FC Dallas announced today that the club has exercised its purchase option for Ecuadorian midfielder Patrickson Delgado from Independiente del Valle of the Ecuadorian Serie A.

Delgado signed a three-year contract with a one-year club option. He will occupy an international slot on the roster, pending receipt of his P-1 Visa. 

In 2024, Delgado appeared in 23 matches and accumulated 1164 minutes played in MLS and scored four goals and assisted three. Delgado made the Team of the Matchday bench for Week 16. 

Delgado represented Ecuador at the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup hosted in Brazil. Delgado received his first senior national team call-up for Ecuador’s international friendlies versus Saudi Arabia and Japan in September, 2022. He received a callup to Ecuador’s men's national team Conmebol World Cup qualification matches versus Brazil and Peru for the September, 2024 FIFA window. 

BDS Take

The entire offseason, the idea that the club would re-sign Delgado went from 'it will likely happen' to nearly zero talk about it. Once we got into January, I had basically written off him returning to Dallas in 2025.

But, behind the scenes things were in the works. Transfers and purchases take time, so that is probably the main reason for the delay.

The big part of this news is seeing that he is not a U-22 player for the club, so the team will still have some flexibility there with their roster construction this year.

I'll be breaking down what this move (and others) mean in terms of the depth charts and roster build later this weekend as we get into the start of the preseason.