Yeah, I think a lot of that initial stuff, especially all the medical related things happen in Manchester. It makes sense that they would rather wait until he's with the team or close to joining the team before making big announcements.
2026 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread
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Yeah, I think a lot of that initial stuff, especially all the medical related things happen in Manchester. It makes sense that they would rather wait until he's with the team or close to joining the team before making big announcements.
If one was watching the Mets on WOR TV back in the stoneage, sometime late in the game Bob Murphy would always announce "Today's attendance is XX,XXX where XX,XXX paid their way into the ballpark."...............or words to that effect. Don't recall if the Yankees made similar announcements.
I guess this has no bearing whatsoever on the discussion, but I thought I'd toss that in anyway.
I guess this has no bearing whatsoever on the discussion, but I thought I'd toss that in anyway.
Way way back the AL and NL had different methods. The AL historically used paid attendance and the NL used turnstile counts. They synchronized on paid attendance in 1993.
So there's the stone age, and whatever's before the stone age I guess.
Discovery right have to be the silliest MLS thing ever.
You're not wrong, but I hope they never get rid of them. There was a time when $50k GAM was meaningful but now it's almost a rounding error. So it's pretty harmless. In return we get silliness. I like silliness. Plus I even enjoy the reactions (not yours) that treat it as some sort of outrage.
In contrast, holding the expansion draft compensation at just $50k when even mid players are transferred for multiples of that amount (including some flipped immediately by the new team) is arguably an outrage, and almost nobody cares.
ezbeezy214
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This one actually makes sense.
Yeah, I'm not mad about it, it just makes me chuckle every time.
Completely agree, the expansion draft is absurd. The ITS and Thiago situations were bad enough, but the hypothetical Jovan scenario is even worse. Unless I’m misunderstanding the rule, San Diego theoretically could have taken Jovan, paid NYCFC $50K in GAM, and then turned around and told European clubs, “NYCFC paid $8.5M for him, make us an offer.” Even if they only got $1M, that would still be an insane transaction.
Maybe there are behind-the-scenes agreements that prevent this, but on its face it’s a terrible setup for MLS. One team is essentially allowed to extract value from another in a way that borders on stealing. On top of that, a player like Jovan suddenly has his future controlled by an organization he has no relationship with. The optics and publicity around a situation like that would be awful, and it’s hard to understand why MLS continues to expose itself to this kind of risk.
I guess, Dante Polvara did go through the clubs youth system but the guy is 25 now. He hasn't been involved with NYCFC since 2019. At some point it's still just silly.
The expansion compensation made sense when (1) there was much less money spent on salaries and transfers, and (2) most teams lost at least one player in each expansion so the sacrifice was shared. Now more than 80% of the league loses nothing each time, while others get hit multiple drafts in a row and are barely compensated. For any future expansion rounds they should drop the draft and give the new clubs even more free but temporary GAM/TAM than they already do.
NYCFC 2026 DEPTH CHART
(italics represents a player who has not debuted for the first team)
Striker: Martinez*, Sylla, Reid
Wing: Talles Magno, Wolf, Ojeda, Jones*, Yañez
Wing/CAM: Nico F. M.
CAM: Maxi M., Maxi C.
CM: Parks, Perea*, O'Neill, Shore, Arroyave, Flax
CDM/CB: Trewin
CB: Martins, Gustavo, Tanasijević, Murray, Acito
RB: Gray, Baiera
LB: O'Toole, Cavallo
GK: Freese, Romero, Ranjitsingh, Learned
* = injury
NYCFC DEPTH CHART - ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES
(strikethru = departure; bold = arrival)
Striker: Martinez*, Sylla, Reid
Wing: Talles Magno, Wolf, Ojeda, Jones*, Yañez,Fernandez
Wing/CAM: Nico F. M.
CAM: Maxi M., Maxi C.
CM: Parks, Perea*, O'Neill, Shore, Arroyave, Flax
CDM/CB: Trewin,Haak
CB: Martins, Gustavo, Tanasijević, Murray, Acito,Amponsah
RB: Gray, Baiera,Ilenič
LB: O'Toole, Cavallo
GK: Freese, Romero, Ranjitsingh, Learned,Rando
* = injury
(italics represents a player who has not debuted for the first team)
Striker: Martinez*, Sylla, Reid
Wing: Talles Magno, Wolf, Ojeda, Jones*, Yañez
Wing/CAM: Nico F. M.
CAM: Maxi M., Maxi C.
CM: Parks, Perea*, O'Neill, Shore, Arroyave, Flax
CDM/CB: Trewin
CB: Martins, Gustavo, Tanasijević, Murray, Acito
RB: Gray, Baiera
LB: O'Toole, Cavallo
GK: Freese, Romero, Ranjitsingh, Learned
* = injury
NYCFC DEPTH CHART - ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES
(strikethru = departure; bold = arrival)
Striker: Martinez*, Sylla, Reid
Wing: Talles Magno, Wolf, Ojeda, Jones*, Yañez,
Wing/CAM: Nico F. M.
CAM: Maxi M., Maxi C.
CM: Parks, Perea*, O'Neill, Shore, Arroyave, Flax
CDM/CB: Trewin,
CB: Martins, Gustavo, Tanasijević, Murray, Acito,
RB: Gray, Baiera,
LB: O'Toole, Cavallo
GK: Freese, Romero, Ranjitsingh, Learned,
* = injury
I don't think the money for Polvara is silly at all. He came through our youth system; we paid a lot of money to develop him; he could be a homegrown for us. That's worth something.
Would you feel differently if LAFC signed Gio Reyna?
Would you feel differently if LAFC signed Gio Reyna?
ZYanksRule
Registered
Feel like the only thing I still want are fullbacks. Gray is fine on the right but I'd love to see what we can do to improve the left side. Not that O'Toole is bad, but we can do better there.
No, I don't think we should get something for Gio either at this point. Regarding Polvara he was part of the acedemy for 3 years and then went to Georgetown for 2 years. Should Georgetown get money for his time there? He played for Aberdeen F.C. for 4 years and they seem to be letting him go for free, unless there are fees not being reported. So they aren't getting anything for their 4 years of developing him.
IMO once a player has signed their 1st professional contract beyond the team that developed them, rights should be gone. NYCFC had a chance to sign then sell Gio, I'm sure they tried but it didn't work out. That ship has sailed. This idea of being owed something for a player based on development 5+ years ago, after multiple additional stops is silly to me.
Find another profession where some organization is owed money for something they did for a person as a teenager because that person switches employers multiple years into their professional career. It's silly.
Well you know if we hire this new guy we are going to have to pay money to one of our rival companies because he was an unpaid summer intern for them for 3 summers in high school. They trained him in some stuff so we need to pay them.
I'll be honest, that's a really solid MLS squad. Pascal has a lot to work with.
I'm trying to set my expectations, and made 2 lists for everyone on the depth chart. One adds up their goals last year, for whatever team(s). The other adds up their career high goals, with a few notes:
- For Maxi I used 2 for both because he's far from the player he was when he hit his high of 8 in 2018. He has not scored more than 2 since 2021.
- Parks also is credited 2 in the career high column (instead of 4) because of his injury. Yes that's rather discretionary on my part.
- Based on 9 goals in 44 combined games for Eiche and NYCFC, Nico would have 7 goals in 34 games. Based on 3 goals in 11 games for just NYC, the number would be 9. I gave him 9 for career high and 7 for last year as a compromise. His actual high in one full season is 6 with Eiche last year.
- The combined total of everyone not listed, excluding Alonso and Julian, was 8. I used that in both columns. I excluded A & J because they have 1-1 replacements in Sylla and Talles. Of the 8 goals, 5 were scored by other players now gone: Ilenic 2, Bakrar 2, Haak 1. But I'm just assuming other down roster guys will make it up.
These are not meant to be predictive but rather to help organize my thoughts. On review, I think they happen to set the range of likely goal totals.
Last year NYCFC scored 50 goals. The adjusted Last Year total including personnel changes also comes to 50 goals. I think that's also a fair estimate of the minimum that the team scores in 2026. Last year was disappointing offensively. I don't think scoring that few again in 2026 is likely but it is possible. Scoring fewer would be a very poor result for the team.
I also think 63 is a fair guess at the maximum. One could reasonably choose to be more optimistic. It's possible a few players set new highs while most of the others stay at or near their highs. But I think that's a very best case rosy scenario. I think we need another solid scorer in the 5-10 goal range to reasonably expect more than 60 and especially more than 63. 63 goals would have tied for 6th most in the league in 2025.
I think they will more likely score in the 54-58 range. There's no specific math behind that.
IMO Wolf is the least likely to match his career high. Most likely to set new highs I think are Nico (using his actual 6 as the benchmark), Ojeda (I hope), Reid if he plays and Jones if healthy. Talles could do it but honestly I'll be very happily surprised if he reaches 7. I also won't be shocked if Sylla puts in more than 16, especially if he takes the PKs, but he did not for Schalke. Who takes them if not him?
This analysis is kind of scattered as I'm still thinking it through but maybe the info helps organize your own thoughts.
NYCFC has been paying Jovan's fee in installments. He wasn't picked in the expansion draft because the picking team would have been on the hook for the rest of his fee.
