FC Dallas announced today that goalkeeper Maarten Paes and midfielders Alan Velasco and Katlego "Tsiki" Ntsabeleng have obtained U.S. Green Cards, granting them permanent resident status in the United States.

With permanent resident status, Paes, Velasco and Ntsabeleng will no longer occupy international slots on the club’s roster.

Following the recent season-long loan of Jose Mulato to San Antonio, this puts the FC Dallas international roster slot count at five for the 2024 season, with Petar Musa, Patrickson Delgado, Eugene Ansah, Geovane Jesus and Asier Illarramendi occupying the slots.

Edit: Thanks to Jimbo in the comments for alerting us to Enes Sali, who also takes up an international slot. Sali is Canadian, so there is a slight possibility he could end up coming off the international slots soon.

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BDS Take

The club doesn’t have a ton of wiggle room in terms of roster space at the moment (unless they continue to loan out some younger players), but this could see them trade away one or two of those international slots for additional allocation money. The most recent trade in MLS involving an international roster slot saw CF Montreal gain $175k in GAM from Toronto FC. Nashville SC previously traded away five slots in the offseason to various clubs for $825k.

Will FC Dallas actually become a team that trades away these slots in a season? Maybe. I tried to Google when the last time FCD traded away an international slot and came up empty. We tend to see the club trade for these slots in most seasons. My gut tells me Andre Zanotta and Nico Estevez will keep at least one, if not two, of them on hand for the summer transfer window later this year.

But for now, it is a nice bargaining chip to have in their back pocket when discussing trades within MLS.