Vancouver Whitecaps sign Córdova from Bundesliga's Augsburg
Sergio Córdova is indeed returning to Major League Soccer, though the Venezuelan international striker will now don a Vancouver Whitecaps FC kit. The Canadian club announced Monday they’ve acquired the 25-year-old from German Bundesliga side FC Augsburg, signing him to a Designated Player deal. To complete the deal, Vancouver sent Real Salt Lake their first-round pick in the 2024 MLS SuperDraft presented by adidas and up to $300,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM) after he spent the 2022 MLS campaign on loan at the Western Conference side from Augsburg. RSL looked to bring Córdova back, and while a deal wasn’t reached for him to rejoin Pablo Mastroeni’s side, they received compensation by holding the player’s MLS rights.
Toronto FC get Servania from FC Dallas for Jiménez
FC Dallas and Toronto FC have completed a player-swap trade five days before the 2023 MLS season begins. Homegrown midfielder Brandon Servania has gone from FC Dallas to Toronto FC, with striker Jesús Jiménez and a 2023 international roster spot going in the other direction. Toronto FC will retain a portion of Jiménez’s salary budget charge. For Toronto, Servania adds crucial midfield depth behind the club’s first-choice trio of Michael Bradley, Jonathan Osorio and Mark-Anthony Kaye. Jiménez, 29, posted nine goals and three assists in 33 regular-season games (27 starts) with Toronto last year. The Spanish forward joined in February 2022 after playing for Polish side Górnik Zabrze.
LA Galaxy sign USMNT winger Boyd
The LA Galaxy have signed winger Tyler Boyd after he was last under contract at Turkish Süper Lig side Beşiktas. The 28-year-old attacker penned a deal through the 2023 MLS season. Boyd helps replenish LA’s winger corps after, earlier this offseason, Samuel Grandsir was transferred to Ligue 2 leaders Le Havre and Kévin Cabral was traded to the Colorado Rapids. Douglas Costa and Efraín Álvarez are both back, while Memo Rodríguez joined this offseason as well.
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I woke up planning to write about the best moves of the offseason now that we’re close to the first game of the year and teams should be mostly done making moves, only to see that Toronto, Dallas, Vancouver and LA are still cramming for the test. With a few more offseason days left, we should probably concede that by the end of the week this list might be missing a few critical moves. Even still, we can go ahead and applaud some of our favorites so far and let you know which players in new places to keep an eye on. Especially the ones where we already know how the player will do in MLS. Your guess is as good as mine on the totally new guys.
Orlando didn’t necessarily do anything spectacular here by getting a long-time player to stay with a team that values him. What makes Pereyra’s return an excellent move for the Lions is that, in addition to returning their driving creative force to the attack, they were able to bring him back on a TAM deal. That signing cleared the way for them to add another DP, and, a short time later, they did exactly that by bringing in winger Martín Ojeda. It’s almost like a 2-for-1 deal for Orlando. And it just might make their attack one of the scariest in the league.
I still can’t believe this happened. I’m just not going to get over it. And I’m going to keep asking why other teams weren’t all over this. Did RSL just jump at the first offer? How did Herrera, a consistent presence among any list of top 10 and even top five fullbacks in this league, get sent from RSL to Montréal for just $500k GAM? Yeah, there was also an international slot and a draft pick thrown in there, but c’mon. Montréal pulled off one of the steals of the offseason here.
He mostly worked as a substitute, but Burke was straight-up outstanding last year for Philadelphia. In 1177 minutes of work, Burke averaged 0.83 goal contributions per 90 minutes while playing league-best-caliber defense for his position. That’s a ridiculous level of output and you should expect more of the same from him in New York. The Union weren’t quite Red Bulls-level in how they pressed their opponents, but the same hyper-direct attacking principles were there. Burke shouldn’t have to change up much to hit the ground running (and running) in New York.
Down here in Atlanta, I started yelling about Atlanta United needing to try and sign Etienne sometime in October. By the end of November, they had gotten the job done. Is it possible I’m shadow-running the team through my Twitter account? Maybe. Is it much more likely that Etienne was on their radar for a long time simply because the fit makes so much sense and it didn’t take more than a glance at the free agent list to pick him out as a prime target? Well, yeah, that too, but it’s way less fun for me. Look, the bottom line here is that Etienne is going to make runs in behind, a quality Atlanta United’s wingers haven’t utilized effectively since Tito Villalba. If he builds on the nine-goal, six-assist output he had in Columbus last year, he’s going to be a star in Atlanta.
I know exactly why Colorado made this move and I get it, but I have to imagine that after the Rapids agreed to take an ineffective DP contract off LA’s hands, the Galaxy front office put the phone on mute and celebrated in the office before telling everyone to calm down and then cooly replying “Ok, yep, that move is a tough one for us Colorado, but we’re willing to do it.” Cabral could definitely thrive in Colorado, but it just wasn’t happening in LA. For the Galaxy to get a free pass on a DP spot that seemed completely tied up is massive – even if they really should stop putting themselves in that position in the first place.
There wasn’t room on the roster to add a DP striker from abroad, so why not make a sensible move for a proven free agent like Zardes? Austin needed a striker and got the best one on the free-agent market. It’s just smart. More teams should make straightforward, smart moves.
More teams should also make moves based mostly on vibes. Escobar has won MLS Cup with every MLS team he’s played for. Good move from Houston here.
(He’s also a solid and versatile defender, but this is mostly about the vibes thing.)
They can keep getting away with it.
We’ll group them together simply because the Revs pulled off two low-risk, high-reward moves here. Blessing has shown the ability to be extremely effective in the right role and Romney started for and led one of the best defenses in the league for three years in Nashville. Both of these moves could pay off in big ways by fixing a couple of the Revs’ major issues from last year in midfield and central defense. If they don’t, no one is going to fault them for making the effort through the pair of budget-effective moves.
Philly’s starting center back pairing of Jakob Glesnes and Jack Elliot have missed like two games ever or something ridiculous. The entire team as a whole has been consistently healthy in a remarkable way considering how up and down Union games can be. That can’t last forever though. Probably.
Lowe was a starter for a playoff team last year and the Union didn’t have to offer much to get him in as a potentially critical depth piece during a year where they’re primed to make a deep CCL run.
And with two free agent moves (plus an additional transfer for Sigurd Rosted), Toronto FC may have fixed a large majority of their issues in central defense. Their starting XI, when healthy, is one of the best in the league on paper.
Real Salt Lake acquire midfielder Nyeman on loan: Real Salt Lake have acquired midfielder Moses Nyeman on loan from Belgian second-division side SK Beveren through the 2023 MLS season with a purchase option. Nyeman, 19, previously played for D.C. United from 2019-22 before joining Beveren last August. However, the US youth international hasn’t made a first-team appearance while in Europe.
- Robin Fraser said he sees "real change" for Black coaches in MLS.
- Five MLS players have teamed up to raise money for cancer patients and their families.
- St. Louis CITY SC have named Roman Bürki their inaugural captain.
- I picked out 12 must-see new jerseys for the 2023 MLS season.
Good luck out there. Be wary of experts.
