First thing I picked up on, too. Another mystery. Did we not fill out the paperwork properly or something? If so, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on that one.
2026 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread
- Thread starter LionNYC
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Seems clear to me that if other teams do it and NYCFC does not, it's more likely we are following an internal CFG sell-before-replace rule than being held back by a misunderstanding of paperwork or MLS rules.
Ah, this makes sense to me. I'm sure you're right.
Doyle can be annoying, but this is pretty spot on (as the Brits say)
Offseason Guides: LAFC, NYCFC & Cincy all head into the lab
NYCFC's got a new front office, LAFC's got a new coach and the Garys need an adjustment to the game modelopen.substack.com
I don’t think this is actually true. I do recall spots opening up when we loaned guys in the past - e.g. Mitrita.
I think Mitrita is the only counter example. I also think Andrade, Talles and Jovan might be the only 3 positive examples.
The non-roster slot player who looms over this perception is Taty who was on loan for roughly one year before we acquired a new first choice striker in the same window he was eventually sold. There was no special roster slot associated with him, but that gap was central to the team's quality drop in 2023, from which it still has not really recovered, in some part because we have consistently had actual unfilled special roster slots at almost every time since.
If my list is correct (and I'm never fully confident about these roster fact things as I can be about other categories) then I think it's fair to say this is how NYCFC does it. Mitrita's DP slot was filled by Talles in early 2021 while Mitrita was still on loan. We're coming up on 5 years since then and no more counter examples.
ETA: It also is fair to consider that Mitrita was a special Covid era case. He left only because of Covid and we acquired Talles in substantial part due to ongoing Covid cash flow issues faced by other teams.
I enjoy speculating about it because there does seem to be a pattern, but ultimately, the cause doesn’t matter. It’s the same consistent lack of ambition.
I believe the rules about whether a loaned DP has to be counted as a DP involve how much of his salary budget charge is offset by the receiving team.
Except in the cases of Miami...
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Which means we should be making it a condition of the loan that they pay the full salary.
Tough to do when the player is a bust.
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I would hope it's fairly commonplace that the team pays the full salary, no? They're getting a player for free, they just have to pay the salary. Loans save on the transfer fee but they get all the benefit of the player for a year.
Jovan makes $650K per year, and Belgian pro league bench players often make low 6 figures. In 1.5 seasons for OH Levuen Jovan has played in 20 matches, starting 8, with one goal. Don't think the club has much leverage to get them to take on anywhere near his full salary.
The transfer industry is a marketplace. If a players value has significantly dropped since their last transaction, their current club takes a hit one way or the other. It's the same in baseball, and I assume other sports, where a team will trade away a player but still be on the hook for some of their salary.
If I recall correctly, Atlanta had 4 DPs last year and DC United was paying for one of Atlanta’s DPs due to a weird quirk in the market place where the player was still on the books with DC as a DP but was fully traded to Atlanta
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Totally understand that. NYCFC needs to do a better job of using the roster mechanisms to their advantage, though. This idea that we're hamstrung by sending a player on loan doesn't really work and shouldn't be the standard operating procedure.
I think this entire loan conversation is missing the forest for the trees. For the past four seasons, the club has been perfectly content to use a DP spot on Martins. The transfer fee pushed him just over the DP threshold, as DPs go, he’s essentially a minimum-cost option. He’s been eligible to be bought down with TAM for at least a season, yet the club has chosen not to do so.
DP slots are the only roster spots where a club can truly show unlimited ambition. Instead, NYCFC has spent four years spending the bare minimum on what is arguably the second-worst position to allocate a DP to, behind only goalkeeper.
This isn’t a misunderstanding of roster rules or a flawed loan strategy; it’s a deliberate decision to underinvest in DP talent compared to MLS’s biggest clubs. Maybe finances were tight during the Yankee Stadium years, and perhaps that will change wth the new stadium. But until they prove it with action, NYCFC remains a small club playing in the country’s biggest city, nowhere near the conversation with the league’s most ambitious teams. And even if it does change, how long will it last?
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While I agree with you in theory, I also think the front office deserves some credit for three conference final appearances in five years. It is hard to be that consistently good, even for a New York team that should compete for trophies every year.
Ask the Jets, Giants, Rangers, and Mets how hard it is to contend for championships every year. We've probably been one of the most consistently good men's sports teams in this city over the last 10 years alongside the Yankees.
In theory, we should have the highest payroll and we should have the best roster. In reality, we had one of the best rosters in MLS from 2019 until the middle of 2022 and I would argue the 2nd half of this year we were up there again. We might have actually won MLS Cup if Alonso, Parks, and Perea were all healthy.
Despite the misuse of DP/U-22 slots, we don't give the organization enough credit for the success we've had.
Giving the club credit for its success and calling it unambitious are two separate things. Over the past four years, NYCFC hasn’t spent anywhere close to the league’s elite clubs. If anything, the team’s success despite its lack of DP spending makes the situation more frustrating, not less.
You can reasonably ask what happens in this year’s playoffs if they sign Nico and a Nico-level (or better) DP winger. Or what happens last year if, instead of wasting three U22 slots, they sign two and use the third slot on another Nico-level DP. I’d bet they beat Red Bulls in the playoffs.
Post-Cup, NYCFC has become the Indiana Pacers of MLS, consistently squeezing enough out of a budget-friendly roster to make some noise every year in the playoffs, but never truly positioning itself as a serious title contender. A team in New York City, owned by CFG, should not be the Indiana Pacers of this league.
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We have taken some big swings though. We have spent a lot of money on players - the scouting didn't work out and the players we spent big on were generally not experienced enough to make a big impact on our team, but the team did spend a lot of money.
If Jovan wants to be here and if Ojeda or Fernandez are what we hoped they would be, we are having a very different conversation about this roster build. The team has spent over $30 million in transfer fees on Fernandez-Mercau, Jovan, Ojeda, and Fernandez.
Nico and Jovan are tied for the largest incoming transfers in team history, Agu is the 5th highest, and Julian is 7th highest.
The team is spending money, they're just not spending it correctly. Hopefully the summer transfers we had this season are the start of a new strategy.
