FC Dallas is in pursuit of a new Designated Player and striker, for that matter, ahead of the 2024 season.

Earlier this week, it was floated that FC Dallas was in the running for Belgian striker Divock Origi, who is currently on loan with Nottingham Forest from AC Milan. Origi likely wanted too much money, and that deal appears to be dead.

The Athletic’s Tom Bogert is now reporting that FCD is in talks with Benfica over a potential deal to sign Croatia international striker Petar Musa.

Musa would be a designated player if Dallas gets the deal over the line. The talks are in the region of a potential new club-record fee, which currently stands at $7 million in the deal to sign Alan Velasco in 2022. No deal is imminent as European teams chase Musa as well and he’s considering his options.

Musa has been productive since joining Benfica. He has 17 goals and five assists in 1,930 minutes, spread across 64 appearances in 18 months.

Bogert also reported that Musa is being shopped around Europe as well. So, nothing is truly official yet.

The MLS transfer window opens up at the end of the month, setting up a wild couple of days, with the European window closing that next day on February 1.

BDS Take

Yeah, why not?

Adding a DP center forward is ideal for this team that struggled to score goals in 2023. This would allow Jesus Ferreira to have someone to play off of, which I believe he is far better when he has a running mate like this (think back to those days with Ricardo Pepi).

I also love the idea that they are actually going to spend more than what they did on Alan Velasco, too. The moves they made this winter have been pretty average, to say the least. They’ve brought in a lot of young players with limited MLS experience and then some veteran players who are going to be very salary-cap-friendly in 2024.

So, they needed to spend big, at least somewhere.

We are still waiting for the news of what the club will do with Jesus Jimenez and Jose Mulato, two players who are not in the preseason camp. The club had told me on Thursday that they hoped to have official news released yesterday but that some things were still very much up in the air. After all, any player move does require the league’s sign-off in the end, too.

Also, adding Musa would mean they have sorted out the DP status of Paul Arriola, too, likely buying him down with some allocation money below the DP salary cap limit.