2025 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread

Kjbert said:
There is an argument to be made that, pound for pound, David Lee has been the worst talent evaluator and the worst sporting director in MLS over the last three seasons.
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David Lee has done okay with Superdraft picks, MLS acquisitions, and players we have gotten without paying a fee (Wolf, Martinez, etc.), but he has an abysmal record for any players he actually pays a fee for. Full details are below but Lee has spent a total of $47.8M in transfer fees (Claudio spent $13.5M).
  • $5.5M - Profit from Sales (Gabby and Acevedo)
  • -$2.6M - Loss from player sold for less than acquisition or lost for near nothing (Amundsen and Andrade)
  • $16.2M - Players currently on loan providing no value to the club (Magno and Jovan)
  • $3M - Started a 2024 playoff game (Freese, Risa, Illenic, Perea, Santi)
  • $14.4M - 2024 Playoff benchwarmers still on the roster (Tanasijevic, Ojeda, Fernandez)
$47.8M was spent and $3M of that money resulted in players that started a playoff game in 2024.

Lees' entire paid transfer fee record for reference

2023/24
  • Mijatovic - $8.7M (gone, no $ return yet)
  • Ojeda - $7M
  • Perea - $600K
  • Tanasijevic - $400K
2022/23
  • Illenic - $1M
  • Freese - $400K
  • Fernandez - $5M
  • Bakrar - $2M
  • Risa - $1M
  • Santi- ? (fee not reported)
2021/22
  • Pereira - $5M (sold for $10M)
  • Thiago Martins - $3.8M
2020/21
  • Talles Magno - $7.5M (gone, no $ return yet)
  • Thiago Andrade - $1.60M (lost for a small amount of GAM in the super draft)
  • Malte Amundsen - $1.4M (transferred out for $400K GAM, $1M Loss)
  • Alfredo Morales - $100K
  • Acevado - $2.3M ( Sold for $2.85M)
 
Presumably the coach controls game day decisions.

The missing variable we don't know is how many / which of the personnel decisions are Lee's vs the CFG overlords'. If you assume anything 5M+ and/or internal CFG transfer (Martins) is CFG choice, is Lee still a bad SD?

I know that's a big assumption, but I'm not really convinced otherwise. This Lee list plus his draft acquisitions isn't such a horrible story.

CFG
Mijatovic - $8.7M (gone, no $ return yet)
Ojeda - $7M
Fernandez - $5M
Pereira - $5M (sold for $10M)
Thiago Martins - $3.8M
Talles Magno - $7.5M (gone, no $ return yet)

Lee
Perea - $600K
Tanasijevic - $400K
Illenic - $1M
Freese - $400K
Bakrar - $2M
Risa - $1M
Thiago Andrade - $1.60M (lost for a small amount of GAM in the super draft)
Malte Amundsen - $1.4M (transferred out for $400K GAM, $1M Loss)
Alfredo Morales - $100K
Acevado - $2.3M ( Sold for $2.85M)

Santi- ? (fee not reported)
 
FootyLovin said:
Presumably the coach controls game day decisions.

The missing variable we don't know is how many / which of the personnel decisions are Lee's vs the CFG overlords'. If you assume anything 5M+ and/or internal CFG transfer (Martins) is CFG choice, is Lee still a bad SD?

I know that's a big assumption, but I'm not really convinced otherwise. This Lee list plus his draft acquisitions isn't such a horrible story.

CFG
Mijatovic - $8.7M (gone, no $ return yet)
Ojeda - $7M
Fernandez - $5M
Pereira - $5M (sold for $10M)
Thiago Martins - $3.8M
Talles Magno - $7.5M (gone, no $ return yet)

Lee
Perea - $600K
Tanasijevic - $400K
Illenic - $1M
Freese - $400K
Bakrar - $2M
Risa - $1M
Thiago Andrade - $1.60M (lost for a small amount of GAM in the super draft)
Malte Amundsen - $1.4M (transferred out for $400K GAM, $1M Loss)
Alfredo Morales - $100K
Acevado - $2.3M ( Sold for $2.85M)

Santi- ? (fee not reported)
Click to expand...

Lee is still responsible for advocating for NYCFC and ensuring that decision-makers at CFG understand the MLS style and level of play. Even if he ultimately doesn't have the final say on the expensive players he's still failing. He's an executive, he doesn't get a pass because he's a good yes man at the expense of the success of his division of the org.
 
moogoo said:
this transfer silence is deafening.

especially as we watch other teams make big moves for impact players. i understand there's plenty of time to bring a player in, but signing so late means waiting for a visa and no preseason. then we'll have that excuse thrown at us.
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I remember Cushing using “late to preseason” as a reason for curtailing Martinez’s minutes in October lol
 
joe said:
We've all been saying Jovan will be monster once his frame fills out so it makes sense to send him somewhere with a pommes frites heavy diet. #PartOfThePlan
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He’s going for the OG Ronaldo end of career fitness plan
 
I'm having a senior moment here.
Why are we getting a 20% cut?
What Home Grown rule was broken?
Was MGlynn in our territory or something like that?
 
ezbeezy214 said:
Here’s a fun one we can run with. Never heard of the source but I’m happy with this rumor as we all need one. Only just turned 31 and he was good enough with a mid table club to be called into NT not too long ago. Hes moved up and stalled but I can hope his Torino days are more equatable to MLS. Glass half full type of guy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1885814356207694333
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Goal production in the last 4 seasons is pretty terrible

Screenshot 2025-02-01 at 10.08.45 PM.png

Edit: looking further he's had a strange career, in 2016 at 22 years old he had 26 goals and 7 assists in league play. He never replicated that again but maintained 8-16 goals preseason for the next 5 seasons and then at 27 his goals fall off into the single digits. Does anyone who follows Serie A know what happened to him? Did he get injured? Seems strange for a player to peak at 22.

All that said he's scored at a high level in a top 5 league, I'd happily take him to see what he can do in the MLS instead of another 18 year old that isn't good enough to even start in the MLS.
 
Last edited:
gbservis said:
Goal production in the last 4 seasons is pretty terrible

View attachment 13723
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Yeah. I just came back from looking him up on Wiki and I noticed that, too.
He was a beast with Torino (100 goals in 232 matches), but hasn't done anything since 2022.

Reading further, however, seeing him being compared to Giorgio Chinaglia made this FOG smile.
 
Gene said:
Yeah. I just came back from looking him up on Wiki and I noticed that, too.
He was a beast with Torino (100 goals in 232 matches), but hasn't done anything since 2022.

Reading further, however, seeing him being compared to Giorgio Chinaglia made this FOG smile.
Click to expand...
Tbf his production in limited mins isn’t all that bad with lack of playing time he had. Would have to be a deeper dive to figure out why he wasn’t getting more mins. 5 G+A in under 700 mins isnt easy.
 
ezbeezy214 said:
Tbf his production in limited mins isn’t all that bad with lack of playing time he had. Would have to be a deeper dive to figure out why he wasn’t getting more mins. 5 G+A in under 700 mins isnt easy.
Click to expand...
I count in the last season and a half 8 goals, 2 assists in 24 90s. I guess the hope is that he is a Maxi type - okay in Serie A translates to quality in MLS. Is it enough quality for him to bump Martinez or is he a player who competes with Bakrar for the backup minutes?
 
gbservis said:
Edit: looking further he's had a strange career, in 2016 at 22 years old he had 26 goals and 7 assists in league play. He never replicated that again but maintained 8-16 goals preseason for the next 5 seasons and then at 27 his goals fall off into the single digits. Does anyone who follows Serie A know what happened to him? Did he get injured? Seems strange for a player to peak at 22.

All that said he's scored at a high level in a top 5 league, I'd happily take him to see what he can do in the MLS instead of another 18 year old that isn't good enough to even start in the MLS.
Click to expand...
It's unfortunate that FBRefs xG data for Serie A starts the year after his career year. Since then, for 9 years, he is a very consistent 0.30-0.39 xG per 90. Only 1 year is outside of that range. In the same period, all but 1 year (the same year) he has 0.29 to 0.50 G/90. In his best year of 2016-17, he scored 0.76 G/90.

Without knowing his xG for that year, I'm going to guess that his best season was just a year when everything went in the goal for him and he heavily outperformed his xG. G/90 is usually more subject to random extremes that xG/90. It's unlikely he somehow was able to get good shot chances for himself at a very high level for a full season and then just never did it again for a decade. The other theories would be (1) injury, but he averaged almost 3,00 minutes over the next 4 seasons, or (2) in his career year he played with a superb playmaker, but the team high was just 8 assists by 2 players who were both on the team the following year, when they combined for 8 and 10, so that was pretty consistent.
 
LionNYC said:
Haven't seen a quote like this before: “We know Jovan is a super talented player with vast European experience, we are all disappointed with his lack of playing time but know the level he is capable of reaching,” said Sporting Director David Lee.

New York City FC Loans Forward Jovan Mijatovic to Oud-Heverlee Leuven | New York City FC
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On the plus side, it's good to know that MLS has reached a level as a league that its teams can lend young players to European clubs to get them playing time and push their development instead of the other way around.
 
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