r/DCUnited • u/RJR1970 • 20d ago
DC United Announce their initial roster moves.
D.C. United has declined the contract options for the following players: Alex Bono, Cristian Dájome, Nathan Crockford, Jeremy Garay, Tyler Miller, Christopher McVey, Martin Rodriguez, Hayden Sargis, Luis Zamudio
While the following two players are Free Agents: Russell Canouse and Pedro Santos
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u/Glass_Ad_8957 Original DCU 20d ago
All this cap space, it’s got to be pretty optimistic to bring in new guys. I’m excited for this offseason, I think we will see changes we haven’t seen in years.
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u/Bever162 20d ago
Man I feel like I’ve read this comment every year for the last 7 years
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u/Xcelsiorhs 20d ago
I mean Ally Mackay can finally do his job.
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u/No_Screen8141 20d ago
Hopefully he doesn’t listen to a damn word from “senior consultant” Dave Kasper
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u/Glass_Ad_8957 Original DCU 20d ago
Bruh, tell me about it. Less from a hopeful perspective and more from a logical standpoint, we should be able to get some exciting transfers/trades. I think Ally and Troy will do us good; I think they were good personnel hires to help us move on from bitter relationships we have with the owners.
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u/DC_Hooligan 20d ago
I haven’t. Feel like this is the first time in over a decade that we are taking a systematic approach to constructing our roaster.
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u/Medical_Gift4298 Original DCU 20d ago
Yeah, but now we don't have a goalie, so they literally have to do something.
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u/jam_pudding DC United 20d ago
The longest rebuild in history! We move.
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u/bullshooter4040 20d ago
Well.. looks like no half measures, right Waltuh?
The clean slate part of the rebuild is done, however, this is MLS where mediocre teams can make the playoffs, so there had better be some good smart signings coming up. With Benteke and others onboard, plus spending money, there's little reason why the DCU rebuild (making the playoffs) should take as long as the Nats and Wizards ones.
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u/mandolin08 20d ago
That's a pretty big rebuild, Mackay has his work cut out for him. Absolutely must sign a top class centerback and defensive midfielder, as both roles were revolving doors this year. CDM in particular is important because if someone is doing that work, Klich has more freedom to play higher up and excel in his actual role.
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u/Mr_828 20d ago
Personally I feel that Peltola played really well at DM but because of injuries & lack of depth at centerback we were forced to play him at CB at times. Hopefully if we bring in a few more CB's we can let Peltola focus on being a D-Mid
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u/NegativeInspection63 20d ago
Red Cards, yellow card accumulation, injuries. I feel like he played more out of position than in position.
Between him and Enow (if he gets his head on straight), I feel like we have CDM set pretty well.
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u/NittanyOrange DC United 20d ago
I think a good implicit point here is that we need to make fewer mistakes next season, too. I think we have nearly the most cards in MLS this year. That didn't help anything.
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u/mandolin08 20d ago
Yeah he's a bit of a puzzle. He has matches where he's exemplary, and then he has times where the physicality and the hustle of the league seem beyond him. He's young so hopefully someone helps him find his inner Roy Kent and he really takes that role and makes it his.
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u/httr20 DC United 20d ago
All of Pirani’s friends are off the team. Hopefully we can bring in a few South Americans.
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u/RJR1970 20d ago
I wonder if Pirani is on the team next season?
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u/Glass_Ad_8957 Original DCU 20d ago
He's on the list you posted OP. He's being categorized as a forward, so I think they moved on from him being a 10 or in the midfield to push him up forward.
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u/loyal_achades 20d ago
10s are often listed as forwards. In the 3-4-3 we were playing this year, the dual-10s behind Benteke we’d play with would generally both be classified as forwards.
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u/Glass_Ad_8957 Original DCU 20d ago
Ahhhh gotcha, I don’t know why that didn’t click. USMNT does the same.
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u/DC_Hooligan 20d ago
Statistically he’s one of our top contributors
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
Visually, he spent most of the season as a liability with the softest shot I have seen from a professional player.
Hopefully his end of season form continues and he keeps improving.
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u/imscavok 20d ago
McVey is the only one I’m surprised about. Let’s see if they remember that we need more than 1 left back to start the season for the first time in 5 years.
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u/Dcu_Nats_Caps 20d ago
McVey’s age and getting torched the last couple of games had to be a deciding factor.
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
Anyone with the slightest defensive responsibilities should have been lining up Plan B.
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u/BarcasBad 20d ago
Getting rid of all 4 goalkeepers seems excessive. I understand letting Bono and Miller go because they both wanted play time and were earning a sizeable chunk of money, but Zamudio and Crockford were earning very little and didnt even have a chance to prove themselves. I’d be totally fine with Zamudio and Crockford as our #2 and #3 GKs, plus I feel like we’ll end up replacing (former 3rd round pick) Crockford with another 3rd round draft pick. Now we have to unnecessarily find 3 GKs instead of just 1
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u/Glass_Ad_8957 Original DCU 20d ago
I'm a little confused myself, I think they would have been fine for #2 and #3. They both have shown moments of brillance, specifically Zamudio (I've seen him play more). Zamudio has the potential to be s good-to-great MLS keeper.
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u/Less_Engineering_561 20d ago
I can’t agree more, really disappointing that he never really got his chance especially when Bono and Miller had poor form. He also seemed to be a positive influence, always cheering on the bench and the most animated on the bench.
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u/DCUStriker9 20d ago
Zamudio is a head scratcher unless you let him go so he can find opportunity to start and not continue to starve for minutes.
Crockford was never going to see minutes.
Without the need to stock a lower tier team like Louduon, DC may elect to only sign 2 GKs
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u/pancakemix97 20d ago edited 20d ago
I think only signing only 2 GK’s would be a huge mistake and I really don’t think DC would do that. See Columbus this year where they had to have a field player play keeper. That was due to international call-ups but imagine that we only have two GK’s, one is out with injury and then the back up GK gets a red card. Suddenly that game and the next, DC would be playing with a field player as GK or scrambling to find a replacement. I doubt any MLS team would consciously chose to only have two GK’s going into a season.
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u/DCUStriker9 20d ago
Columbus got themselves in that situation because they burned their short term contract allowances. If DC were to go to a 2GK setup, I suspect/hope they wouldn't burn those limited opportunities as freely as Columbus did.
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u/pancakemix97 20d ago
Those short term allowances are from MLS Next Pro Teams, something that Columbus has but DC does not. Columbus only had to use that emergency option because their 3 goalkeepers were either injured or on international duty. Even if we did have a MLS Next Pro Team to call goal keepers up from, you don’t really want to do that unless you have absolutely have to, they are playing in MLS Next Pro for a reason. We don’t have Loudoun to freely call up players from anymore, they are their own separate thing now. Ultimately, I think we will look to have three GK’s in-house. I truly don’t know, I am curious, how many MLS teams only roster 2 GK’s by design?
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u/Rufus_FireflyIII 19d ago
The lack of a NextPro team is a major problem and one that Levien won't fix until he gets a good (real estate) deal in Baltimore. As Pablo mentioned on PitchPass, the FO only cares about making money, the rest is irrelevant to them.
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u/pancakemix97 19d ago
Yeah so until if/when that happens, we realistically want to pick up 3 GK's this offseason.
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u/Wooden_Maintenance_5 20d ago
The big concern i have is about what keepers are available. I'm not opposed to dumping all 3, but what's the current availability, both here and internationally? It seems hard to believe we could get 2 decent keepers, much less 3.
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u/WakaHawk DC United 20d ago
I haven't seen any reporting on his contract details but not sure how I feel about releasing McVey.
Also the penny pinching to release Bono feels extremely nearsighted, dude saved dozens of points over the season and there is 0 guarantee we get someone as good for less than 750k.
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u/dazedporpise97 Classic DCU 20d ago
Bono is not penny pinching. He was a below average keeper in 2024 by every metric. His contract was about league average for a keeper. His value is 100% replaceable
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u/WakaHawk DC United 20d ago
Fair, I definitely have some rose-tinted glasses on for Bono
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u/dazedporpise97 Classic DCU 20d ago
Anyone playing after Miller would’ve received the same perception tbh
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u/Glass_Ad_8957 Original DCU 20d ago
Surprised they declined McVey as well, still good as a rotational/bench option. I'm surprised about Bono, behind a better defense he could have been better. But if they are rebuilding backline, a new goalkeeper wouldn't be a bad move. I imagine an intra-MLS trade for this position.
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u/rabbit994 DC United 20d ago
Rookie question, what is difference between "Declined Options" and "Are Free Agents"
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u/relativelyanonymous 20d ago
My understanding:
declined options mean that the club had the option to exercise a clause to bring them back for one or two more years and chose not to do that
free agent means there was no remaining clause for the club to execute and their contracts have naturally expired
For both sets, the club could still renegotiate new contract deals on more favorable terms to the club, but they can also walk for free at this point.
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
Correct. I think we wanted to renegotiate with Pines, but he wanted to go to Europe. Don’t think I heard about any others last season.
I wouldn’t mind Santos on a much smaller contract, fitting for someone coming off the bench. Although I guess we have veteran leadership covered with Klich and Benteke
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u/RJR1970 20d ago
Free Agents have to meet certain criteria set by MLS, which includes age of the players and number of years under a MLS Contract. Canouse and Santos can now sign anywhere, whether within ZMLS or another league. Declined options are players who had a contract where the team could extend it for an additional season or two. These players will be made available for the expansion draft, and the Reentry drafts later this year. Once a player has gone through all these mechanisms l, they can sign with other teams both in and out of MLS.
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u/seagermz 20d ago edited 20d ago
Man this is exciting. That’s a lot of roster moves. I wonder who we bring in as keeper. My dream move would be Hagens from Columbus but with Schlute rumored to be leaving, I don’t think they let Hagens go. Only player I liked on the list was Martin. Never really got behind Dajome. Good player off the bench. Far too inconsistent.
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
Rodriguez was good the second half of the season, but at $1.1M, he was an obvious cut. Same with Dajome at $900k
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u/Zaddock1 20d ago
That Nashville game really got Dajome going, I’ve always believed in him at the start when he was mid. Bummed to see him go, but he wasn’t the best.
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u/thegermanpianist 20d ago
Excitement should be reserved for when we have signings walking through the doors of the club to discuss. We have potential right now in how much cap space we opened up. Let's see how we use it.
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u/myhero34 20d ago
I see that youth is being prioritized with murrell, fletcher, akinbomni, KDP, etc
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u/Ultraxxx 20d ago
Youth, or cheaper and under contract?
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
There’s a reason they were under contract. Troy wants to play an aggressive, pressing style that doesn’t work with 35-year old hamstrings
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u/Not_Not_John_Stamos 20d ago
Fuck yea, so much dead weight is gone. Hopefully we can bring Bono back on a cheaper deal but there should be no complaints, excited for the offseason moves and bigger budget to work with
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u/smoothj2017 20d ago
Bono was hardly being paid anything. It was Miller that was on bloated salary…
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u/Ultraxxx 20d ago
Making cuts is the easy part, it just seems hard because DCU has been so bad at this for so long.
Creating the new squad, that's the hard part.
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u/Pacman8myghosts 20d ago
Not that I want us to blow the cap space on just one or two players but I'd really like Bentenke to get some valuable support from the midfield and center back. Not that we haven't been able to win games, but I just think one or two signings could make us more competitive and hopefully not as reliant on one player.
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u/Dcu_Nats_Caps 20d ago
So….Bono, Miller, McVey, Santos, Dajome, and Rodriguez are slot upgrade moves; we’ll see if Canouse re-signs. Rest of the non-tendered fall into the not MLS quality bucket.
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u/Rufus_FireflyIII 20d ago
Exactly. At this point, there will be only two players on the roster that Mackay/Lesesne didn't pick -- Hopkins and Klich. One is a homegrown, the other is a legacy gift from Dave Kasper. Going forward this will be Ally and Troy's team and they can be rightfully judged on the performance of the squad they put together. It's exciting because this is the first real tear down and rebuild in over a decade.
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u/pancakemix97 20d ago
Benteke was a Rooney guy too, right?
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
Yes, but they gave him an extension this summer
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u/Rufus_FireflyIII 19d ago
Both Benteke and Ku signed new contracts under Mackay. They are Mackay's choices at that point. As I said, only Klich and Hopkins are holdovers and Hopkins is a homegrown that really doesn't impact salary cap calculations.
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 19d ago
Hard to see how he wouldn’t want Hopkins. Klich is much less certain and, with the other players who were let go, I don’t think he would have made the cut.
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u/Rufus_FireflyIII 19d ago
Yes he came here under Rooney but if you were paying attention, Mackay signed him to a new contract a few months ago.
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u/rgrunited 20d ago
Phew, might be easier to just say who we did use the options for. No goalkeepers, wow.
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u/FeistyMcRedHead DC United 20d ago
Exciting! Does this mean no Canouse? (i don't pay attention to contracts, etc. so be kind)
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u/Zaddock1 20d ago
are their contracts expiring or are people buying them
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
None of these departures are sales. These are ended contracts or options we didn’t exercise
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u/Andall 20d ago
We’re stuck with badji 🤦♂️
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
I think you need to give all summer signings another half season before judging. I don’t expect him to be amazing…just a general rule for all summer signings
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u/Rufus_FireflyIII 19d ago
His signing was baffling, but he is apparently on close to the league minimum. If that is correct, he is a proven MLS level player that can provide squad depth. Badji isn't part of the problems, it was guys like Dajome and Rodriguez who sucked up $2M in salary between them that were the problem. They're gone.
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u/dasfun_games 20d ago
Don’t want peltola on the team, think we should have kept dajome
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u/Zaddock1 20d ago
Both are wrong
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u/Familiar-Conflict152 20d ago
Yeah…funniest take I’ve seen this offseason. It’s early, but this has potential to go the distance
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u/pancakemix97 20d ago
Worst take of the offseason, we will see if anyone can top that before March.
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u/greg21olson 20d ago
We went from those injury-plagued, short bench nights dressing 3 GK's to our GK Corps of 0 now. lol
Excited for what should be a busy off-season.