What we learned from Rodolfo Borrell's 84-minute press conference

When Austin FC sporting director Rodolfo Borrell holds court, he really holds court.

Breaking a record for the longest press conference in Austin FC history[[1]], Borrell answered questions for 84 minutes on Wednesday morning at St. David's Performance Center, providing context for what some Austin FC fans found to be a disappointing summer transfer window.

Let's go through the highlights, and by highlights, I mean the most salient roster nerdery revelations.

(There's much more to cover than we'll get to here, including reflections on Nico Estévez, Owen Wolff, and the role of the media ... anticipate that we'll spend some time on this on the next episode of Emergency Podcast.)

They did him a solid

Right off the bat, we found out what happened with Nicky Beloko, who came from Switzerland and went back to Switzerland in the same short window without playing a match.

"The player very, very politely and very well came at some point ... and told us that he understood that he had signed for us ... but made us aware of a family situation that just arose," Borrell explained. "When these things happen, I have to say that you don't always have to be taking into consideration these kind of things. I think you need to look at what is best for the team all the time. But, in this particular case, analyzing the depth that we had in the squad, we understood that we could work with him, and I did so. We found a solution, I think, a good solution for everybody, and that's it."

Then, after pointing out they were able to secure to sell-on fee as part of the deal to Laussane, he noted, "We are happy; we have enough in the team."

Not every window can be the summer of 2024

Last summer, Borrell brought in Osman Bukari, Mikkel Desler, and Oleksandr Svatok. This summer, Mateja Đorđević is the lone player acquired in the summer transfer window remaining with the team.

"I have the perception that if you don't make three [or] four moves every transfer window, it's like you're doing nothing. And in my eyes, it's completely opposite. I mean, there are always going to be moves, but you understand that before, from the moment that I bring the players that I bring, we are providing them with three-year contracts, four-year contracts. It's going to be at some point that there is no space unless somebody comes and buys one of those players. So it's not that you don't want [players]; sometimes there is not the space."

He then pointed out that even though Beloko didn't stay, that allows the team to go after another midfielder in future windows. (Perhaps even of the creative attacking type, though we didn't get specifics on who might be future Verde players, as Borrell tends to keep that information close while deals are being worked out.

Why there aren't more TAM players

Currently, Julio Cascante is Verde's only TAM player; without getting too much into roster rules, a TAM player is in the zone between the $743,750 maximum budget charge for a single player and the $1,743,750 ceiling — beyond that, and the player's in Designated Player territory. (Though, in Osman Bukari's case, he was at $1,000,000 in salary in 2024 but still considered a Designated Player when his transfer fee was figured into the equation.)

Speaking very generally, TAM players aren't the game changers that Designated Players need to be for an MLS club to succeed, but they provide a solid second tier of players who can contribute to the team's overall talent level — FC Cincinnati, for example, has a very TAM-heavy roster and they do quite well. To accommodate a TAM player on the roster, a club has to use Targeted Allocation Money (hence the TAM acronym) to buy down the salary to the maximum budget charge.

(Cascante, incidentally, is on $780,000 in base salary and $853,750 in guaranteed compensation in 2025, per the MLS Players Association's latest salary info drop. He's played 548 minutes this year. That's appreciably less than you want from a TAM player.[[2]])

"One of the biggest issues in squats is the hierarchy of salaries," Borrell said. "Many times, these create lots of issues in squads ... that you have players that are much better paid than others, and then the other one is earning half and is playing everything, but the other one is not playing and is earning double, or stuff like that. I found plenty of that when I landed here.

"So first of all, my intention was to develop a squad that would be able to have at least two players per position, that I think we don't have before. I think before when we were missing two [or] three players, we were like, we couldn't play because we had certain positions that were not double ... And then also, to start this, some sort of idea of a hierarchy of salaries ... while providing the squad with balance on the field, also provide balance in terms of salaries."

Then, he talked about how TAM and GAM (General Allocation Money, used for an array of purposes in MLS) work together, and how Verde's GAM situation has limited him.

"It's not that we have the capacity to bring like 10 million TAM players. Straight away. We will be able to bring one or two in the next transfer window, and then maybe one more. And little by little, some of the teams, I don't want to mention, there are teams with 12 TAM players, eight TAM players, seven TAM players ... That's another thing that I'm glad you asked me, because here, guys, we were eight, nine players on a free transfer, and we have no GAM. So imagine if I don't bring eight, nine players on a free transfer."

On Mexican players

A question about helping players from other countries acclimate got into a long and interesting answer that helped shed light on why Borrell's bringing in players from certain countries ... and why Mexico's not typically one of them. (And, perhaps, shedding a little light on the challenges of securing Brandon Vázquez from Monterrey.)

"It's like sometimes, Rodo, why, considering that there is such a big Mexican community, why you don't bring more Mexican players, for example," Borrell said, adopting the voice of someone asking him a question before getting into his own animated answer.

"Crazy expensive! It's crazy expensive, the tons of money that they are getting, contracts, and they are very expensive. So then it's not [just] Austin. It's like, look how many Mexicans are coming to the league, almost none. Why? Because they earn a lot of money. They pay, I don't know how many, but I think they pay very little taxes, very big contracts, transfers are huge, and that's why not.

"And this leads to a little bit to your question, the intramarket is the ideal one, the best one," he added, presumably referring to getting established players from within MLS. "There are people that are adapted or ready to the country, to the language, to absolutely everything. But people are not willing to let go their best players ... So yes, we would love it, and we are trying to sometimes, but I'm saying it's not easy. Why so many players from these countries and other countries? Because we need to look at the cost efficiency of things. Because this is a salary cap system. This is not pocket money. So, this is not about preference, about one country or another country. It's about that there are some markets that are inaccessible because the players are great."

On not replacing Vázquez

Vázquez's season-ending injury allowed the club to place him on the Season-Ending Injury List and replace him on the roster for the rest of the season. One clause in the MLS roster rules particularly intrigued those who pay attention to such things:

If the injured player placed on the Season-Ending Injury List is a Designated Player, the club may replace such player with a Designated Player, provided that his Salary Budget Charge is not more than the player he is replacing. The replacement player’s charge will not be charged against the Club Salary Budget.

But Borrell revealed that it's more involved than that, making the case for why he didn't act during the summer window to find a short-term replacement for the striker.

"The reality is, first of all, you can pull him out of the roster, but if he's going to appear at any point of the following season, he must be in the roster from January 1," Borrell explained. "That's the first thing. So, then you start thinking that you can only bring somebody who can play for six months. That six months, in reality, [is] three months ... then you start thinking just the teams that have an interesting center forward. Nobody gets rid of the center forward. So then you need to look at a player that is not playing for that team ... or that center forward right now has no team by the time that you agree your contract, by the time that you have the contract signed, by the time that you get the working visa, by the time that he lands here, and by the time they get much fit, the season is finished."

So, what about getting a replacement from within MLS? Borrell had an answer revealing his feelings on the absurdity of some MLS roster rules.

"Suddenly, rule number 1,110,000 — you cannot get any player on loan that is older than 24 years old. Even so, we tried to find what are the possibilities, and the possibilities that were available were not of our interest, or we didn't think were going to make any difference to us," he added. "We analyzed absolutely everything, and the conclusion at the end [was] that [it] was better to follow how we were," before observing that the team, under the coaching staff's guidance, has been able to score absent Vázquez or a short-term fill-in player.

[[1]]: That's per my memory of being around the club since before it was a club, and it includes the mid-afternoon press events in various nightclubs around town, including the Matthew McConaughey TED talk during the introduction of minority owners at 3TEN ACL Live (why not?) in August 2019.

[[2]]: Hence, why some now consider Cascante to be Austin FC's "one bad contract," and why some expect him to depart at the end of this season.

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