First kick is just over three weeks away, which means that teams around the league are starting to scramble to fill some roster holes (or, in some cases, to create new roster holes that will subsequently need to be filled).
The Eastern Conference was yesterday, and the Western Conference is below.
Here are a few of the teams I’m keeping an eye on at the moment, and the questions that need answering:
What’s going on with Chucky Lozano in (or out of) San Diego?
This is the obvious one. Chucky was San Diego’s first-ever Designated Player signing, a star in his prime with UEFA Champions League experience and cross-border appeal. He was a load-bearing DP before Los Niños ever kicked a ball in anger.
On the field, he mostly lived up to that last year, putting up 9g/10a in about 1,900 minutes during the regular season. Not Best XI-level great, but always influential, and mostly healthy.
Things went sour in October, though, as there was some sort of falling out between Chucky and head coach Mikey Varas after the former was subbed out at halftime of an eventual win over Houston. Chucky wouldn’t start again – he’d eventually work his way back into the picture during the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs as a super-sub – and whatever bad blood there was both lingered and thickened. By the start of January, sporting director and general manager Tyler Heaps announced that Lozano is no longer in the team’s plans.
Since then, it’s been… not precisely radio silence, but info on a potential next move (for either the player or the club) has been scarce.
Something is obviously going to happen. San Diego have a conference No. 1 seed to defend (and a Concacaf Champions Cup debut to make), while Chucky has a spot in El Tri’s starting XI to play for with the 2026 FIFA World Cup coming up. There are too many aligned interests here for this to linger too much longer.
Can Dallas get their DP No. 10 in to juice the attack?
This time last year, it looked like they’d have that answered until the end of the decade with their cashfer acquisition of Lucho Acosta from FC Cincinnati. But Lucho famously didn’t work out in Dallas – for whatever reason, he was miserable there, and they looked pretty miserable, too. It was mutual misery. The inevitable parting of ways happened in early August.
And guess what? Dallas were really, really good after that! It wasn’t great soccer by any stretch, but it was a clear addition by subtraction kind of thing in terms of team morale and defensive commitment. Lucho left, and Dallas had their identity: “We will endure, wear you down and grind you out.”
That only takes you so far, though, and they know it. In Dallas’s case, it took them to Round One of the playoffs, where they came up against the team with the type of playmaking and firepower (Vancouver) that makes it next to impossible to just sit and absorb attack after attack. It’s teams like that that contend for trophies in this day and age in MLS.
The key for Dallas, therefore, is to go out and get a No. 10 who has something like Lucho’s chance-creation ability but will also allow them to keep their “all XI pulling in the same direction” defensive identity from the back half of 2025.
I’d expect the game model to evolve along with it (they were down under 40% possession, with under 40% field tilt as well over the final 10 games of the season), because, again: teams that play like that don’t actually win things in MLS. Dallas need to have the ship pointed in that direction.
But, you know, the clock’s ticking. I really thought this one would be done by now.
What will San Jose do with their two open DP slots?
Nobody really expected San Jose to have this many DP slots to work with, but for one reason or another both Cristian Espinoza and now Chicho Arango (reportedly) are gone, while Hernán López remains on loan overseas.
That means three shiny DP slots for sporting director and head coach Bruce Arena to play with. Well, he’s already filled one with the acquisition of 29-year-old German forward/winger Timo Werner. This is a reclamation project in some ways, as Werner’s barely played over the past two years and hasn’t scored double-digit goals in a season since way back in 2019-20.
It’s a landmark signing in other ways, as Werner is still in his prime and, if he gets back to his peak, is a Best XI-type of talent.
He’s also a perfect fit for Bruce. There were two things this attack needed from last year:
- More defense from the front. Werner, whose best years came in RB Leipzig’s high-pressing scheme, provides that in spades; and…
- An easy fit in a front two rather than a front three.
Arena has almost always preferred a front two (whether it was the 4-4-2 diamond of his early D.C. United dynasty, or the 4-4-2 with a Y midfield shape of his Galaxy dynasty, or the occasional tinkering with the 3-5-2 we saw from him at various stops over the years) and Werner has always been better in a front two than in a front three.
Which is to say, I think this is an easy fit in a way that could and should make the subsequent DP additions easier fits as well. An Adam Buksa-type of target forward, for example – Werner’s best-ever season came when he was running off of Patrik Schick’s hold-up play – sure does check a lot of boxes. And then a midfield playmaker on top of that, right? Or is it time for Niko Tsakiris to get a real shot at driving the bus?
I’m not really sure what the answer is. But I am intrigued.
Will Portland use a buyout to open a third DP slot?
Veteran attacker Jonathan Rodríguez is still a Timber, but there’s reason to think he might not be much longer. After an outstanding debut season in 2024, he played just 150 minutes due to injury last year, and… he’s still injured. Not great.
Beyond that, he’ll be 33 this summer, and as per Transfermarkt, he’s in the last year of his contract, and they already brought in another DP (Kristoffer Velde) at Rodríguez’s best spot (left wing). You don’t need to be a master of the mystic arts to read the tea leaves here.
If they do find a solution that works for both the player and the club, they will have opened up a DP slot to use. So how do they use it? Let’s bear in mind they already have that DP left winger, and a DP No. 10, and have spent big money on a U22 Initiative No. 9 and a U22 Initiative right winger.
So, two days ago, I’d have said “central midfield.” That’s the obvious spot, right? But then the Timbers reportedly made a bold move – one I quite like, and one that sort of solidifies the front office’s relatively newfound interest in acquiring MLS-proven talent – in getting Cole Bassett from the Colorado Rapids via a reported $2.65 million cashfer (with some incentives laid on top of that). Bassett answers a huge need without filling the open DP slot, and likely comes in as the team’s third U22 signing.
Now I’m actually wondering if it makes sense for them to sign anybody as a third DP. They’re committed to developing their U22s, clearly, and while Portland aren’t precisely low on GAM, they’re not precisely stocked up, either (even after selling David Ayala). So switching to the U22 roster build model, which trades a third DP slot for a fourth U22 slot and an extra $2 million of GAM, could be the way to go here.
Are St. Louis in the market for a new No. 9?
Simple one here: St. Louis just sold their presumptive starting No. 9, João Klauss, to the Galaxy. Their depth chart is now two names long: journeyman Simon Becher and 18-year-old academy product Caden Glover.
Glover, in 2025, looked like he needed at least one more year in MLS NEXT Pro, and can hopefully use that to play his way into the first team and into the US U-20 picture.
As for Becher… I want to get there. Some of his underlying numbers (including the most important one for any forward: non-penalty xG) are very promising, and his defending from the front is excellent. There’s never any lack of energy or commitment. Plus, if you look at his raw productivity in MLS, it’s again very promising: 17g/7a in about 3,000 minutes across all competitions for Vancouver and St. Louis.
This is not the radar of someone you consign to a perma-sub role:
Still, though, it’s a big bet to make on a 26-year-old who’s played most of those minutes either off the bench or as a second forward/false winger type. Which means, yeah, I do think there’ll be another No. 9 on the way.
But it wouldn’t shock me if it’s someone brought in more as competition for the starting job rather than someone brought in on big money and just named the starter. Becher has probably earned the right to fight for that role, last year’s finishing woes be damned, and I could see an open competition under new head coach Yoann Damet doing everyone involved some good.
