2025 MLS Season Previews: DC United, Dallas, CF Montreal
/The Benteke in the Room
DC United’s 2024, Troy Lesene’s first in charge, brought new faces and a new style but eerily similar results to 2023. For the second straight season, the Black and Red finished with 40 points despite having a positive expected goal difference of five each season.
Roster Overhaul Continues
As of February 9, the Black and Red return just over 50% of minutes played in 2024. Under Ally Mackay, DCU’s front office continues to overhaul the team’s roster in its preferred image. So far, that’s meant getting younger. In 2024, 30-plus-year-olds Cristian Dájome, Pedro Santos, and Mateusz Klich all played more than 2,000 minutes for DCU. None will be returning in 2025.
The reshaping of the roster hasn’t been limited to past-peak players, however. Matai Akinmboni departed for Bournemouth for an initial $1.25 million fee while Kristian Fletcher remains on loan at Nottingham Forest. Ted Ku-DiPietro was also moved to the Colorado Rapids on MLS’ new cash market for an initial $1.125 million just months after he signed a U22 extension with the team.
What’s left is two groups of players, one in their primes, the other younger, that look to be (most of) the 2025 core.
Bucket 1: Prime Players
The first group of players consists of solid MLS guys who are firmly in their primes, think Jared Stroud, Lucas Bartlett, Aaron Herrera, and new centerback signing Kye Rowles. Add in a special subcategory, ex-Nashville Guys, consisting of Lukas MacNaughton and Randall Leal and Mackay has put together a roster of pros. This group of players probably aren’t going to move the needle on a successful MLS season but there’s a lot to be said for solid contributors who know their way around the league.
Herrera is worthy of a brief highlight. He should still be able to be a high-level contributor on a good team. His passing provides a rare weapon from fullback, if Lesense opts to go with four at the back defensively. He looks to be a continued building block for this team in the coming years.
Bucket 2: Young Contributors
DCU will be relying on a host of young talent to fill minutes in 2025.
The highest profile (and most important that Mackay and Co. got right) are Young Designated Player Matti Peltola and U22 signing Gabriel Pirani. After all, the club spent real resources to acquire them and, though the early returns have not been super promising, they’re still both very young and shouldn’t be written off.
There are other interesting names beside Peltola and Pirani. 21-year-old João Peglow joins DCU from Radomiak Radom where he made 17 appearances and 15 starts in the Polish Ekstraklasa in 2024-25. Garrison Tubbs was worth 0.10 G+ above average per 96 minutes in 2024 although he played just under 700 minutes. Jackson Hopkins played more than 1,000 minutes, though he was not as productive (-0.08 G+ above average per 96). Hosei Kijima offers Lesesne another intriguing option out wide, joining after an Expansion Draft trade with San Diego FC.
Jacob Murrell bears close watching in 2025, too. As we get to the Benteke in the room later, Murrell had a solid rookie campaign though his goal total didn’t reflect his contributions. How he continues to develop as a MLS striker might impact how DC United’s front office chooses to build the roster in the future.
The Benteke Of It All
The biggest outlier to DCU’s new roster priorities is unfortunately the team’s best player: Christian Benteke. He just doesn’t fit into the youth movement. He’ll be 34-years-old for the 2025 season and is coming off a legitimately excellent campaign. His 23 goals in 2024 won the Golden Boot and he trailed only Riqui Puig in ASA’s Goals Added Above Average.
No Benteke finishing jokes to be seen here, either. He outperformed his xG, scoring 23 goals on 19.57 xG. Even if Benteke were to regress to the finishing mean in 2025, he’d still be one of the most prolific strikers in the league.
The Shotstopping Has To Get Better, Right?
In 2024, DC United’s goalkeepers, Tyler Miller and Alex Bono, combined to allow 68 goals on 59.85 post-shot expected goals, the fifth worst total in the league.
Enter Republic of Korea youth international Kim Jun-hong, signed from Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in the Korean top flight. He’ll occupy a U22 initiative spot on the roster and will be charged with improving the Black and Red’s shotstopping to something like average.
Other new options in DCU’s remade keeper rotation include Luis Barraza (1.37 G/xG in 102 minutes with NYCFC) and Jordan Farr (1.09 G/xG in 3,249 minutes with the Tampa Bay Rowdies).
Some improvement in DCU’s shotstopping would play a big role in the team playing to the level suggested by its advanced numbers.
The Season Ahead
Even as Mackay and company have turned back the age dial on the Black and Red’s roster, the team is still fighting with one hand behind its back from a roster construction perspective. Though Klich will no longer be playing minutes at Audi Field (at least not in Black and Red), he still counts as a Designated Player on DCU’s roster.
A 2025 with Benteke doing his thing and DCU seeing what its crop of youth players can and cannot handle might not be the most interesting for outside watchers. As fewer veterans are relied on, maybe the floor on this team crumbles. The sheer number of not bad MLS guys on this roster seems to lower the risk of that, however.
In the preseason, a time when optimism abounds, maybe some of DCU’s kids will take major steps and we’ll be having a much different conversation this time next year. Instead of talking about how the roster is still being overhauled, we’ll be debating what one position ownership needs to spend on to elevate the Black and Red out of mediocrity in the Eastern Conference.
Bye Bye Velasco, Hello Lucho
FC Dallas is a team that had everything happen for them in 2024. They fired coach Nico Estevez mid-way, hired interim Peter Luccin, and pushed for the playoffs. After a run where everyone thought Dallas was back, the team won two of nine and missed the playoffs.
It was very difficult for FCD to get anything going. Alan Velasco didn’t make his first appearance until August 31 and Jesus Ferreira went in and out of injury, only playing in 1300 minutes for the team. The club’s lack of a centerback depth option also hurt them, forcing them to play with Marco Farfan as a third CB. There were clear holes on the roster as it finished its worst standing since the last season they fired a coach, Luchi Gonzalez, in 2021.
Offseason
Times are weird in Frisco. Toyota Stadium is undergoing renovations and half of the stadium will be closed for the season. The team is hiring its third coach under chief soccer officer Andre Zanotta in the seven seasons he’s been at the helm. While its second team, North Texas Soccer Club, won the MLS Next Pro Championship, it did so with one of the oldest teams in the league; NTSC was the 12th oldest team in MLSNP.
Dallas has gone through one of the more active windows across multiple fronts. They hired their former second-team coach and player, Eric Quill from New Mexico United. They sold off Alan Velasco to Boca Juniors and traded Jesus Ferreira and Paul Arriola to Seattle. As our close friend Eliot McKinley put out in his graph, Dallas is returning the third least amount of minutes in the league, only behind DC United and the New England Revolution.
At the time of this writing, signings are swirling for Dallas. They just finalized a cash-for-player deal with Lucho Acosta from FC Cincinnati for five million dollars. Acosta is a clear upgrade from Velasco; the 2023 MVP fills a hole for Dallas that’s been missing for a while. Just last season, Acosta’s G+ was the best it’s been since returning to MLS. Pair that with Petar Musa, who was Dallas’ massive signing from Benfica in 2024, and you could have a lethal duo upfront.
Speaking of Musa, the club’s record signing from Benfica had a slow start to the season but erupted later on. In fact, Musa scored 5.7 goals above expected for the club, with 15 npGoals on nine npxG. His per 90 npxG was around .36, which was closer to his numbers at Boavista. Will Musa continue to have a strong season or will there be a sort of regression that comes with his overperfomance?
Dallas took advantage of teams that needed to make moves cap-wise, acquiring Shaq Moore and Anderson Julio from Nashville and Real Salt Lake respectively. Shaq Moore presents an upgrade at outside back, with his main issue being his massive budget charge hit at Nashville and their cap crunch. In Julio’s case, it's more interesting. Quill in his history has played a 4-2-3-1; where does Julio fit in this? Does he fit as a winger? Is there a way to get him more control to capitalize on his career season? Then there’s his lack of minutes in MLS. Julio has never eclipsed 1400 minutes in MLS, last eclipsing 2000 minutes in 2018 in Ecuador. While this was a great buy low for Dallas, there will be questions about his durability.
To attempt to shore up that depth, Dallas added Lalas Abubakar from the Colorado Rapids. Abubakar fell out of favor and was signed up for a free-agent deal. Abubakar had his best season in 2022 in terms of G+ before that number tumbled down in 2023 and 2024, pushing to a season-low. Abubakar seems to replace Omar Gonzalez, who sat as the third CB on the roster. Replacing Nkosi Tafari will be a difficult task, but FCD has signed Osaze Urhoghide from Ligue 2 side Amiens. Urhoghide, Ibeagha, and Abubakar become a decent group that is improved from the previous season’s rotation.
(Drib.ly is in alpha and not public yet)
2025 Outlook:
Quill promises a more direct style of play, and his numbers show it. Per ASA’s average vertical distance numbers, Quill’s style of play at New Mexico looks to be the most direct style of play at FC Dallas sice Oscar Pareja’s reign. Sitting in a 4-2-3-1, Quill will have the playmakers to play in transition, from Acosta, to Julio, to potential speedsters in Leo Chu or high pressing high action players in Logan Farrington.
The questions will arise on the defensive side. Quill will need to be compact and protect his backline in terms of shape. The team allowed the sixth most npxGA in 2024 under both Estevez and Luccin and needs to get back to its strong defensive performances. However, how attacking will Quill go? His team seems geared for all gas no breaks and we’ve seen teams (cough LA Galaxy cough) be able to win trophies by struggling on defense and just being explosive on offense.
Half the stadium will be open due to renovations but the team should be producing fireworks. The offensive talent is there and it may lead to some entertaining matches in MLS. Lucho Acosta will be motivated with a new challenge and hopefully, Quill can unlock the most out of him.
The floor for FC Dallas has risen with the addition of Acosta. However, will they have enough as a cohesive team to return to the playoffs with a first year head coach? It will be tough but we have to applaud the effort from the team to recognize its mistakes and be able to go after improvements on the roster. It’s a two or three pieces away from a complete team and if that takes shape in the summer, watch out.
Can CF Montreal make the playoffs for real this time?
CF Montreal snuck their way into the 8-9 play in game on decision day in 2024, after picking up 17 points from the last 24 available in frankly… extremely lucky fashion. Their -15 xGD was second worst in the East and third worst in all of MLS. They didn’t have a ultra hot finishing streak or amazing goalkeeping to turn them into, say, a 0 goal difference team. They just had an extremely fortunate allocation of their goals and goals conceded to give them just enough points to get over the top, kind of.
Montreal went out to Atlanta United in the play in game, and now face a 2025 MLS season where they will almost certainly need to play better to make the playoffs. Where does that come from? Coaching? Recruitment?
Laurent Courtois and the Columbus 2 Capybaras
The play on hiring Laurent Courtois was that he would do the Wilfried Nancy thing and build out a robust tactical gameplan that young players and league offcuts could grow and shine in. Montreal did that, so much as they tried to play like Columbus, but it didn’t really work like that. It also didn’t show much signal for improvement over the course of the season. Here’s their rolling expected goal difference over the course of the season. If you were to make a positive case, Montreal absolutely have to figure stuff out at the defensive end. Their 59 xGA was second bottom in the league.
In comes young centerback Jalen Neal, in a trade from the LA Galaxy, who signed a U22 player extension with the Quebecois club. I think Neal is a pretty significant upgrade on Joel Waterman, particularly if he plays in the middle of the back three, while George Campbell and Fernando Alvarez can provide competent outside centerback play. They also added Philadelphia Union academy discard Brandan Craig. Craig was pretty competent for El Paso on loan in USL, but is a little undersized. A five deep centerback room is honestly not bad.
The real problem defensively is in midfield. Victor Wanyama’s legs went and he hardly played, Sam Piette is what he is at this point in his career. Mathieu Choiniere was sold. It is light in that engine room. People like Nathan-Dylan Saliba, I think if he had significantly less responsibility on his shoulders I would too, but that’s just a tough ask for where he is. On the incomings, Montreal added former Canadian Premier League standout Victor Loturi from Ross County and MLS vet Fabian Herbers, and that’s about it. Loturi was just ok for one of the worst teams in Scotland, and Herbers got let go by one of the only teams who may have been worse than them in the Chicago Fire. This feels like decidedly not enough to make up the 15 xGD to get yourself to zero.
Who needs sure things?
Montreal have sort of branded themselves the island of misfit toys, picking up New England cast away Giacomo Vrioni and Prince Owusu from Toronto FC. At face value, both of those guys actually produced at a totally reasonable level last year. Owusu scored nine goals in 20 90’s, while Vrioni put up nine goals in 25 90’s. The problem with both players is their contracts. Prince made a lofty 900k in 2024, but has presumably signed at a lower number, and Vrioni was a full DP. But Montreal aren’t buying DPs on their own, and Vrioni’s contract is expiring. If the stench of Qeleb Por’ator and New England can wash off of him, I actually really like both of these moves as extremely low cost gambles.
It does beg the question of whether they’ll play two up top, in a 3-5-2, rather than the 3-4-3 they played most of last season. But there’s a lot of games, maybe they just rotate.
Season Outlook
I think Montreal will be better than last year, I just don’t think by enough to squeeze into the playoffs. But Italians like Vrioni have hit Montreal huge in the past in Marco di Vaio, maybe it’s a gamble that lands on 21. Ultimately I think the lack of real midfield reinforcements will do this team in. 18 year old U-22 10/winger Gennadiy Synchuk doesn’t move the needle for me, certainly not at his $5M acquisition cost. But let’s see.