Nothing Eze about it: What the Eze Onuoha transfer report says about building Austin FC (and Austin FC II)
Eze Onuoha is a 17-year-old defensive midfielder from Finland who could be Austin FC's next signing. But will he first be a mainstay for Austin FC II? And given his reported transfer fee, is that smart roster building?
In the world of MLS transfer reportage — and indeed, in all of MLS — sometimes a random arrangement of words unfolds seemingly from Mad Libs, yet real life.
Take, for instance, the Thursday morning report from The Athletic’s Tom Bogert about a new player coming to Austin FC 17-year-old Finnish youth international defensive midfielder Eze Onuoha, currently playing for SJK Seinäjoki in Finland’s top-flight Veikkausliiga, possibly coming in on an Under 22 Initiative deal and joining the team in January.
Finnish outlet MTV Urheilun added to the intrigue by reporting that the transfer fee to bring Onuoha to Austin is more than €1 million (just more than $1.13 millon given the current euros-to-dollars exchange rate).
It’s a puzzling acquisition to be sure, especially at a time when the club has just 14 senior players and will be heading into the uncharted territory of 2027’s 14-match sprint season led by a new head coach regarded as one of the best in MLS — and all the expectations that come with that.
Assuming that the deal is real and imminent — usually the case with any signing that makes it to what we call the Bogert Official Stage — here are some educated guesses as to what it might mean.
Perhaps Dubersarsky won’t return
When Argentine U22 defensive midfielder Nicolás Dubersarsky was moved to Club Atlético Tigre in a loan move this summer, it made a certain sort of sense. It provided him opportunity to get more minutes in his home country and grow and develop there, after only getting 661 minutes with Verde in 2026.
It was also, quite possibly, a loan without a recall on the horizon, effectively a more muted way to say goodbye than through an outright transfer or a buyout.
If Onuoha really does come on board as a U22 player, and Austin FC stays on a three designated player and three U22 player roster build, it doesn’t make sense to have two of those three U22s at the same non-attacking position. It doesn’t even make sense if the club somehow shifts to a two DP/four U22 build.
Austin's current sole U22 is a center back, and distribution among positions isn't unusual if you have a full complement of U22s, but given the roster relief the U22 designation gives you, plus the leaguewide premium on attackers, it's advantageous for roster builds to incorporate attackers in at least some of those slots.
It seems, then, there's only room for one U22 d-mid. Dubersarsky is four years older than Onuoha, more seasoned, and presumably more MLS-ready now and when the sprint season starts. But perhaps Onuoha has a higher projected ceiling than Dubersarsky — that’d certainly be a thing to ask new sporting director Khaled El-Ahmad about should this be the first incoming player he delivers.
And perhaps it means, as we’ll get into in the next section, that Onuoha is a longer-term project — an investment into a future maybe three or four years away — and that there’s a play-him-now defensive midfielder in the works.
I perked up with news last week (from Bogert) that former Philly d-mid José Martínez, who was the linchpin of what Curtin’s best Union teams did, is training with FC Cincinnati. That probably means that he’ll end up signing with them, and given the Philly-Cincy coach and front office connections, they know what they have in Martínez even though he is coming off a knee injury. But what if Martínez wanted to reconnect with Curtin and Austin could swoop in late? It would be a gamble, but an intriguing one.
And if not him, certainly there’s another 6 in the works? Emi Martínez from Palmeiras was a persistent summer rumor, and that need hasn’t gone away, even if the rumor has receded to background.
Will Onuoha be VerDos?
If the club is really dropping more than €1 million on Onuoha, does it make sense for him to play for Austin FC II? As good as VerDos has been in MLS Next Pro, and as much as MLS Next Pro is improving its overall quality, it seems like it would be an expensive move for the club to make, especially if Onuoha doesn’t see first-team minutes for some time.
But Austin FC II isn’t most MLS Next Pro clubs, and because of how it has utilized — or rather, has not utilized its MLS Next Pro players — a big spend for a player on the second team seems more unusual to Verde fans than to others who have seen their teams operate differently.
American Soccer Analysis notes that Verde is dead last in MLS minutes played by MLS Next Pro players who have logged at least 750 minutes in that league. While Columbus Crew 2 players at that level have more than 50,000 MLS minutes logged, and Tacoma Defiance players are approaching 40,000, Austin FC II players with at least 750 VerDos minutes have less than 4,000 minutes with Verde — and that’s counting the recent run of appearances from Jorge Alastuey and Ervin Torres.
Save for those two, and longtime prospect Micah Burton, the club hasn’t brought in VerDos players who can consistently bridge to the first team, and in past eras, the club has brought in numerous players peaking at that MLS Next Pro level. The club has used Austin FC II as a waystation for players who aren’t measuring up to first-team standards and then move on elsewhere — most notably SuperDraft selection Kipp Keller, now playing with USL’s New Mexico United.
Contrast that with Charlotte FC’s approach to MLS Next Pro. This happened in February 2023.
Crown Legacy FC today announced the Club has signed midfielder Nikola Petković from Serbian top-flight club FK Čukarički.
The midfielder will occupy a Crown Legacy FC international roster slot on the Club’s 2023 roster.
Petković, 19, most recently debuted for the Serbian National team in a 2-1 victory over the United States National Team on January 25 in Los Angeles, CA. The defensive midfielder played 81 minutes during his first cap for Serbia.
“Nikola is a great example of how we are approaching MLS Next Pro strategically through alignment with the first team and long-term roster planning. The addition of Crown Legacy FC allows our club to target and sign a vast array of young, international talent that was not necessarily possible in years prior,” said Technical Director Bobby Belair. “Nikola is an elite talent who has debuted on the international stage who is known for his defensive prowess in the midfield but is equally adept as a distributor. We are grateful club ownership trusts in our long-term strategy to invest in young talent, both abroad and domestically, as we strive to develop into a top organization in North America.”
And then, this happened a year later, per the MLS website.
Charlotte FC have elevated midfielder Nikola Petković from their MLS Next Pro team, the club announced Thursday.
The 20-year-old Serbian international is under contract through the 2026 MLS season with an option for 2027, having previously impressed at affiliate side Crown Legacy FC. He holds a U22 Initiative roster spot.
"Nikola is an exciting player and rising international talent that we were able to bring into our system last season with Crown Legacy FC," general manager Zoran Krneta said in a release.
"He is a prime example of our strategic approach to MLS Next Pro. Identifying young, talented players and giving them the necessary time to adapt to our organization and life in Charlotte is a priority."
Oh, and there’s another tidbit from the story.
Petković reportedly joined Charlotte's organization for a $3 million transfer fee last year from Serbian top-flight side FK Čukarički. He proceeded to notch three goals and four assists in 13 matches as Crown Legacy topped the Eastern Conference.
Petković is currently on loan to the Sounders and so perhaps this move didn’t pan out, but it’s not unheard of for an MLS club to eye a prospect and decide developing that player within its system is better than giving that player minutes in other pro leagues.
It’s not the only time Charlotte’s done this, either. Baye Coulibaly is a Mali youth international who was signed to Crown Legacy and then elevated to CFC in September 2025, though he’s still playing with Crown Legacy as a U22 Initiative player for Charlotte. That deal keeps the now-20-year-old at Charlotte through 2028 with a 2029 option (deal signed before the schedule change, of course).
Teams can, of course, keep U22 players on U22 deals past their 22nd birthday (into the year they turn 25, which is wild), but they can also opt for a deal that lets them know if they have something or not.
Is this a KEA thing? Or a Philly thing?
One player is the smallest sample size there can be for judging a sporting director’s incoming players, and it’s possible that El-Ahmad’s making a low-hanging fruit move here before showing off the whole chess board over the next two windows — assuming that the switch to the fall-to-spring calendar empowers sporting directors to make their chips-all-in moves in the window in which more players on the world market are available.
If Austin FC does sign Onuoha, the €1 million price tag will be part of his lore, whether it’s really what the club paid or if it’s an agent or a troll putting that into the mix. (Austin FC, by the way, never reveals what it pays in transfer fees when announcing new signings, though Bogert is sometimes able to extract it in his reporting.)
If you’re going just by Onuoha's Transfermarkt value of $50,000 (though remember that those values are concocted by those running that site based in part on reported prior transfers and based in part on perceived pry-away-ability), it’s a jarring gulf between transfer fee and perceived value.
But as Verde All Day reader Justin Brisson[[1]] discovered when he had some time on his hands and delved into research, the Union made some prior plays for younger unproven players with modest-at-the-time market values. He wondered, with Union-turned-Verde strategist Dean Costalas presumably behind these moves, how past moves in the Onuoha mold performed.
Consider this list (and note that we’re converting euros to dollars per current rates):
Kai Wagner, signed in 2019 at age 21 from the German third division, for a $67.5k fee (at $310k market value; current market value is $3.38 million after peaking at $5.63 million in 2022)
Matej Oravec, signed in 2020 at age 21 from the Slovakian first division, for a $1.13M fee (at $507k market value; current market value is $113k)
Leon Flach, signed in 2021 at age 20 from the German second division, for a $282k fee (at $450k market value; current market value is $1.35 million after peaking at $4.5 million in 2023)
Jesús Bueno, signed in 2021 at age 22, from the Venezuelan first division (but for a really tragic team), for an unknown fee at $337k market value; current market value is $900k)
RIchard Odada, signed in 2022 at age 21 from the Serbian first division (specifically, Red Star Belgrade, where, incidentally, Osman Bukari has returned) for a $225k fee at $337k market value; current market value is $225k after peaking at $394k in 2023, but he also currently has a broken leg)
Sanders Ngabo, signed in 2024 at age 19 from the Danish first division, for a unknown fee at $225k market value; current market value is $900k, having returned to Denmark like Hamlet after his sojourn with the pirates, but then made a bigger move with a bigger transfer fee to Sweden's Häcken)
Olwethu Makhanya, signed in 2024 at age 19 from the South African first division, for a $501k fee at $507k market value; current market value is more than $9 million, having moved to Rangers for close to $4 million, though MLS reported that may have been closer to $4.5 million.
So, from this group, they have Wagner, who is a three-time MLS All-Star (and went to Europe but boomeranged back); Bueno, who has been a solid rotational starter; Flach, who served the Union well as a four-year starter; and Makhanya, who netted a Owen Wolff/Dani Pereira level transfer fee haul, but going outside of the league to a destination that could net further sell-on fees should those exist.
The hit rate on those moves isn’t 100%, though only Oravec (for a fee equivalent to Onuoha per the rumor) appears to have flamed out entirely.
I don’t anticipate that Austin FC, even with the track record of those newly involved in player acquisition, will have a hit rate of 100% on player acquisitions — in soccer, a range of transfer fees and salaries need a range of performances that doesn’t neatly correlate to how much the club spent.
If this Onuoha move does cross the finish line, it will be a piece in a newly-assembling puzzle around how the club, in this new era it’s entering, will scout, pursue, and develop players. How Onuoha arrives and progresses will be a chapter in the book the club’s writing, but not the whole book. It will take multiple windows and patience and perspective to fully understand it and judge it.
For now, during a deserved international break (following a random Thursday match involving now-7th-place Seattle and now-11th-place RSL[[2]]), it’s a piece of transfer news to ponder, and a clue to what else might be coming.
[[1]]: That's what Justin wanted for his title; big hat tip for identifying that way!
[[2]]: The playoff line is now with the 9th place Galaxy at 36, though it's played one more match than the teams below and some of those teams can get up to 35 with a next win.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
Also, we're fully in the 21st century now; join us on Instagram to get updates on all our stories and podcast releases.
Austin FC's possession numbers and xG values haven't been sterling in 2026. But the changes made under Davy Arnaud are perceptible and bearing out in the numbers, per one analyst.
Austin FC announced that it will be playing the 2027 Coachella Valley Invitational — its fourth straight appearance at the tournament. Here's what we learned about that, and by extension, the sprint season.
Resiliency is the word of the day, as Austin FC rallied from a three-goal deficit to draw San Diego FC and stay in the playoff race. Despite an eight-match unbeaten streak, the postseason could hinge on beating MLS' best team.
Austin FC had a lockdown defense in the first half, was a sieve in the 28 minutes following, and somehow mounted a three-goal comeback to stretch its now-club-record unbeaten streak.
In the world of MLS transfer reportage — and indeed, in all of MLS — sometimes a random arrangement of words unfolds seemingly from Mad Libs, yet real life.
Take, for instance, the Thursday morning report from The Athletic’s Tom Bogert about a new player coming to Austin FC 17-year-old Finnish youth international defensive midfielder Eze Onuoha, currently playing for SJK Seinäjoki in Finland’s top-flight Veikkausliiga, possibly coming in on an Under 22 Initiative deal and joining the team in January.
Finnish outlet MTV Urheilun added to the intrigue by reporting that the transfer fee to bring Onuoha to Austin is more than €1 million (just more than $1.13 millon given the current euros-to-dollars exchange rate).
It’s a puzzling acquisition to be sure, especially at a time when the club has just 14 senior players and will be heading into the uncharted territory of 2027’s 14-match sprint season led by a new head coach regarded as one of the best in MLS — and all the expectations that come with that.
Assuming that the deal is real and imminent — usually the case with any signing that makes it to what we call the Bogert Official Stage — here are some educated guesses as to what it might mean.
Perhaps Dubersarsky won’t return
When Argentine U22 defensive midfielder Nicolás Dubersarsky was moved to Club Atlético Tigre in a loan move this summer, it made a certain sort of sense. It provided him opportunity to get more minutes in his home country and grow and develop there, after only getting 661 minutes with Verde in 2026.
It was also, quite possibly, a loan without a recall on the horizon, effectively a more muted way to say goodbye than through an outright transfer or a buyout.
If Onuoha really does come on board as a U22 player, and Austin FC stays on a three designated player and three U22 player roster build, it doesn’t make sense to have two of those three U22s at the same non-attacking position. It doesn’t even make sense if the club somehow shifts to a two DP/four U22 build.
Austin's current sole U22 is a center back, and distribution among positions isn't unusual if you have a full complement of U22s, but given the roster relief the U22 designation gives you, plus the leaguewide premium on attackers, it's advantageous for roster builds to incorporate attackers in at least some of those slots.
It seems, then, there's only room for one U22 d-mid. Dubersarsky is four years older than Onuoha, more seasoned, and presumably more MLS-ready now and when the sprint season starts. But perhaps Onuoha has a higher projected ceiling than Dubersarsky — that’d certainly be a thing to ask new sporting director Khaled El-Ahmad about should this be the first incoming player he delivers.
And perhaps it means, as we’ll get into in the next section, that Onuoha is a longer-term project — an investment into a future maybe three or four years away — and that there’s a play-him-now defensive midfielder in the works.
I perked up with news last week (from Bogert) that former Philly d-mid José Martínez, who was the linchpin of what Curtin’s best Union teams did, is training with FC Cincinnati. That probably means that he’ll end up signing with them, and given the Philly-Cincy coach and front office connections, they know what they have in Martínez even though he is coming off a knee injury. But what if Martínez wanted to reconnect with Curtin and Austin could swoop in late? It would be a gamble, but an intriguing one.
And if not him, certainly there’s another 6 in the works? Emi Martínez from Palmeiras was a persistent summer rumor, and that need hasn’t gone away, even if the rumor has receded to background.
Will Onuoha be VerDos?
If the club is really dropping more than €1 million on Onuoha, does it make sense for him to play for Austin FC II? As good as VerDos has been in MLS Next Pro, and as much as MLS Next Pro is improving its overall quality, it seems like it would be an expensive move for the club to make, especially if Onuoha doesn’t see first-team minutes for some time.
But Austin FC II isn’t most MLS Next Pro clubs, and because of how it has utilized — or rather, has not utilized its MLS Next Pro players — a big spend for a player on the second team seems more unusual to Verde fans than to others who have seen their teams operate differently.
American Soccer Analysis notes that Verde is dead last in MLS minutes played by MLS Next Pro players who have logged at least 750 minutes in that league. While Columbus Crew 2 players at that level have more than 50,000 MLS minutes logged, and Tacoma Defiance players are approaching 40,000, Austin FC II players with at least 750 VerDos minutes have less than 4,000 minutes with Verde — and that’s counting the recent run of appearances from Jorge Alastuey and Ervin Torres.
Save for those two, and longtime prospect Micah Burton, the club hasn’t brought in VerDos players who can consistently bridge to the first team, and in past eras, the club has brought in numerous players peaking at that MLS Next Pro level. The club has used Austin FC II as a waystation for players who aren’t measuring up to first-team standards and then move on elsewhere — most notably SuperDraft selection Kipp Keller, now playing with USL’s New Mexico United.
Contrast that with Charlotte FC’s approach to MLS Next Pro. This happened in February 2023.
Crown Legacy FC today announced the Club has signed midfielder Nikola Petković from Serbian top-flight club FK Čukarički.
The midfielder will occupy a Crown Legacy FC international roster slot on the Club’s 2023 roster.
Petković, 19, most recently debuted for the Serbian National team in a 2-1 victory over the United States National Team on January 25 in Los Angeles, CA. The defensive midfielder played 81 minutes during his first cap for Serbia.
“Nikola is a great example of how we are approaching MLS Next Pro strategically through alignment with the first team and long-term roster planning. The addition of Crown Legacy FC allows our club to target and sign a vast array of young, international talent that was not necessarily possible in years prior,” said Technical Director Bobby Belair. “Nikola is an elite talent who has debuted on the international stage who is known for his defensive prowess in the midfield but is equally adept as a distributor. We are grateful club ownership trusts in our long-term strategy to invest in young talent, both abroad and domestically, as we strive to develop into a top organization in North America.”
And then, this happened a year later, per the MLS website.
Oh, and there’s another tidbit from the story.
Petković is currently on loan to the Sounders and so perhaps this move didn’t pan out, but it’s not unheard of for an MLS club to eye a prospect and decide developing that player within its system is better than giving that player minutes in other pro leagues.
It’s not the only time Charlotte’s done this, either. Baye Coulibaly is a Mali youth international who was signed to Crown Legacy and then elevated to CFC in September 2025, though he’s still playing with Crown Legacy as a U22 Initiative player for Charlotte. That deal keeps the now-20-year-old at Charlotte through 2028 with a 2029 option (deal signed before the schedule change, of course).
Teams can, of course, keep U22 players on U22 deals past their 22nd birthday (into the year they turn 25, which is wild), but they can also opt for a deal that lets them know if they have something or not.
Is this a KEA thing? Or a Philly thing?
One player is the smallest sample size there can be for judging a sporting director’s incoming players, and it’s possible that El-Ahmad’s making a low-hanging fruit move here before showing off the whole chess board over the next two windows — assuming that the switch to the fall-to-spring calendar empowers sporting directors to make their chips-all-in moves in the window in which more players on the world market are available.
If Austin FC does sign Onuoha, the €1 million price tag will be part of his lore, whether it’s really what the club paid or if it’s an agent or a troll putting that into the mix. (Austin FC, by the way, never reveals what it pays in transfer fees when announcing new signings, though Bogert is sometimes able to extract it in his reporting.)
If you’re going just by Onuoha's Transfermarkt value of $50,000 (though remember that those values are concocted by those running that site based in part on reported prior transfers and based in part on perceived pry-away-ability), it’s a jarring gulf between transfer fee and perceived value.
But as Verde All Day reader Justin Brisson[[1]] discovered when he had some time on his hands and delved into research, the Union made some prior plays for younger unproven players with modest-at-the-time market values. He wondered, with Union-turned-Verde strategist Dean Costalas presumably behind these moves, how past moves in the Onuoha mold performed.
Consider this list (and note that we’re converting euros to dollars per current rates):
So, from this group, they have Wagner, who is a three-time MLS All-Star (and went to Europe but boomeranged back); Bueno, who has been a solid rotational starter; Flach, who served the Union well as a four-year starter; and Makhanya, who netted a Owen Wolff/Dani Pereira level transfer fee haul, but going outside of the league to a destination that could net further sell-on fees should those exist.
The hit rate on those moves isn’t 100%, though only Oravec (for a fee equivalent to Onuoha per the rumor) appears to have flamed out entirely.
I don’t anticipate that Austin FC, even with the track record of those newly involved in player acquisition, will have a hit rate of 100% on player acquisitions — in soccer, a range of transfer fees and salaries need a range of performances that doesn’t neatly correlate to how much the club spent.
If this Onuoha move does cross the finish line, it will be a piece in a newly-assembling puzzle around how the club, in this new era it’s entering, will scout, pursue, and develop players. How Onuoha arrives and progresses will be a chapter in the book the club’s writing, but not the whole book. It will take multiple windows and patience and perspective to fully understand it and judge it.
For now, during a deserved international break (following a random Thursday match involving now-7th-place Seattle and now-11th-place RSL[[2]]), it’s a piece of transfer news to ponder, and a clue to what else might be coming.
[[1]]: That's what Justin wanted for his title; big hat tip for identifying that way!
[[2]]: The playoff line is now with the 9th place Galaxy at 36, though it's played one more match than the teams below and some of those teams can get up to 35 with a next win.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
Also, we're fully in the 21st century now; join us on Instagram to get updates on all our stories and podcast releases.
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