What's the current state of the Austin FC roster? And could it use a couple more U22s?

Perhaps Austin FC sporting director Rodolfo Borrell is done making moves in this winter transfer window.

But he might not be.

Consider what's dubbed as MLS' primary transfer window for the 2025 season closes on April 23. While that's later than any other league in the world, it's still , as of today, possible to get players from 24 other countries per Transfermarkt's list—including some South American and Central American nations where MLS teams (including Austin) have previously found players, as well as a few European outliers, including (which could be important for a reason we'll get to in a bit) Finland.

First, let's look at where things stand.

Where things stand

Thanks to (we are assuming) an obscure roster rule that allowed Matt Bersano to make more than the MLS senior minimum salary yet still get listed as a supplemental player in 2024, Diego Rubio is listed as a supplemental player on this year's roster.

That revelation — coming through MLS doing a roster info drop last week — means that Verde starts 2025 with the minimum required 18 players, but they have room to add two more senior players to hit the maximum of 20.

Of those, thanks to deals Austin made in the offseason plus Mikkel Desler acquiring his green card last month, one can be an international player, as Verde has eight of its nine currently taken up.

Verde has also opted for the three designated player and three U22 Initiative player roster building track for 2025 (as opposed to what it chose last year for reasons), and with Nicolás Dubersarsky (erroneously listed as a striker in MLS's most recent match report) as the team's only U22, Borrell could swoop in and get a pair of U22s to round out the roster as long as one has domestic status.

Even though this doesn't affect the roster per se, but rather is more of an indicator of where Verde is in relation to the salary cap, only two TAM players remain —meaning that the two in question, like designated players, hit the budget cap at the maximum player salary level of $743,750.

Here's who is at what position.

Forwards/wingers

Senior: Osman Bukari (DP), Jáder Obrian, Myrto Uzuni (DP), Brandon Vázquez (DP)

Supplemental: Micah Burton, Jimmy Farkarlun, CJ Fodrey, Diego Rubio

Midfielders

Senior: Nicolás Dubersarsky (U22), Dani Pereira, Besard Šabović, Ilie Sánchez

Supplemental: Owen Wolff

Defenders

Senior: Guilherme Biro, Julio Cascante (TAM), Mikkel Desler, Jon Gallagher, Brendan Hines-Ike, Oleksandr Svatok, Leo Väisänen (TAM)

Goalkeepers

Senior: Stefan Cleveland, Brad Stuver

Supplemental: Damian Las (on loan)

Is there one more outgoing player?

You could argue, at this point in Verde's evolution, that Borrell isn't saddled with any bad contracts. But you could also argue that Väisänen is the one bad contract on the team, as he's hitting the budget at the maximum salary level and has only made the bench in one of two matches — the game that Uzuni was held out for.

Barring additional injury, the matchday 20 that Austin FC deployed in Portland is the most likely matchday 20 going forward.

If Väisänen does go — either by April 23 or in the summer transfer window — he could either do so via contract buyout, as Austin's only used one of its two 2025 buyouts (on Gyasi Zardes, who was bought out even before 2025 officially started), or through some sort of dealmaking with another team, presumably in his native Finland, but maybe to Sweden (where the window is open until March 25) or Norway (where it's open until March 27).

Also, it's entirely possible that Borrell keeps him around until summer to weather any possible center back crises that could manifest – to make an outstanding dad joke here, you might argue there's Norway he leaves before summer. (Sorry; couldn't resist.)

It does look like Cascante, who came off in the first half of Saturday's loss at Portland, participated in training on Tuesday, which is a pretty quick bounce back from what initially looked to be (though no medical knowledge whatsoever) one of those arbitrary unspecified "three weeks!" types of injuries that plagued Arsenal a decade ago.

It doesn't really hurt Austin to keep Väisänen around in the interim, as he has shown himself to be a capable center back when healthy – although moving him frees both a senior roster spot and an international spot, and gives Borrell a chance to boast (perhaps by the end of the summer window) that he has secured two productive players on the same salary the club was paying just Väisänen.

Let's talk about U22s

The U22 Initiative is, on its face, a high-risk/high-reward player acquisition model. On its face, it's an amazing developmental program — a team can take a flyer on a young talent, only being charged $150,000 or $200,000 against the budget regardless of the salary it negotiates with that player (within the U22 guardrails, that is), and that player can theoretically flourish into a designated player-level talent for a fraction of the maximum salary budget charge that a DP would command.

For Austin FC, this hasn't quite worked out in the way the club presumably wanted.

Rodney Redes, the club's first-ever signing, played 48 regular-season matches for the club, with 10 starts, one goal, and one assist in that time. (Here's that goal in case you don't remember it; he also memorably scored one against New Mexico United in Open Cup play.)

Moussa Djitté, he of the playoff-clinching hat trick in 2022, didn't do much beyond that. Djitté only featured in 30 matches (12 starts), getting two goals and two assists in the 29 non-hat-trick matches.

Žan Kolmanič has been the best of the U22s, or at least the most stable, getting 72 games (47 starts) throughout his career, which included one season cut short with a knee injury surgically repaired in April 2023. He's yet to score a goal for Verde in regular-season action, though he does have nine assists, and he's aged out of the U22 ranks to become a senior roster player and rotational starter (at best).

Nicolás Dubersarsky so far looks like an appreciable addition to the ranks, and could turn out to be the best of Austin's U22s when we look back on this years from now, but the bar is low ... and we don't know which U22s might be yet coming.

No, I mean let's really talk about U22s

The excellent Arman Kafai just wrote about U22s, declaring, "If you hit on a U22, you will pay dividends," before pointing out, "The Galaxy hit on Dejan Joveljic and had virtually four DPs in its 2024 MLS Cup run. Diego Gomez was an absolute hit for Inter Miami and was able to be sold to Brighton for $15m."

But as he also says, "For every hit, there’s a miss. And for international U22s, there’s a boatload of misses." (And yes, he does bring up Redes among a few other duds.) And yet, he also quotes MLS' Matt Doyle who looked over the recent roster drops and assessed, "23ish of 55 non-injured U22 signings from overseas are starters," and "nine of 10 domestic U22s are starters," with the 10th being an on-the-bubble Chris Durkin with the Purina Gang of St. Louis.

"The Colorado Rapids have employed the most interesting of strategies when it comes to the rule," Kafai said of Verde's upcoming opponent. "They’ve signed one of their academy graduates (Cole Bassett) and then went and picked off two other U22 players from other rosters (that also happen to be academy players) in Josh Atencio and Ted Ku DiPietro. All the players have had experience in MLS, and have played minutes for their respective clubs."

He then charted a rough list of current U22 players, noting, "The Rapids’ three U22s have the most minutes played since 2021. Portland is second, and Houston is third, with domestic player Jack McGlynn making up slightly over half of the minutes."

Guess who's dead last on that list? Even lower than expansion club San Diego FC, who has only had two matches in its entire existence?

Ben Wright also just visited the topic for Backheeled, and he got delightfully wonky with it. A sample:

MLS clubs have spent over $212 million on transfer fees for a total of 122 U22 Initiative players. You can find that math here.[[1]]In all likelihood, that number is even higher given the occasional missing reported transfer fee. Additionally, clubs have spent $55 million on U22 salaries.

113 of those 122 players came from outside MLS, while the rest are homegrown players who have ‘graduated’ to U22 deals.

The average U22 Initiative player, then, is signed for a $1.9 million transfer fee and earns around $460,000 in guaranteed compensation per season. While U22 signings have a real benefit of only hitting the salary cap at a maximum of $200,000, the actual financial cost is quite sizable. 

He assessed that looking at the total sum of U22 players, their performances averages out to be nearly equivalent to the average MLS player. Looking at it from that perspective, having an average MLS player on the books for a Guilherme Biro or Brendan Hines-Ike salary is decent business. However, U22s also might require transfer fees and actual salary outlays that add up to be more than an average player spend. Ultimately, in Austin's case, it's Anthony Precourt's money, but we also know where Borrell stands on making wise spends and maximizing the budget that Precourt presumably gives him. (I don't think Borrell has carte blanche to spend, even in this winter window of considerable outlay.)

He also looks at a major reason that MLS teams are sold on the U22 concept: Profit. "Of the 59 U22 signings who have gone on to leave MLS, we’ve counted just nine who have definitively been sold for a profit. 12 were sold for a loss, while 13 were initially signed on loan and not purchased. Details on others are murky at best, so it’s certainly possible that the actual numbers are slightly more favorable. But even in the most optimistic reading, MLS clubs aren’t turning these U22 signings into many meaningful sales to Europe, and not in ways that consistently raise their profile and the profile of the league."

Yes, the Chicago Fire moved Jhon Durán to Aston Villa for $18 million just two years, but the Fire hasn't exactly made the wisest investments in players even when flush with cash – consider the Xherdan Shakiri debacle – and Durán now finds himself adjusting to life in the Saudi Pro League with Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nassr.

He then asserts, "In total, MLS clubs have earned $108,660,000 in outgoing transfer fees, just 51% of the total they’ve spent to acquire U22 players before even getting to salaries. Again, it’s likely that the transfer fee revenue figure isn’t quite high enough given the occasional missing reported transfer fee. Still, the general analysis holds."

He isn't completely sour on the idea of U22s, and argues that MLS is getting better at developing players and selling, even while granting that MLS can be a challenging league to acclimate to – especially when you're coming off 14 goals in 113 appearances for Club Guaraní before being scooped up by an MLS expansion team as a pandemic rages around the world[[2]].

What should Borrell do?

I'm still very much in the "Let Rodo Cook" camp. While it's too early to assess the most recent round of roster rebuild, especially given the recent concerns some might be having about scoring goals, the squad is better now than when Borrell inherited it, and it should get even better as Borrell works with the few remaining roster spots he has (for now) and as the squad continues to (or, arguably, begins to) gel under head coach Nico Estévez.

What this team needs is another question entirely. Could you argue for a true left winger to push Obrian for starter minutes and deploy Uzuni more centrally? Do you find a true attacking central midfielder and try that player in the middle of a 4-3-3, without really learning all that Šabović can do given time? Does the team need to get better at center back, despite being a lot better off than it was two years ago at that then-injury-blighted position.

Two matches into 2025, questions are swirling around many MLS teams, not just Austin FC. But Borrell still has a chance to do something about it in the next seven weeks. He has two senior roster spots, two U22 spots, and an international spot to use. He presumably has an eye on players. He has an owner willing to spend money. He just needs to now make a diagnosis and move.

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[[1]]: Which also has a reminder that Redes reportedly arrived with a $2.75 million transfer fee, which in retrospect, now seems absolutely absurd.

[[2]]: It's really hard to let the whole Redes episode go, especially for those of us who tracked down Guaraní matches in Verde's infancy.