The Loons’ win over Houston was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen that still ended with Wonderwall. Houston was determined to take an energetic crowd out of the game and grind proceedings to a halt, and boy howdy did they.
I wish referees were more aggressive about policing time-wasting in the first half, but that’s a whole separate column.
Further marring the game was the injury to Bakaye Dibassy, which we now know will end his season.
Dibassy’s health is the foremost concern here, as always, and I wish him nothing but the best in his recovery.
On the field, the Loons need another answer and quickly. No one’s coming in before their upcoming games against RSL and Dallas, but whoever takes over would ideally get at least 4-5 games before the playoffs to get settled.
Limited Options
The transfer window is closed, which means that the Loons can’t acquire a new player currently with any other club — including from within MLS — but they can still trade for things like allocation position or discovery rights. That may be a moot point, but if they think Dibassy’s injury will cost him part of next year as well and they target a true starting XI player instead of a stop-gap, it may become relevant.
The one piece of good news is that, because Dibassy will miss more than six league games, they can put him on the injured list and will be able to use his international slot if necessary.
Internal Affairs
The internal options aren’t great. Brent Kallman had a much better showing in his 85+ minute extended cameo than I feared he would, but he’s still inconsistent even within games and duplicates a lot of what Michael Boxall already does for the Loons, making him a less-than-ideal replacement for Dibassy.
Kallman is going to get the next few starts, but looking at the larger team picture, I hope he isn’t the option they choose. He’s right-footed unlike Dibassy and plays more of his game in the air like Boxall, where Dibassy was better with balls on the ground — his 99 tackles + interceptions stands well ahead of Boxall’s 84.
Callum Montgomery and Nabi Kibunguchi could theoretically step in, but neither has enough experience for that to be a palatable option. If the Loons want to stay in-house, their best bet might be to move Kemar Lawrence over to left center back and let D.J. Taylor continue at left back. Lawrence has popped in to play CB on occasion throughout his career, but appeared there in nine games at the end of last season with Toronto, so this wouldn’t be totally uncharted territory for him. He’s left-footed and has a more similar profile to Dibassy than Kallman does.
Complicating this plan is the fact that Lawrence himself isn’t healthy, having missed the games against Austin and Houston with a knee injury. Adrian Heath noted that Kervin Arriaga got some time at CB for Honduras, but according to fbref.com he hasn’t seen meaningful time there since at least 2020, and he’s right footed. If the Loons are that bereft of options, at least Joseph Rosales is left-footed.
Lawrence is probably the best of a bunch of bad internal options, but fortunately the Loons aren’t totally stuck with what they already have.
Free Agents
The free agent list shows an unsurprisingly bare cupboard at center back given how late into the European transfer window it is. Skip the top couple names, Jason Denayer and Dan-Axel Zagadu are staying in Europe and are out of the Loons’ budget anyway. Third name on the list: USMNT stalwart John Brooks.
Brooks is almost too good to be true: He’s experienced, but four years younger than Dibassy; he’s left-footed; he’s a strong on-the-ground defender; and his passing and dribbling are quite good for a CB, something Minnesota could use in progressing the ball against packed-in opponents.
So what’s the hold up?
First is the question of whether Brooks wants to come to MLS at all. He’s a €7.7 million rated player per Transfermarkt and should be getting offers to stay in Europe, but there isn’t even much chatter around him right now. He was unfairly vilified for Wolfburg’s struggles last season, but it wasn’t his best season ever and his star has diminished some, which might be why he isn’t getting offers. MLS would be a chance to restore some of that shine, especially as players are moving to Europe much more frequently than they used to.
The real draw, however, is the winter World Cup. Brooks hasn’t played for the US since September, 2021 despite Miles Robinson’s injury, and a strong showing against MLS’ best down the stretch and in the playoffs could give Greg Berhalter pause as he makes up the roster for the last camp and eventual World Cup. Barring injury, it’s certainly better than sitting and hoping.
Let’s say he’s in, what next?
LET’S. GET. MLSSY!
In previous years, Brooks very likely would have been subject to the allocation order, but having not been part of the USMNT set-up lately, that’s no longer an issue. So now we go to an even more arcane and mysterious ritual: The Discovery Process.
Unlike the allocation list, which is published by the league, discovery lists are held by the teams, can change at any time, and are secret. So how on earth can I guarantee that Brooks is on a team’s discovery list? Easy.
Each team has seven discovery slots, meaning nearly 200 players not currently in MLS are on discovery lists (assuming each team uses their full seven, but there’s no reason not to).
As a USMNT player, Brooks was always going to have an option to play in MLS and likely strongly considered it later in his career, meaning speculatively putting him on a list as far back as 2014 when he made his debut in a friendly wouldn’t have been all that strange. By the time he makes his move to Wolfsburg in 2017/18, it’s a given that he’s on someone’s list.
Let’s say the whole of MLS decided that he was, in fact, solely responsible for Wolfsburg’s season, he’s still going to be on a list. Why? Because there’s no penalty for putting a player on a list and the second Dibassy stays down, you know the Loons need a CB and Brooks is the best available. Even if he wasn’t on someone’s list Saturday morning, by sun up on Sunday, someone had his rights.
This is where things could get ugly. Brooks’ rights aren’t going to come cheaply, if they come at all.
If teams like Houston, San Jose, Kansas City, Colorado, or any team in the Eastern Conference have his rights, then they’ll probably make a deal but extract a maximum cost in the form for GAM, draft picks, or maybe even a youth prospect. Minnesota needs to make a move, at this point they probably have an agreement with Brooks himself, so to make the deal happen, they’d need his rights and why cheap out at the final step?
If any of the other 9 teams in the West have his rights, why give them up and strengthen a playoff rival? Sportsmanship? Idiocy?
What’s the move going to cost?
Not having to pay a transfer fee is a big win for the Loons, but Brooks was making just shy of €4 million in salary per capology/fbref. Compensation in that range would make him one of the top ten earners in MLS and require the Loons to open up a DP spot — which they can do by buying down Luis Amarilla, it’s just another cost associated with the move. Can Brooks still command that much? Probably not quite, but he’s not coming to the US pro bono. It will take a commitment from ownership to bring him in and he’d very likely still be a DP.
Given their performance over the last 11 games, Heath and the staff can very reasonably make the claim that Brooks is the difference between a real MLS cup run and letting a good season go to waste. The Apple TV deal kicks in next year and will bring a huge influx of revenue to the club, meaning any outlay is going to get repaid quickly. Cost shouldn’t be a huge factor here if the team has the commitment to winning they say they do.
Anything else?
Ok, look, I’m going to come clean: I’m not actually positive this deal can happen. As stated above someone has Brooks’ rights. If it’s not the Loons — and I’d bet whoever has them has had them since before MNUFC was in MLS — they’d have to trade for them and it’s not wholly clear to me if they can. Here’s the language from MLS itself (emphasis mine):
Players, General Allocation Money, Allocation Rankings, international roster slots, college protected player priority, Discovery Priority, and Homegrown Player priority in addition to selection position in MLS SuperDraft, Re-Entry Process, and Waivers may all be exchanged in trades approved by the League, provided…the trade is completed during a valid trading period.
…
During the season, trades that involve players must occur during either the Primary Transfer Window or Secondary Transfer Window.
In the guidelines, players and discovery rights are different, which is why I think Minnesota can make a deal for Brooks’ rights. It would be very strange to me if they would split out the kinds of things that can be traded in one section, then in the next, collapse most of it down into “players” to restrict it. But MLS does very strange things all the time, this wouldn’t even make the top 10 strangest this year.
Free Agents Not Named John Brooks
If MNUFC doesn’t bring in Brooks, in all likelihood, it will be a surprise who they land on. Steven Caulker is available and is a known commodity, but is right-footed. Erik Godoy was released by Vancouver, but isn’t healthy and has played in just six matches this year. Yoann Barbet is left-footed and available…
The one name worth mentioning here is Winston Reid. He is not a long-term option and he is right-footed, but he knows the league from his brief stint with Kansas City and has familiarity with Boxall from their time together playing for New Zealand.
I don’t think Reid is a good option, but if Brooks isn’t achievable, his knowledge of MLS may be an asset with such a short ramp-up period.
The takeaway here is that losing Dibassy is a huge blow to the Loons, especially given the restrictions they face on replacing him. If they can get Brooks, he’s worth the cost and the borderline sorcery it will take to do it. If they can’t, slotting Lawrence in next to Boxall once he’s healthy and hoping for the best is the choice I’d make.