Out: Keaton Parks, Ebenezer Ofori, Ben “You can’t follow or see @22BenSweat’s Tweets” Sweat, and some other players you definitely don’t remember.

You’ve got to hand it to NYCFC’s new sporting director David Lee: the guy’s set himself up for success here. For a lot of young sports execs, making the leap from XO to HMFIC means taking a move to some club mired deep in Trust the Process mode. Not so for Lee, who ran point on Claudio Reyna’s personnel decisions the last few years and now inherits what he calls “the strongest roster of players we’ve ever had.”

If only they had a coach. Barring some winter sales, NYCFC’s opening day eighteen looks just about set, which makes it all the more important to give whoever’s going to replace Dome Torrent time to size things up and make a few signings of his own. Whether or not those moves involve much money, they could help shape next season’s tactics and determine whether this team will have the depth to juggle CCL and MLS next spring.

Here are the offseason’s three biggest questions:

1. What will the midfield look like?

NYCFC’s only year-end starter not currently under contract for 2020 is Keaton Parks, who for now is slated to head back to Benfica at the end of his loan. With Ebenezer Ofori gone too, the next coach will have some wiggle room in midfield.

Will he look for a Parks-style passer to pair with Alex Ring? Parks’ pass success last season wasn’t much better than ASA’s passing model expected, but his 5.2 progressive passes per game (85th percentile for center mids) helped NYCFC break lines in the buildup. He also had a knack for getting upfield, contributing a startling 0.26 non-penalty expected goals plus expected assists per 96 minutes from a nominally defensive mid slot. The team will need to recapture that offense somewhere, and it ain’t gonna come from Tony Rocha.

What about a classic 6-8-10 triangle with a Yangel Herrera type between Alex Ring and Maxi Moralez? It’s tough to find that blend of ball skills and pressing motor on a budget, but a hard-tackling center mid could help if nobody can figure out how to translate “defensive action” into Alexandru Mitriţǎ’s native Romanian (2nd percentile among wingers). Maybe that guy looks like Justin Haak or, um… does Juan Pablo Torres still exist?

Or how about returning James Sands to midfield? This is probably the most versatile look, since Sands can drop between the center backs when the situation calls for it and Ring is all too happy to go box-to-box. Ring could face some creative strain if Sands doesn’t step up his 1.4 progressive passes per game, but there’s no reason to think the teenager can’t be a more assertive distributor in midfield than he was on the back line.

The other unknown is who will back up Maxi Moralez, NYCFC’s soon-to-be-33-year-old playmaker. Mitri might be able to fill in at attacking mid in a pinch, but the club pretty clearly needs some depth there—just ask Columbus what can happen when your irreplaceable Argentine No. 10 takes a tumble down the aging curve.

2. Who will be sold?

Valentín Castellanos should have plenty of suitors after a breakout season that saw him top Diego Rossi in open play goals plus assists per 96 minutes then go off and score a hat trick in his debut for the Argentina U-23s (okay, it was against the Canary Islands, but still). As good as Taty’s becoming, his generous G-xG suggests now might be a good time to sell high on a young striker who wants—and deserves—a shot at Europe.

Jesús Medina’s per-96 numbers still show some promise, but NYCFC doesn’t look eager to keep a development project in a DP slot.

The problem with transferring Taty is that without an open Designated Player slot, NYCFC can’t reinvest a multimillion-dollar windfall in the squad. Unless the new CBA rewrites the roster rules, the club might make it a buy-one-get-one sale on South American attackers by giving Jesús Medina away free to a good home so they can finally field three DPs again.

And then there’s Sands, whose offseason training stint with Fortuna Dusseldorf has stirred speculation that he could be the third NYCFC academy product to make a high-profile move to Germany alongside Gio Reyna (already impressing with Dortmund’s reserves) and Joe Scally (who’ll join Monchengladbach after the 2020 season).

3. What can the academy contribute?

Haak earned scant minutes but strong reviews from Dome last season; he could be a candidate to make a Sands-style leap next year. Pushing Sands and Scally at their positions is new homegrown signing Tayvon Gray, a highly touted 17-year-old USYNT prospect who can play center back, right back, or defensive mid. And there may be more academy signings still to come, like Andres Jasson, who played alongside Reyna, Gray, and Scally at the U-17 World Cup this summer and could back up Mitriţǎ at left wing.

With virtually every starter on a max deal, NYCFC can’t spend a lot on backups, which means they’ll need a strong cap-exempt reserve roster to survive a long season. So far the club’s academy looks like it’s producing some of the best teenage talent in the country, but it’s up to Lee and the new manager to find ways to integrate the kids into the first team without a USL reserve side to bridge the gap.

Outlook

It honestly ought to be hard to screw this one up. The squad that won the East last year is intact, in its prime, and ready for anything after mastering Dome’s free jazz. Worst case scenario, Maxi and Rónald Matarrita go down injured in CCL before NYCFC’s micromanagers in Manchester have gotten around to scouting backups. Best case, the club makes some big winter sales and upgrades last year’s roster with a new DP at center mid or right wing. But Lee can ease into his first offseason in charge: even if nothing much changes, there’s no reason this shouldn’t be a playoff team.

Now about that coaching vacancy.

American Soccer Analysis

Offseason Outlook: NYCFC