Santiago Sosa was likely never going to be in Atlanta United’s plans for 2025 and beyond after being loaned out to Racing Club at the beginning of the season. Now, it appears Sosa’s future is set to be with La Academia for the forseeable future.
Club president Victor Blanco told DSports Radio in Buenos Aires that Racing plans to exercise their purchase option on Sosa, according to Cesar Luis Merlo. Atlanta will receive $4 million as part of the transfer.
Sosa signed for Atlanta as a U-22 player in 2021 from River Plate, his childhood club, logging 70 appearances across all competitions. After 17 appearances and 11 starts in MLS play in 2023, Atlanta loaned Sosa to Racing, where he has appeared in 21 matches. Racing is currently third in the table, four points out of fourth.
The immediate ramifications will equal a U-22 slot being freed up for Atlanta, with the expectation that Franco Ibarra’s slot will come open soon: the latter was loaned to Rosario Central ahead of the 2024 campaign after a spell with Toronto FC. And it will be interesting to see what direction Lagerwey takes here, though he’s tipped his hand regarding the initiative.
“We have to own it and say we’ve not maximized the value of U22 spots,” he said on the Extratime podcast in March. “I think they’re best used on capturing American potential, keeping them here until it’s advantageous to sell them.”
In other words, don’t expect a U22 to necessarily receive the annual salaries Sosa and Ibarra were signed to. But Sosa’s pending sale is one of a number of key moves ahead of the 2025 season, both on the roster and on the front office and technical staffs.
[…] announced on Friday. Sosa’s transfer fee was not disclosed as per club and league policy, but according to a report from Cesar Luis Merlo in November, Atlanta will receive $4 […]
i think it’s important to remember that the winter window is not generally the time to load up. mid season for most of the world, and not usually a lot of great moves to be found. if we can pick up a few depth pieces and maybe a starter, i would consider it a success. i think it will be after the summer ’25 window that we can really expect / hope that this roster will be some semblance of complete.
placing to much hope in a winter roster rebuild just isn’t realistic imo. deals like this one with sosa are extremely important in order to be ready to capitalize on the upcoming summer window. hopefully (as others are saying) there is more to come, like ibarra and maybe mosquera. i’ve given up hope that we move on from hernandez. i think he must have pictures of garth.
Luckily, I don’t think this will be as much of a complete overhaul as many were anticipating during the summer window. We are adding a few key veteran depth pieces to solidify the roster and then signing the top-line DP and U-22 talent who can help our roster and who want to be here.
I think we can get a lot done in MLS Free Agency and through the Waiver process. You are right that depth is a key factor, with big-ticket signings more likely to come in the summer. The exceptions are the European clubs and potential clubs in the Americas who are facing financial sanctions with high-value players on their rosters who may want to find another first-division competitive team.
Thiago Almada’s future Ligue 1 club, Olympique Lyon, is a great example of this. Due to issues with their finances, they are being provisionally relegated to Ligue 2 this summer unless they can dramatically improve their situation by selling a ton of players. They have a $530 million debt hole to dig out of. One player that I’m interested in is Alexandre Lacazette (CF). Lacazette could be a dominant CF in MLS for another 4-5 seasons and could pair well with Thiare in 2025. He would be a clear DP since he is making just over $6 million for the 2024-2025 season, but that’s manageable for a team like Atlanta. With a strong presence of players who are either French or who played in France, the Lyonnaise captain would fit in quickly. We would buy out the last 6 months of his contract from Lyon or sign a pre-contract with him to come in the summer. A newcomer on their squad is USMNT defensive midfielder Tanner Tessman. I doubt Tessman would want to return to MLS this early in his career since he’s trying to establish himself on Poch’s team, but he will probably be on the move again.
Similar thoughts on Tessman, plus we probably don’t need another 6/8 midfielder. Not sure on Lacazette, but if Mikautadze could ever play for a club at the same level as he does for Georgia he would be worth a look (but not a $20 mill+ one).
Fofana to me would be a good test of the new U22 allocation rule; front load the transfer fee and then smaller annual salary to minimize cap hit. Granted he’s probably Lyon’s biggest asset.
I like the idea of Fofana as a U22, but he will want more wages than next year’s Maximum Salary Budget Charge of $743,750. He’s currently getting paid a minimum of 1 million euros this season. That would make him a Young Designated Player rather than a U22, so basically our new Almada or Barco.
Also, would like to see the club move on from Mosquera and start all over with the U-22’s. He’s just not it, especially for what we pay.
Also, Josef’s option was declined by CF Montreal. Would love to pick him back up and let him retire here.
I like this list. DP 9, would prefer a proper DP 10 (still don’t think Alexy is it, more like an 8 or winger). U-22 wingers and LB, veteran 6, veteran CB and give Firmino some opportunity as a dual 10/dual 8. Guy needs playing time.
Important bit of business to recoup some of our investment in Sosa, clear a U-22 spot, and give him the chance to remain in a place that seems to be a good fit for him. Due to his initial purchase price, we won’t be able to convert any of that transfer fee into GAM, but we can add it to the war chest for buying new DPs and U-22s.
Selling Ibarra is the next important offseason move. Since we paid about $3.3 million for him, we can convert up to $2.4 million of his sell-on to GAM. That helps a lot since that can be used to buy down players or add depth to the roster.
The last U-22 Initiative player is Edwin Mosquera. As a U-22 Initiative Player, he only counts $200k against the salary cap. Between his salary and amortized transfer fee, he would normally count about $660,000 against the cap if he wasn’t a U-22 player. That is about $84,000 below the Senior Maximum so we wouldn’t be using any GAM on him to make his cap hit compliant but it would be an increase equating to Derrick Williams’ entire cap hit ($447,000) if we opened up his U-22 spot for a more expensive third U-22 Initiative signing.
If we had the opportunity to add 2 DPs and 3 U-22s in this window, would you do it?
I just hope the FO will be aggressive in adding players during the offseason
Heck yes. A DP or high TAM 9 (JOSEF?!), a DP or high TAM winger, a U22 winger to replace Mosquera, a DP CDM, a U22 CB to replace Abram, and a low TAM veteran CM to replace Dax.
Maybe replace Hernandez, and we instantly have a great roster. We have so much room to build it’s insane.
Interesting suggestions. A lot of this is contingent on what formation or style we intend to run next year. Is this a 3-man back line or a 4-man back line? Are we playing with a 4-man midfield or 5 or 3? Are we playing with 1 central forward or 2?
I’m curious about the role we saw Miranchuck play a few times against Miami where he was a second striker or the forward sitting behind Thiare, able to stay high but also roam the attacking third to unlock the attack. There could be something there.
I agree about adding DP #9 and that we can upgrade our left-sided attacking player. I would like to see us use a U-22 spot on a #10 who can be Miranchuk’s backup or push him out wide in certain tactical situations. Another U-22 could either be a backup #9 or another wing.
I want to see Slisz and Fortune continue to grow together as a midfield pair, and Fortune as a Homegrown Player is like giving us an extra free U-22 spot. I don’t think a DP 8 is a massive immediate need for us. We need more experienced depth at the #6 and the #8 beyond Muyumba since our only other midfielders under contract for next year are Firmino and Adyn Torres. I’d like to see us grab a TAM 6 or a Dax-style vet who can fill in while Slisz is playing for Poland.
As a true defense-first right-back, Hernandez works pretty well as a flank partner with Saba. Their wires got crossed when Hernandez was occupying the RCB space, and Saba was the RWB. If we go back to a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3, that could be a strong right side.
Our centerback group of Gregersen, Williams, Cobb, and Morales is pretty good even if we sell Abram. I’d like to see a veteran MLS free agent as the 5th guy in this group and we could probably do that for less than TAM.
GK seems set with Guz, Cohen, and Hibbert.
An important missing piece for me is our backup left-back. Amador will hopefully play most of the minutes each season, but until Dom Chong Qui is ready, we only have Hernandez and Matthews playing on their weaker side as the backups.
So my shopping list is:
One issue is that we only have 6 senior roster spots available before cutting/selling/trading anyone who isn’t already automatically off of the roster this winter in free agency or through retirement. Maybe the backup LB or CB could be on the Supplemental Roster?
I could also see us promoting Javi Armas as a 6/CB backup and signing Will Reilly to an HG deal as the 6/8 backup.
Solid list … until we make a move nobody was expecting. Seems like there is at least one of those each off season. Hopefully they are much more logical this time with a less overzealous GM.