The rich getting richer, a veteran star’s unlikely reunion, a top club executive driven to issue a public denial of trade reports and signings unofficially announced via hockey game?
The insanity of the winter window is indeed upon us.
Let’s dive back into the recent comings and goings on MLS’s hot stove.
“We’ll reload and we’ll defend in ’26.”
Those were the words of Inter Miami managing owner Jorge Mas in the immediate aftermath of the Herons’ MLS Cup presented by Audi triumph last month. If anyone doubted him, they need only glance at IMCF’s winter business, which started with a flurry of big moves shortly before Christmas and continued with three notable defensive reinforcements over the past week.
Miami signed a new right back in former Argentina youth international Facundo Mura, then reeled in big center back Micael – a Best XI-caliber performer during his first MLS stint with the Houston Dynamo – on loan from Brazil’s Palmeiras. And on Friday, they sealed a $2 million-plus cash transfer with the Portland Timbers for holding midfielder David Ayala to bolster their engine room.
It’s tough reading for opposing fanbases already tired of the rising sense of hegemony around La Rosanegra. Pouring even more fuel on that fire: reports that Miami have also pursued Vancouver Whitecaps mainstay and MLS Defender of the Year Tristan Blackmon, prompting a response from ‘Caps sporting director Axel Schuster.
That last part is one of several reasons it’s also been a busy offseason for the other MLS Cup finalists. As is so often the case after a banner year like Vancouver’s, interest in their players has skyrocketed, complicating Schuster’s efforts to keep the roster’s core intact and trophy-hunting.
English Championship side Norwich City plucked winger Ali Ahmed for a reported fee of around $2.3 million plus add-ons, and his countryman Jayden Nelson moved to Austin FC for $1.25 million in General Allocation Money (GAM) plus a first-round SuperDraft pick. Add in the reported $3 million bid for Blackmon from Miami and rumors of interest overseas in midfield terriers Sebastian Berhalter and Andrés Cubas, and we can imagine just how hot Schuster’s phone has gotten lately.
The German exec says VWFC’s “clear objective is to keep the current group together and further strengthen it” – the challenge there is that additional resources are needed to do so, with MLS roster regulations a factor too. Will the proceeds from the Ahmed and Nelson departures be sufficient to do so?
Remarkably, we’ve only just now reached arguably the biggest free-agent move of the MLS winter so far: The destination of Cristian Espinoza, one of MLS’s most consistent providers of high-quality service over the past half-decade or so with the San Jose Earthquakes.
The durable, hard-running Argentine led the league with 114 key passes last year and has played an absurd 569 of them in his 218 career regular-season MLS appearances, along with 36g/83a. As impressive as those numbers are, another stat line is equally galling: Espinoza has only played in two Audi MLS Cup Playoffs games in that time, a sign of the Quakes’ struggles to build a successful team around him.
We suspect he’ll get a lot more postseason action at Nashville SC, who, according to multiple reports, have signed Espinoza as their third Designated Player, posing a potent attacking trident alongside Hany Mukhtar and Sam Surridge. Though the club haven’t announced this one yet, his turn in the spotlight at a Nashville Predators NHL game on Thursday night is the writing on the wall:
He’s a huge get for the Coyotes, who dropped another domino by waiving Tyler Boyd, a talented winger whose time at NSC was blighted by an ACL injury. He’s likely to soon become a value pickup for someone else in MLS.
How’s this for silly-season drama? Longtime Mexican international Héctor Herrera is reportedly set for a stunning return to the Houston Dynamo, just one year after leaving La Naranja under a cloud, as his three-year stint as one of their highest-ever-profile DPs ended with him red-carded for spitting at a referee in a playoff loss to Seattle and the club electing to decline his 2025 contract option.
“There's not a world where he returns,” said president of soccer Pat Onstad at the time, and HH duly moved back home to join LIGA MX powers Toluca at what felt like the end of an era for H-town. Herrera, now 35, played less than 400 total minutes in the 2025/26 Apertura as the Red Devils completed an impressive title defense, however, and now is set to rejoin the Dynamo on a no-DP deal.
What’s he got left in the tank? That remains to be seen. But the Orange side of Texas can use some inspiration after 2025’s struggles, where they fell well short of the slick-passing fun they conjured up with HH and Coco Carrasquilla running the midfield, most memorably in a 2023 US Open Cup final thrashing of Inter Miami.
The big trades and splashy transfers hog the attention in this column, understandably. Yet sometimes the most important moves are the ones that don’t involve a change of address, like Austin FC securing their prized young homegrown Owen Wolff to a new contract via the U-22 Initiative this week.
‘Teen Wolff’ was ATX’s best player last season despite being just 21, leading the Verde & Black with 19 goal contributions (7g/12a) across all competitions and earning the No. 4 spot in MLSsoccer’s 22 Under 22 list of the league’s top young talents. Naturally, that’s earned him plenty of attention from European clubs, to say nothing of other MLS teams who’d eagerly pony up a pay raise of this nature had Austin failed to do so.
With the breaking news that his central midfield partner Dani Pereira has also signed a new deal, it looks like the central Texans are keeping hold of a key chunk of their lineup’s spine.
Mile High Hamzat
Did the Colorado Rapids just secure their version of Obinna Nwobodo, the rangy Nigerian d-mid who anchored FC Cincinnati’s vault from cellar dwellers to perennial contenders?
That’s the upside scenario for the Rapids’ purchase of Hamzat Ojediran from French Ligue 1 side RC Lens on Thursday, their biggest acquisition since the hiring of Matt Wells as their new head coach.
If Ojediran really is the tough guy Colorado needs, we're fully prepared to slap a new nickname on him: HAZMAT ☣
Seattle snare Petković
We’ve written before in this space of the Sounders’ recent track record of smart, albeit easily-overlooked pickups, and how it’s helped them remain competitive despite high expectations and a rugged schedule.
They might have done it again with their loan deal for Nikola Petković, a low-risk swing on a Serbian international who lost out in the numbers game at Charlotte FC but probably still has plenty to offer at the MLS level.
