Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
Not often in MLS do you get blockbuster trades in a traditional US sports sense, but Sunday night a big one came about: Kellyn Acosta, the FC Dallas and US Men’s National Team midfielder, was traded to the Colorado Rapids in exchange for striker Dominique Badji and other MLS-ese (international slots, swapping draft picks, cuts of future transfer fees, etc.) One year ago, Acosta was viewed as one of the best up-and-coming young American talents and was a starter in a World Cup qualifier at Azteca against Mexico. Now, he’s been traded for what one year ago would have been considered pennies on the dollar.
As a league, MLS has pivoted towards young players and squads are now being built around young players, both domestic and foreign. At the same time, MLS is becoming more integrated in the global marketplace, making the league more of a selling league than it ever has before. MLS players don’t necessarily have the ability to force moves in the same way young players in other leagues do, though they can do it, but this Acosta trade isn’t about that. This trade is about how teams value these young players, and when they should sell high on them in a league that is more of a selling league than ever.
Acosta went from a first choice USMNT midfielder to a squad player on FC Dallas in the matter of a year, thanks to injuries and other players like Jacori Hayes taking minutes away, and deservedly so. When Acosta was at the top of his game, there’s no doubt that FC Dallas got offers for him from abroad and didn’t take them. They valued Acosta’s contributions at the time, the symbolism to the club, specifically their focus on developing homegrown talent and that as constructed, FC Dallas could be a Cup contender. As has been well documented here and elsewhere, FC Dallas’ season went off the rails and they missed the playoffs. Acosta was then injured in CCL play in February and then got lapped by other players who played well enough to take his job.
MLS teams are reluctant to sell high on these young players, not just because of their symbolism to the club and what they mean on the pitch, but also because of the timing. MLS’ calendar poses a unique challenge to clubs when deciding whether to sell players on or not. Would you take the best possible offer during the summer, and risk derailing a playoff or Cup contending season for the cash, or wait until the winter to pull the trigger, when the value of the player could go down for a whole litany of reasons? Will the offers even be there comes six months down the line?
Kellyn Acosta didn’t grow as a player in the ways many thought he would for one reason or another, hence why he wasn’t first choice any more in FC Dallas’ midfield. Therein lies another challenge for clubs with these young players: seeing if they can meet their potential. In many ways, these players bet on themselves just as the clubs bet on the players, because Acosta would probably be in a different place if he moved to Europe last summer. Most European clubs are now buying on potential and trying to look for value in the transfer market, and a lot of that could come from MLS. But since many of the clubs (and the league to a lesser extent) have been resistant to taking the bait, situations like those with Kellyn Acosta could become more common.
Acosta’s is a cautionary tale, especially as two incredibly gifted young players seem to be on their way to Europe: the Red Bulls Tyler Adams and the Whitecaps Alphonso Davies. Adams is almost guaranteed to be a RB Leipzig player come the new year, and Bayern Munich is reportedly willing to pay a MLS record fee of 12 million Euros to the Whitecaps for Davies. Both clubs obviously don’t want to lose these incredibly important components during the middle of the season, but not many clubs want to wait six months to get a player who might not be the same in January. It seems as if the Whitecaps and Red Bulls might get lucky in this instance with the clubs they’re selling to and their willingness to wait until the winter transfer window, but how many clubs are going to be willing to do that now? Not every situation is going to be as easy as these two seem to be for the clubs on the selling end.
Every club in MLS will one day face these questions, some sooner than others. Atlanta United is probably facing that dilemma right now with Miguel Almiron and Josef Martinez, both of whom could move to Europe tomorrow, but take them out of Atlanta United and suddenly they’re not even close to the same team. What if the Union received a great offer for Auston Trusty, a talented young center back who has helped form the spine of that team? Maybe it’s easier for clubs like the Red Bulls or FC Dallas, who have an assembly line of young players to fill open voids than it would be for Philadelphia, who aren’t quite to Red Bulls or FC Dallas levels with their academy set up, or Vancouver, who doesn’t have another Alphonso Davies within sight.
These questions will only be asked more and more of MLS clubs as the league gets more eyeballs on it and the young talent gets better and better. Clubs in Europe will be looking for transfer market value and they’ll find it in MLS, where the best young players go for a relatively reasonable rate compared to their European counterparts, with perhaps similar upside to go along with it. MLS teams are certainly aware of the dangers of holding on to assets too long before they take a hit in value, but with the timing of the season, the on-field risks are there in ways no other league really faces.
FC Dallas made a mistake on Kellyn Acosta, and in a candid moment, they’ll probably tell you they should have sold him last season when they had the chance. The next big question for the league and its clubs will be whether similar mistakes become more and more common as more and more teams rely on young players, particularly academy players with impressive pedigrees to build the backbone of their squad.
How MLS teams deal with this dilemma will chart the immediate long term future of the best and worst clubs in the league.
