouts and places to utilize the extra cap space. Others delved into the math around that extra $2 million in GAM, pointing out that the majority of it would be spent buying down the third DP on many teams’ current rosters. As one exec said, under the new rule, some teams would be trading a third DP for a higher-risk U-22 player and around $600,000 to 800,000 in allocation money. Hardly enough, they said, to really provide a game-changing lift in the middle of the roster.
The reality is that a change in the middle of the season was never going to be the type of earth-shattering shift that feels like it should be on the horizon with Lionel Messi in the league and the World Cup kicking off in just over two years. It’s difficult enough to make any sort of smaller changes in the middle of a campaign. These aren’t whopping alterations, but they will stimulate the summer market.
The discussions around the best way to make the rules work is different within each team and their respective model.
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Teams with three senior DPs like Nashville, New England, Orlando City and FC Cincinnati that previously were allowed just one U-22 player will be able to add two more this summer, if they want. And while U-22s have shown to be higher-risk and not necessarily able to help you win right away, there are examples of contributors around the league. Those teams will have a chance to get better. Other teams will buy down their third DP and add a U-22 player.
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“I think you’ll see some changes for sure,” Philadelphia Union coach Jim Curtin said in his press conference this week. “Is it unique to do that in the middle of a season? Of course. You have to adapt and adjust, and some plans obviously have to shift and change. Obviously, there’ll maybe be some flexibility on how designations of players are tweaked a little bit, there’s buyout options now, there’s the possibility of maybe more U-22s. How do you use them? Maybe we as a club, and this is just thinking out loud, we may be a club that utilizes them on good young American players as a strategy for us, where you secure them for a little while and they hit your cap at a much friendlier number for the length of that contract.
“So strategically, there’s a lot of internal discussions going on.”
The majority of the ire among the executives I spoke to was saved for a rule change that never came to a vote: the “icon player” rule. The early details around that initiative, which could be brought to a vote at the end of the year, would allow for teams to re-sign a veteran player aged 33 or older who has played for that team for four years or more to a new deal up to $1 million above the max budget charge. That player would then hit the cap at just $200,000 — the same as many U-22 players.
Many GMs are calling this the “Carlos Vela rule,” because, had it gone into effect this summer, it seemed tailor-made for LAFC to re-sign Vela — or at least to solve for that problem of wanting to re-sign a veteran player at a cap-friendly deal. Many executivess I spoke with said the league should not be incentivizing using discretionary funding on older players, pointing to MLS’s own research that it’s not a priority. The counterargument would be that dropping the budget charge on players like Vela or Damir Kreilach or Nico Lodeiro — all of whom left their respective teams this offseason, notably — would open up cap space to use elsewhere.
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But there are other ways to open up cap space and incentivize signing more impactful players with the exact same cap strategy: MLS could drop the DP charge to $200,000, for example. That move alone would open $1.63 million in cap space for teams with three DPs next season and $1.09 million for teams with two DPs (and those teams with two DPs would also have the extra $2 million in GAM as part of the new rule this summer). A change like that would encourage teams to buy DPs, which historically have been the most impactful players across MLS, while also opening up a huge chunk of cap space to improve the quality up and down the roster.
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Seen through that lens, it’s difficult to argue MLS shouldn’t be focused more on encouraging more players like Columbus’ 24-year-old striker Cucho Hernandez versus a 35-year-old Vela or Lodeiro, especially considering the knock-on effect on team quality would likely be greater.
The “icon player” hasn’t yet come to a vote, but its existence is a sign that more change is likely to come this winter. How far that change will go remains to be seen. — Paul Tenorio
Hot seat rankings
We’re getting to the time of the year where poor performances will start to cost some MLS coaches their job.
In 2023, the first coaching changes came on May 8 – 10 games into the campaign. The year before that it was April 18, just seven games into the season. In 2021 it was July 4… but only eight games into a season that had a delayed start due to the pandemic.
It’s now April 15, and most teams have played eight times, give or take a game. More than a few coaches are shifting uncomfortably with the temperature and pressure rising.
Nico Estevez, FC Dallas
Dallas has stumbled to another slow start with similar issues to last year plaguing the group: A constipated attack with ponderous possession.
Estevez changed the system this offseason and the front office gave him a new club-record signing up top, a $10 million fee to bring in Petar Musa from Benfica. It hasn’t changed much so far, though USMNT striker Jesus Ferreira has been limited to start the season and Argentine DP Alan Velasco won’t be back until the summer as he works his way back from an ACL tear.
“I like that (the fans) are mad and disappointed that we didn’t win,” Estevez said after Dallas’ 0-0 home draw against Seattle. “And that’s good, I’m mad too. But I cannot express it in the way they can, I have to stay calm because I have a job to do. But I’m mad like them, we want to win. We want to win for them.”
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Luchi Gonzalez, San Jose Earthquakes
Former FC Dallas head coach (and former USMNT assistant, like Estevez) Luchi Gonzalez is also feeling pressure as the San Jose Earthquakes are off to the worst start in MLS.
The Quakes have just three points after eight matches, with one win and seven losses. The club has conceded a league-worst 20 goals to coincide with a league-worst -10 goal difference. The latest blow was a 3-0 home loss to the Colorado Rapids on Saturday night.
Gonzalez led San Jose to the playoffs last year in his first season in charge.
Caleb Porter, New England Revolution
After a big first win as New England Revolution head coach last week, Caleb Porter’s side was back on the losing end on Saturday, dropping a 2-0 result to NYCFC.
The Revs have four points after seven matches, the second-worst mark in MLS. Their -8 goal differential is also the second-worst in MLS.
“If we’re happy with where we’re at, and we’re happy with the group we have, then something is wrong,” Porter said after the loss. “At the end of the day, we now have a snapshot, a seven-game snapshot. We don’t like what we see overall, and we don’t like where we’re at.”
Porter is in his first season with New England. The two-time MLS Cup-winning manager was hired this winter after Curt Onalfo was named sporting director.
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Nick Cushing, NYCFC
On the other end of the Revs’ loss was a much-needed win for NYCFC as Nick Cushing aims to right the ship after a rough start to the season.
NYCFC is now up to eight points so far this year — that’s still not what the organization wants, but it counts as something of a boost after NYCFC lost each of its first three matches of the season. Cushing came into 2024 under pressure after a disappointing 2023 campaign that saw NYCFC miss the playoffs for the first time since its expansion season in 2015.
There’s still a long way to go, but every win eases the pressure.
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Gary Smith, Nashville SC
Nashville SC’s bye came at a good time with the team falling into the break conceding nine goals in their last three games. Typically defensively stout, Nashville has kept one league clean sheet so far, which came in the club’s opening game of the season.
Smith’s Nashville SC has never been the most entertaining team, but they always picked up results. When those results don’t come, things tend to go south pretty quick. Nashville has only one win in seven matches to start 2024.
Golden Boot watch
After eight matchweeks, the Golden Boot race is taking shape with some familiar figures tied atop the leaderboard. Twelve players have four or more goals, but five are tied for first with six goals each: Dejan Joveljic, Chicho Arango, Christian Benteke, Luis Suarez and Lewis Morgan.
Notably, the Galaxy’s Joveljic has already matched his goal tally from 2023 in 583 minutes this season. If Joseph Paintsil represents a new direction for the Galaxy in player acquisition, Joveljic is a microcosm of the new-look Galaxy attack and year-over-year improvements.
Joveljic scored again this week in the Galaxy’s 3-1 win at the Vancouver Whitecaps.
Suarez has gotten his goals in the fewest minutes (535), and the Uruguayan scored the game-winner for Inter Miami’s comeback win against Sporting KC on Saturday. He also has three assists in Miami’s pyrotechnic attack.
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New York Red Bulls forward Lewis Morgan did not find the back of the net in his side’s 0-0 draw against the Chicago Fire this week. Still, the Scot’s emphatic return from the hip injuries that kept him away for much of 2023 has gone a long way toward the Red Bulls’ strong start. D.C. United forward Christian Benteke also scored this weekend, another headed goal for the aerially dominant Belgian.
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Among the quintet of players with six goals to their name, Benteke might be best positioned to win this race. His average shot position shows just how consistently he’s getting service in favorable positions — 46.5% of his shots have been headers; none of the other front-runners have a header rate over 27% — and his xG/shot is healthy but not a true outlier like Joveljic’s. The fact that he’s scoring with nearly every four shots and still has a negative G-xG suggests that he could improve toward the mean rather than regress. – Jeff Rueter & Tom Bogert
Keep Austin Weird
In the 97th minute against Austin FC, St. Louis City’s Aziel Jackson thought he’d assured a win for his club. His goal was ruled out for offside, but in truth, the result seemed fated as soon as Joao Klauss rippled the net with a first-touch finish in the second half.
Through eight games, Austin FC has not played like a team that would contend with a reigning conference champion…or much of anyone else, after a look at how they’ve performed in the final third.
The style-focused underlying numbers illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of Josh Wolff’s side. It’s a team that wants to retain the ball, isn’t afraid of playing direct to get it off their defenders’ feet (if not into the final third), and one that presses to win the ball upfield better than most. However, the players also struggle to shoot — just two were attempted in St. Louis on Sunday — while allowing their opponents to take a shot more than twice as often.
With nearly a quarter of its season already played, Austin ranks last in all of MLS in shots (7.8 per game), expected goals (0.9), shot accuracy (29.0%), chances created (5.0), and expected goal difference (-1.0). These aren’t numbers that only a statistician could love: they’re indicative of a team that isn’t shooting, isn’t even creating shooting chances well, and is defensively porous by the league’s current standard.
Wolff was retained for a fourth season despite seeing Austin fall from 2nd in the West in 2022 to 12th. Rodolfo Borrell became Austin’s sporting director in June 2023 and defended Wolff at the end of last year.
“I’ve been assessing the whole situation and I understand results matter,” Borrell said, “but leaving results aside, what I can see is a very young coach, with room for improvement like any other coach in the league and in any other sport.”
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Some will argue Wolff should already be in the Hot Seat Rankings above with Austin down in 11th after Sunday’s defeat. Given the amount of money invested in the franchise fee and Q2 Stadium, a struggle to come closer to 2022’s form than that of their other two MLS seasons to date could test Borrell’s patience. – Jeff Rueter
(Top photos: John Todd/ISI Photos/Getty Images; Rick Ulreich/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)