The week is coming closer to a close, but man it has been a wild one in Major League Soccer following the start of the ‘true offseason’ on Monday with the league’s half-day trade window.

There has been a lot to get into from this week, so let’s start with last night’s Expansion Draft.

🟠⚫️San Diego takes five in Expansion Draft

Could the Expansion Draft just been an email? Yeah, I absolutely think it could.

Still, San Diego selected their five last night. Then, they traded two of them away.

The Josie Kijima pick was previously reported by Steven Goff, as he let folks know that there was a pre-draft deal between the clubs for San Diego to select the former St. Louis CITY defender and then trade him to D.C. United for a slew of GAM.

The other trade, involving Thiago Andrade is an intriguing one to say the least. He is currently on loan at Shenzhen Peng City FC in the Chinese Super League and was a pick that no one saw coming, not even those who cover NYCFC closely.

San Diego was also busy with other moves ahead of the draft. They acquired CJ dos Santos from Inter Miami, they got defender Chris McVey from D.C. United, Tomas Angel from LAFC, and an international roster slot from Columbus and two from Seattle. They could also get Andres Reyes from New York.

💵 Could cash be an asset for MLS teams moving forward?

Tommy Scoops has been busy this week, hasn’t he? Between the trade window on Monday and last night’s Expansion Draft, he snuck this nugget in as the league is looking at add some additional ways to do some trades.

Sources: There have been serious discussions about adding a cash-based internal MLS trade market & it could come to a vote this week when the MLS Board of Governors meets. If passed, teams would be able to offer transfer fees to acquire in-league players www.givemesport.com/mls-discussi...

— Tom Bogert (@tombogert.bsky.social) 2024-12-10T02:05:57.507Z

The last line is fairly key there in the post from Tom. Teams could potentially offer transfer fees to acquire players from within MLS. This is another element to put MLS more in line with other leagues in the world. It doesn’t mean the salary cap is going away or changing (Garber confirmed that last week in LA).

Free agency, Re-Entry and Waivers oh my!

What is next in the offseason? A lot. Free agency is under way, the Waiver Draft is today, up tomorrow is the first round of the Re-Entry Draft.

I discussed some options for FC Dallas earlier this week in these mechanisms. Ben Wright had a ranked list of free agents to dive into, while MLSSoccer.com’s Matt Doyle gives you a nice positional breakdown of players available.

Other odds and ends:

  • Red Bull Arena is no more. Somehow, Sports Illustrated is now the naming rights sponsor of the New Jersey stadium.
  • The bracket is all set now for next year’s Concacaf Champions Cup. It’s a meh bracket for the MLS teams. I don’t love seeing two MLS teams square off in the first round, but when ten of the 27 teams are from MLS, it is bound to happen.
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