FC Dallas announced their initial roster moves for the 2016 season on Thursday, exercising contract options on seven players while likely bidding farewell to eight others.
Perhaps most importantly, Dallas announced they have signed 20-year-old Homegrown midfielder Kellyn Acosta, who had a career year as a regular starter, to a new contract. Re-signing Acosta comes in addition to picking up the 2016 contract options of MLS Best XI defender Matt Hedges, Rolando Escobar, Atiba Harris, Ryan Hollingshead, Zach Loyd, Victor Ulloa and Je-Vaughn Watson.
In an interview with FCDallas.com, Technical Director Fernando Clavijo discussed the challenges of maintaining a core that has developed sooner than expected. Dallas tied the New York Red Bulls atop the MLS regular-season table with 60 points, though New York earned the Supporters’ Shield on the goal differential tiebreaker (+19 for NY vs. +13 for FCD).
“The better you play, the more success [there is], it is more difficult to keep that team together,” Clavijo said. “As a matter of fact it’s very hard because the salaries go up, by some percentage, and it’s not just the salary [that is the issue], it’s the salary cap. We needed to look for different ways to have a competitive team.”
Forward Blas Pérez, out of contract, had announced his departure yesterday, while the club confirmed that defender Stephen Keel is also out of contract and Bakary Soumare has retired.
Dallas declined contract options for Otis Earle, Danny Garcia, Michel and David Texeira. The club also declined the option on defender Walker Zimmerman‘s contract because he has graduated from the Generation adidas program and would count against the club’s salary budget, but Dallas extended a bona fide offer to Zimmerman and will, if the teams cannot agree to terms, retain his MLS rights.
