Now that we’re deep into the offseason and Eric Quill is the manager of FC Dallas. It feels like we are at a good place to do our annual roster building series.

For the last ten years, maybe more, I’ve been doing an offseason roster-building exercise where I break down the FC Dallas roster. I discuss the money spent on the group, raise some questions or concerns, and then wrap up where I think they’re heading into the new year.

Today, we’ll begin with the defensive portion of the roster. This includes the goalkeepers and any defender that is listed on the FC Dallas roster.

Background information

For starters, I like to point out that the salary cap, for the 2024 season was at $5.7 million and will be moving up to $5,950,000 in 2025.

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MLS teams can buy down a player's salary with allocation, either of the general or targeted variety. Those ‘Garber Bucks’, as some like to call them, help bring a player's salary cap hit down.

Typically, returning players see an increase in their salary each year unless it has been agreed with the club that they make less, as in the club and player worked out a deal.

Current status and questions

As we get started, we know from the end-of-the-season press conference that FC Dallas wants to rebuild the defense for the 2025 season. While some of this is probably premature to discuss without knowing some of the transfer or trade targets, it is worth putting down some of the lingering questions about this group.