One of the more important decisions of the winter has nothing to do with an individual player at all, but with how I want the roster to be built. MLS gives clubs a choice between two construction models: the traditional Designated Player model, which allows three DPs and three U22 Initiative players, or the U22 Initiative model, which reduces the number of DPs to two but increases the U22 allowance to four and provides an additional $2m in General Allocation Money for the season.

I have gone with the U22 Initiative model.

The appeal is fairly obvious. The extra U22 slot gives us another route to bring in a young player at a heavily reduced cap charge, while the additional GAM gives us far more flexibility elsewhere. That money can be used to reduce Senior-contract cap hits, make trades within MLS easier and generally create room inside a salary cap that is far more restrictive than the club’s actual wage budget. Given that I want San Diego to be aggressive in the domestic trade market while also looking internationally for younger players, the model fits the direction I am trying to take the squad.

It also changes the way I have to think about the Designated Player places. Rather than having three, there are now only two, so those slots need to be used on players who genuinely alter the level of the team. Ideally, I want them to become part of the identity of the club as well, with Argentina likely to be an important market. The idea is not to collect expensive names for the sake of it, but to use the two DP places on genuine difference-makers while the U22 slots provide younger starters and future value underneath them.

There is one immediate complication. Carlos Rotondi is currently a Designated Player and has no interest in changing that status. That means one of the two available DP places is already occupied unless something changes. He is still a useful player, but at 33 and entering the final year of his contract, his position now has to be considered in the wider context of how valuable those two slots have become. Trading a DP within MLS is one possible way of reshaping that picture, particularly if another club is willing to include useful GAM or other roster assets in return.

For me, though, the attraction of the U22 model is that it gives the whole recruitment strategy a clearer shape. The two DPs can provide the top-end quality, four U22 players can provide youth and development, and the extra allocation money can help us exploit the MLS trade market for the middle of the squad. Add the academy and the occasional USL player who looks ready to make the jump, and there is the basis of a recruitment model rather than simply a collection of signings.

The shorthand is probably: two stars, four investments, and trade for the rest.

Another decision has fallen rather neatly into place. The club have been given the opportunity to form a San Diego II side, named Oceanside FC, for next season, entering the lower levels of the football structure, and I have accepted it

It solves one of the more awkward problems I discovered almost immediately after arriving. Until now, the academy has effectively operated as a separate club in MLS NEXT Pro. If I wanted to bring one of those players into the senior setup, I had to sign him permanently, and once that happened there was nowhere for him to go if he was not ready for first-team football. 

That made every academy promotion a much bigger commitment than it should have been.

The II team gives us the missing step. Instead of the pathway being academy or first team with very little in between, we can now bring players into the San Diego setup, train them within our structure and still give them competitive minutes. It should also make draft picks, younger international signings and fringe first-team players far easier to manage. Given the emphasis I want to place on U22 recruitment and developing younger players, it would have been difficult to justify turning the opportunity down.

Willem Janssen will take charge of the new side.

He was one of the coaching additions I was happiest with this winter and feels like a very natural fit for the job. Janssen arrives with a strong development background, an Outstanding rating for Working With Youngsters, a Model Citizen personality and a coaching profile built around possession and player improvement. His role with the II team will be less about chasing results at all costs and more about preparing players for what will eventually be expected of them with the first team.

The intention is that Oceanside FC mirrors the principles of the senior side as closely as possible. Young players should not arrive in the first-team squad having to learn an entirely different way of playing from scratch. Janssen’s job will be to make that transition as small as we can make it.

It is another piece of the structure rather than another team for the sake of having one, but it may end up being one of the more important decisions of the winter.

The pathway now looks much healthier:

Academy → Oceanside → First Team.

One small piece of housekeeping before the season starts was changing the captaincy. Carlos Rotondi has been a Team Leader within the squad and, by all accounts, an important figure in the dressing room, but with a Balanced personality and 11 Determination I wanted the armband to reflect the standards I am trying to build around the new group rather than simply preserve the existing hierarchy.

The captaincy will instead go to Philipp Müller, with Sergio Uribe as vice-captain. Müller feels like the safer and more natural choice right now. He is 26, Fairly Professional, has 13 Determination and already looks like one of the most important players in the team tactically. He should be central to how we want to play, and his age and standing make him a sensible figure to lead the group while the squad itself is changing around him.

Uribe is only 23, but he has 16 Determination, a Fairly Determined personality and already looks like one of the players I want to build around for the next few seasons. Making him vice-captain feels like a useful way of giving him more responsibility without putting everything on him immediately. If he continues to develop the way I hope, there is every chance he becomes the long-term captain in time. In the mean time, he will attend a leadership course as, for a man of just twenty-three, it’s time that, on his sixth club, he put down some roots and become the player he is capable of being.

I expected a little resistance from Rotondi given his standing in the dressing room, and there was always the risk that stripping the captaincy from a Team Leader could create an unnecessary problem before I had even managed a game. Instead, the conversation could hardly have gone better. Rotondi admitted that he was disappointed but accepted the decision immediately, even acknowledging that there are other strong characters in the dressing room who can take responsibility.

That response probably says something positive about him as well. Losing the armband does not suddenly make him irrelevant and, if anything, dealing with it sensibly should make it easier for him to remain an important senior presence without having to carry the formal leadership role.

No drama, no revolt, and one more small step towards making this feel like our team rather than the one I inherited.