The Ferreira move is interesting. He was about to enter the final guaranteed year of his young-DP contract (with a club option for the next one). .............but Musa had a really good first season, and Farrington had a good season backing him up, while Ferreira was out with injury. So Ferreira was sorta surplus to requirements while collecting a huge salary. ..................trading him, freeing up the cap room/DP spot, and investing in a different part of the team, may ultimately make the team better. [A reminder that FCD accepted a transfer offer for Ferreira from Spartak Moscow LAST YEAR.] If you're Seattle, you just acquired a 23-year-old proven MLS-level goalscorer. Its not every day you see that type of player traded in MLS. We'll see what the price was. It does sorta remind me of the Kellyn Acosta trade. Kellyn needed a change of scenery to get back on track. LAFC later won MLS Cup and a Supporter's Shield with Acosta playing an important role. Good domestic players don't grow on trees. By the way, Kellyn Acosta hasn't yet turned 30 and has played over 300 MLS regular season games. MLS lifers are in the league for a life for a reason. Dax McCarty and guys like that. They have lots of value. Seattle doesn't care that Jesus Ferreira isn't La Liga quality. They want to know if he can perform at a high level in MLS. That's already been answered. But anyway, there are major changes afoot with FCD. Insider types have been warning of that. They left a lot of guys dangling in the expansion draft too. Like California natives Paul Arriola and Sebastian Lletget. We'll see if San Diego bites. Also Boca Juniors has reportedly made an offer for Alan Valasco. So far FCD has managed to fend of those offers.
They wouldn’t be the best in terms of USMNT prospects but if I was San Diego, besides DeJuan Jones who is arguably the most valuable player on the draft list, I would select old MLS reliables if I was a new MLS club. For example, Wil Trapp (or Yuiell, Canouse or Ilie), Paul Arriola (or Gressel), and then probably Ben Bender (or Maher) who I think has a lot of upside. Oh, and Nico Gioacchini who has talent but hasn’t really cashed in yet.
I suspect that San Diego will do what most MLS teams do ... which is avoid anyone with a larger salary. That leaves out Arriola and Gressel and most of those center mids. The cap is too unforgiving to be grabbing those guys.
Those are mostly attempted salary dumps by those clubs. Even Jones. If I'm San Diego and I bite on one of them, it would be San Diego native Paul Arriola. He's only 29 years old, by the way. People act like he's 35. Ben Bender is a weird one. Charlotte triggered their option for 2025 and then exposed him to the draft. Just a numbers game. If I'm San Diego, he's 100% a guy I roll the dice on.
Arriola is 29 and makes $1.5MM. Seems like a lot for a player who had 5G and 2A last season and 3G and 4 A the season before.
Arriola is a strong a two-way player. Per mlssoccer, he has 7G11A over the past 2 seasons. Still, an MLS attacker needs to produce more on those wages.
He also played wingback on both sides and right back (and that affected his offensive stats). Guess it depends on what you're looking for and a Swiss army knife that can play any outside spot on either side is very valuable to some managers.
With FCD, he has 15 goals and 10 primary assists in 66 starts in attacking positions. That's not really good for the wages. But FCD thinks his versatility is worth it, then good for them.
A Swiss army knife isn't a $2.2 million salary player. I think we get what happened here. I'm convinced that the plan all along was for Ferreira to not even be at the club in 2024. The plan was to sell him last January. That deal to Spartak Moscow fell apart very late in the January 2024 window. FCD had agreed to the sale. Ferreira had agreed to go. Thinking they had that sale in place, they went out and bought Petar Musa in that window from Benfica. So then they ended up with both Musa and Ferreira. But they still thought Ferreira would be out the door, so they traded up in the draft to grab Farrington #3 overall. Then Ferreira got hurt and was basically not sellable in the summer either. But anyway, now it seems like Dallas is going to try to move him one way or another. Maybe they're willing to pay part of his salary if it's a move within MLS.
The Crew traded San Diego two international slots at a cut rate, the assumption is that they bought protection for their players.
I think Dallas would be better served keeping Jesus and playing 2 up top. It’s easier to find a couple of wingbacks than another striker as good as Ferreira. They can move him after he plays well for half a season.
What if they don't have faith that Ferreira will actually play well for half a season given that he had 5 goals last season alongside Musa who had 17?
We were saying this on some thread somewhere: With Musa, Farrington, and Ferreira............Dallas likely had one of the best groups of three center forwards (if not the best) in the league. Heck, Bernard Kamungo would have been fourth on that depth chart. He has a USMNT cap. But he couldn't get on the field as a forward, so they moved him around everywhere. Ferreira and Musa are both DPs. They paid 13 million for Petar Musa at the start of last season. A club record. He's a DP. Ferreira was a "young" DP. If they're really happy with Farrington and want to invest in him, then it does kind of make sense for them to sell/deal one of Ferreira/Musa. Reinvest in a different part of the squad. And the rest of the squad needs a heck of a lot of help. Just about the only positions an FCD fan can be happy with are goalkeeper, maybe Velasco (still has a lot to prove), and center forward. Maybe Tafari? Maybe? But I don't think Tafari is a starting CB on a real MLS Cup contender. In his introductory press conference, Eric Quill and Dallas leadership kind of implied a return to FCDs academy and player development roots. And Dallas did have the best MLSNP team this year. by some real margin. Best regular season and then won the title. Their U19s and U17s had good seasons. From a USMNT fan's perspective, FCD getting back to being a player development powerhouse can only be a good thing. Developing draft-pick Farrington into a player of USMNT interest would be a great place to start. Developing US U20 captain Nolan Norris would also be a great project. [What I'm saying in a long-winded way over a bunch of posts is that I'm down with selling/trading Ferreira. Forward depth chart can be Musa, Farrington, Kamungo next season. Can sign Brazilian forward/winger Pedrinho from North Texas as further depth. Son of former Brazilian international Beto.]
They should know he was hurt all season and unless it’s something career changing, he’s probably going to be better this year.
As we talked about earlier in the thread, he was sold LAST January. So, they've basically been divorced and living in the same house for a year.
I agree Ferreira will be better but not sure we can characterize him as "hurt all season" when he played in 22 MLS regular season games. In any case if there are other issues between FCD and Ferreira it's probably best for both sides to just move on now instead of trying to increase his value.
He was hurt in a pre-season game January 22 and returned to play 30 minutes on March 2nd, missed a month, missed from March 16 to April 27th. Then he missed from June 22nd to August 24. That’s three different absences over a month. That is hurt all season in my book. He was either out injured or building fitness from start to finish.
I guess if I was Ferreira I’d be a little confused why Dallas bought a DP for my spot when I scored 30 goals the previous two seasons. Why not spend elsewhere to improve the team?
Cuz they'd sold him to Spartak Moscow................... That deal collapsed late in the last January window. While in the process of selling him, they bought Musa from Benfica as a replacement. Honestly, it all did make sense.at the time. [FCD scored more goals than the Sounders in 2024. Their problem wasn't scoring goals, even without Ferreira. Their problem was conceding goals. Heck, they were rolling out the ghost of Omar Gonzalez at times.]
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Also, Ferreira wanted Europe so they tried to make it happen. I had the timing wrong, I thought they bought Musa after Russia fell through. Even in that case, the writing was on the wall so I get it.
Either Tommy Scoops or one of the Sounders podcast people made a great point about JF. He gets to come to a proven winning side and be immediately exposed to the entire world in both Concacaf Champions League (after the first round we likely play Cruz Azul and then Club America would be after that more than likely) AND Club World Cup this year. If he bets on himself and takes the extended contract (that's a yoy paycut but possibly more overall) and gets that last push he needs with a strong performance in a new environment, he absolutely can get back on radars and go to Europe if he wants. There is likely also chemistry with Jordan and CRoldan from US camps as well which helps. Seattle is usually pretty good about letting players go, Jordan was 100% expected to be gone after the Swansea deal but his ACL decided that it liked Seattle better, there have been other fringe players that have been in our academies for years that we let go in search of more playing time, Obed is basically being allowed to go when a good offer comes next summer, etc. The only downside i see is having to deal with Seattle being QSMNT twitter's most hated team now. PA also gets some of those benefits (he's older and I'm surprised SD didn't jump on him) but the addition of those two will likely morph us into more of a 3-5-2 team with a bunch of elite work rate/pressing guys up front and a top 3 in the league backline. Neither are the big sexy 10m winger signing we were hoping for (and that still might be coming too, we do have a ton of matches next year), but they absolutely don't make us worse.