MLS’ primary transfer window finally closed Tuesday evening, leaving a lot to assess around the league. Tom Bogert and Jeff Rueter kept a close eye on the transactions and early returns, resulting in their superlatives across a variety of categories. Here are the winners and losers of the window.
Best transfer window
Tom: LA Galaxy
Spending money in MLS is well and good, but doing so just through talent collection rather than squad building is detrimental. That’s the key difference in the Galaxy’s winter window this year. While spending money they identified players who complemented each other and made a ton of sense on the roster.
Riqui Puig is an elite player in this league. His distribution and vision are key attributes. How do you maximize that? With wingers who can get in behind and finish. Essentially, not Douglas Costa. The Galaxy spent upwards of $20 million to acquire wingers Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec. They have looked awesome, Puig is the best version of himself and Dejan Joveljic is having a career year with the increased space and chances
A downside to Puig is that he’s not much of a defender (in quality nor desire). That’s OK, as long as the club builds around it. Miki Yamane is more of a stay-at-home right back than one who overlaps at all times. That was an excellent, low-key addition to supplement the stars.
The goalkeeping depth chart got an overhaul, with John McCarthy winning an open competition to become the new starter.
The most important move was probably giving general manager Will Kuntz the kitchen and letting him cook.
Jeff: Colorado Rapids
It’s hard to argue against the Galaxy here, and poaching Kuntz from LAFC could be one of those rare sliding doors moments at a seismic scale.
I’ll shout out the Colorado Rapids for executing an efficient one-window rebuild. The attack and the defense both look far more coherent than last year in Chris Armas’ early days. Djordje Mihailovic already has four goal contributions as their chief string-puller, and fellow ‘Moves I Like’ alum Jasper Löffelsend earned a new contract after a strong first impression. Zack Steffen hasn’t started off quite as well, but the changes have helped Colorado rise from last in the West to fourth after nine games.
Didn’t do enough
Tom: San Jose Earthquakes
The Quakes wanted to bring in a DP No. 10 all winter. On deadline day, they had still yet to do that.
Amahl Pellegrino was the key addition of the winter, a 33-year-old winger from the Norwegian league. He had an excellent goal scoring record and could be a solid signing, but the Quakes needed another attacking talisman to go with Cristian Espinoza and Pellegrino. That never came.
Defense has been the bigger issue, though, and the team is worse than it was a year ago on that side of the ball. They’re bottom of the league with eight losses in nine matches and minimal hope.
Jeff: Austin FC
Austin suffered a major drop-off from 2022 to 2023, going from second in the West straight back to its bottom tier. Sporting director Rodolfo Borrell prioritized continuity by bringing head coach Josh Wolff back for a fourth season, giving the former Man City executive a chance to make his mark on the roster without needing to onboard a new coach.
There was ample runway for wholesale changes, as the club declined contract options on nine players. Instead, Borrell made just four additions not counting homegrown Micah Burton’s first-team deal — all on free transfers.
Guilherme Biro and Diego Rubio each have two goals, and Brendan Hines-Ike has worked into the defensive rotation. That’s some solid down-roster contribution…but this team needed far more than that to return to 2022’s heights. The early performances haven’t been pretty, and Austin is still in the conference’s bottom half.
Most buyer’s remorse
Tom: New England Revolution
On July 31, the Revs sat second in the Eastern Conference and were among the MLS Cup contenders. The next day, Bruce Arena was placed on administrative leave and wouldn’t return.
New England then stumbled into the playoffs and was bounced in the first round. They hired Curt Onalfo as Arena’s sporting director replacement, who in turn named Caleb Porter as the head coach replacement. This season they’re off to a porous start, with four points from eight games, putting them bottom of the East.
The roster is largely the same, around core players Carles Gil, Matt Polster, Noel Buck, Henry Kessler, DeJuan Jones and Tomas Chancalay. Tough start.
Jeff: Chicago Fire
The Houston Dynamo has rebuilt itself into a competitive MLS operation. So, too, has the LA Galaxy, after some relatively lean years. Those legacy club turnarounds only brighten the spotlight on how, for a decade running, the Chicago Fire has been irrelevant in the MLS landscape.
There isn’t one on-field move that can be singled out for derision. Kellyn Acosta was a coveted free agent and is a dependable starter in midfield, and Hugo Cuypers’ underlying numbers suggest he’s a good bet to score 13+ goals in his first season. I don’t even hate the culture hire at head coach, with Frank Klopas bridging the team to its golden years.
What I can’t wrap my head around is the decision to retain sporting director Georg Heitz and technical director Sebastian Pelzer as the sporting braintrust. In their first four years, they oversaw zero playoff appearances, four seasons of the team scoring under 40 goals (something the Fire had previously never done more than twice in a row) and no greater prominence in one of the nation’s preeminent sports markets. Xherdan Shaqiri’s bloated contract hampers their every on-field decision, but retaining Heitz and Pelzer for a fifth season makes zero sense.
Best DP signing
Tom: Joseph Paintsil, LA Galaxy
The Galaxy worked a while to bring Paintsil in. He was one of their key targets, and they eventually convinced him to leave Europe for MLS. From his debut, he’s looked every bit of what they could have hoped for.
Paintsil has three goals and three assists in eight appearances. His dynamic and intelligent movement is the exact profile this attack needed. He has made everyone around him better, while giving Greg Vanney versatility, whether they need to play in transition or on the counter. Modern teams need to have a changeup and Paintsil is a one-man counterattack.
The 26-year-old is in the 99th percentile of MLS wingers in progressive passes received and the 82nd in non-penalty expected goals (xG) plus expected assists (xA), per FBRef. Exactly what they needed.
Emil Forsberg of the New York Red Bulls also deserved consideration.
Jeff: Gabriel Pec, LA Galaxy
It’s Paintsil, for the record, but let’s give some love to the Galaxy’s other new DP. Pec has been tough to stop on the left flank, especially as teams have to game plan for Paintsil and Jovelic’s in-box finishing. Puig finally has a forward line that caters to his strengths, and the early results have been fun to watch from a neutral perspective. Another dribbly boi like Paintsil, Pec helps LA break down low defensive blocks and already has great interplay with his fellow designated players.
Fun fact: there are currently more designated players from Finland (two: D.C. United’s Matti Peltola and Minnesota’s Teemu Pukki) than England (Nashville’s Sam Surridge).
Best low-key signing
Tom: Pavel Bucha, FC Cincinnati
No, Luis Suarez doesn’t count as “low key” just because he wasn’t a DP.
The best non-DP signing would have been Miles Robinson at FC Cincinnati, but he was the best free agent on the market and a huge deal. Not quite “low key.” Bucha, meanwhile, was unknown to many around the league and has slotted in next to Obi Nwbodo in Cincy’s midfield. That back six is driving the team to results as the attack gets situated.
Jeff: Tomas Totland and Chris Durkin, St. Louis City
Another two members of my first ‘Moves I Like’ brotherhood. Totland has swiftly helped St. Louis play with more width going forward while providing a defensive upgrade at right back. Durkin is vital to their midfield build-up, which now looks far more dependable and less frenetic than it did in 2023. They may not have enjoyed the same five-game winning streak that kicked off last season’s historic success, but St. Louis looks even better this time around.
Best under-22 initiative signing
Tom: Federico Redondo, Inter Miami
Redondo is the type of talent that seemed destined to jump from Argentina to a big club in Europe, but he chose Miami and MLS. Credit to Miami for getting it done. Miami will have to deal a few more games without him as he recovers from an injury to his left lateral collateral ligament (LCL). He is expected to be sidelined for approximately eight weeks from the time of the injury on March 28.
Redondo looks like a future Argentina international. His quality on the ball and distribution is already elite (94th percentile in progressive passes).
Jeff’s pick is a close second for me.
Jeff: Noah Eile, New York Red Bulls
It’s a surprisingly slim U-22 crop this year. I like what I’ve seen so far from Marino Hinestroza along Columbus’ forward line, but he’s still working into the rotation at this stage. Eile has already logged 563 minutes for New York, whose defense has arguably been MLS’ stingiest in the early weeks. His 61.5% aerial win rate will play well in any league, and he could become a mainstay along the back for years to come.
Best over-35 signing:
Tom: Luis Suarez, Inter Miami
Okay, here’s the one for Suarez.
What can I say? Eight goals and six assists in 979 minutes across all competitions. He’s still elite.
Jeff: Nicolas Loderio, Orlando City
It’s a sweep for aging Uruguayans based in Florida, much to Seattle Sounders fans’ chagrin. Cap considerations spelled an end to Loderio’s storied time in Cascadia, and Orlando scooped him up to add another dynamic element to their attack. He leads the Lions with three assists, including a pair that swung the result for Orlando’s only two wins to date, and has chipped in a goal from 13 shots — not a great return, but better than Martin Ojeda’s 0-for-15 and Luis Muriel’s 0-for-13. He’s fitting in and seems to enjoy playing with a bit less responsibility to pull every string, even if Orlando is off to a slow start.
Best managerial hire
Tom: Laurent Courtois, CF Montreal
Montréal needed an identity post-Wilfried Nancy. Courtois is the man to lead them forward.
What Montreal has wanted to do is be greater than the sum of its parts and create its own stars. They want to have a system and interchangeable starters. Hiring 45-year-old Courtois — one of the top young options on the market — was a phenomenal decision.
A strong start to the season has only backed up that decision.
Jeff: Eric Ramsay (and Khaled El-Ahmad), Minnesota United
I’m welcoming you to Saint Paul for some backyard cooking here. Minnesota was in desperate need of a reinvention by the time former coach Adrian Heath was dismissed last October. Still, the team had to get the transition plan right as Heath was one of the few remaining coaches to have final say over roster decisions.
It took longer than ideal (much longer, really), but appointing El-Ahmad as chief soccer officer led to a thorough coaching search that unearthed Ramsay. The duo (and the early season’s interim coach, Cam Knowles) did wonders to instill a new style of play that caters to the entirety of the roster rather than relying heavily on one playmaker. That shift hasn’t sat well with Emanuel Reynoso, but the Loons are flying toward the top of the West in short order.
Honorable mention to D.C. United’s appointment of Troy Lesesne, who looks far more at home building a culture and identity from scratch than he did under the Red Bull dogma.
Most “classic MLS” move
Tom: Yedlin trade details to the GAM dollar
DeAndre Yedlin was traded from Inter Miami to FC Cincinnati for an extremely specific amount of GAM — $172,799, to be exact.
Classic. If GAM was paper money, what would the lowest denomination be? Who would be the face on each bill?
Jeff: Nashville handing international slots out like candy on Halloween
In a vacuum, Nashville’s tradition of trading away as many international slots as they can makes sense. The team has built its identity around a strong domestic core, and those slots are among the most valuable renewable assets that teams obtain on an annual basis.
Here’s the thing, though: the domestic player pool only extends so deep. I’m not sure many top-end teams would commit to the nationalistic bit as strongly if their leagues had similar international slot quotes — not England, not Italy, not Spain (outside of the Basque district).
Starting your offseason by flipping five(!) of your eight international slots sends an odd message, especially when the return ($825,000) is below what you would’ve netted three seasons ago. Nashville is second-to-last in the East with just one win, and their ability to improve has been hamstrung by the lack of freedom to sign foreign players. That’s a tough situation to be in, but it has largely been self-inflicted.
(Photo of Joseph Painstil: Michael Janosz/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
