Complacency
Spending is up in MLS. Does New York City FC need a couple of big signings to keep pace?
There are immutable truths in life. One undeniable reality of our existence is that time moves forward and things change. For New York City Football Club, David Lee and the front office must hope that replacing Nick Cushing with Pascal Jansen as manager will be the necessary change to unlock the young (and very expensive) talent that largely sat on the bench last season.
Talles Magno, the young designated player (DP) whom the club acquired for a then-club record fee of $8 million in 2021, went from being an elite winger under Ronny Deila to an afterthought this past season under Cushing, playing only 68 minutes before being sent back home to Brazil on loan.
Jovan Mijatović, the U22 starlet who broke Magno’s transfer record with a fee that could exceed $10 million, went unprotected and unselected in the Expansion Draft after scoring zero goals in 271 regular-season minutes. He spent the offseason posturing on Serbian media, hitting a pedestrian with his car, and is now on loan in the top flight of Belgium, where he has yet to make an appearance.
Agustín Ojeda and Julián Fernández, heralded Argentine wingers on whom the club spent a combined eight figures, barely cracked the lineup in the last four months of the season, even after Malachi Jones’ horrific injury and Hannes Wolf’s production became akin to a soggy sponge.
It is easy to surmise that the Englishman’s mismanagement of Lee’s record player spending is a significant reason why he is no longer employed by City Football Group, despite being just two wins away from the MLS Cup.
In Lee’s preseason press conference last week, he immediately pointed to the desire for “improvement in the development of some of our young players” as a key factor in making the coaching change, describing Jansen's track record in youth development, which includes coaching elite talents like Tijjani Reijnders before his move to AC Milan, as “incredible.”
We have assembled a roster that has a lot of young talent, but also talent that we think can improve and develop. We wanted, also, to find somebody that had trust and faith in playing young players, wanted to develop young talent as part of a winning philosophy. And again, Pascal, the track record in young player development is incredible, is outstanding. In particular, AZ Alkmaar and the number of players that left AZ Alkmaar to play at the highest levels in Europe is something that was also really attractive for us….
…we want to win trophies. And we believe part of that strategy from our ownership and from everybody connected with New York City and City Football Group is to do that via developing young talent. The better players you can develop, the more chance you are of winning games of football. And so, you know, developing players is a core component for us.
But now, with the potential transfer of Santiago Rodriguez to Botafogo, the Pigeons may face the nightmare of losing the lynchpin of their offense just before the season opener against Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami. This would leave the club’s only other DP as Thiago Martins, a center back—an odd choice given the league-wide proclivity to fill those spots with elite attackers.
Even if Jansen can maximize Lee’s youth investment, MLS is undergoing significant changes and is in the midst of a spending revolution. New roster mechanisms, such as U22 slots and roster construction paths, have opened the floodgates for spending. Last month, on the American Soccer Analysis podcast, Matt Pfeffler, Director of Analytics for the Colorado Rapids, stated, “One of the things that as a MLS team that is challenging is the league’s getting better really fast. That’s a lot of what these mechanisms are doing is they’re pumping good soccer players into the league.”
This elevation of player quality across the league is crucial to understand. As the great Bronx economist Joseph Antonio Cartagena once said, “Yesterday’s price is not today’s price.” Complacency and the failure to improve the roster year after year seem like surefire paths to mediocrity in the current climate of MLS.
New York City, on the other hand, has not made significant moves outside of the SuperDraft and homegrown signings this offseason, despite gaps at left back and defensive midfield due to the departures of James Sands on loan to St. Pauli and Christian McFarlane to Manchester City. With a potential transfer of Santiago Rodriguez to Botafogo just a CL Merlo tweet away, the Pigeons face the dawn of the 2025 season with a roster that could be weaker than 2024.
During his preseason press conference last week, Lee stated that the club has three senior roster spots available. These signings should be substantial in both necessity—keeping pace with the rest of the league—and in terms of available resources. A Santi transfer would increase that number to four, and with the loans of Magno and Mijatovic, the club could have three prime roster spots available, filled by a combination of DP and U22 players. Sands’ Bundesliga move also means his over-million-dollar salary is now off the books, opening the room for another TAM-level player.
With a team-building strategy focused on youth and U22 players, even with CFG's investment in one of the best scouting networks in the world, signing young players remains inherently risky. They don’t accumulate enough professional minutes to generate reliable data points for confident analytical evaluation. Some players will succeed, while others will not. Thus, constructing your roster with a plurality of U22 players is imperative. Utilizing all available U22 roster spots not only enhances depth but also increases the likelihood that one of those signings will realize their high potential.
Simply put, the stakes are high right now for David Lee. The 2025 season will likely serve as a referendum on his stewardship of the club. It's his roster. It's his coach. Now Lee needs to complete the task with a few big signings on the top-end of the roster to keep New York City in line with the rest of the league, or he risks falling behind while the competition continues to improve. ❧
Image: Gustave Courbet, The Man Mad with Fear