Austin FC will have less than 48 hours to dive through the official list of unprotected players as they will make five selections in the Expansion Draft, adding a handful of players to the roster which currently have just two on it.
They'll be well prepared before that list comes out, though. Sporting director Claudio Reyna, head coach Josh Wolff and their staffs have been putting themselves in the shoes of all 16 teams who will have to decide their list of 12 protected players. They have a pretty good handle on what they expect to happen, but there's bound to be a few surprises.
The Expansion Draft will fully kick off an offseason which all eyes will be on Austin FC in how they fill their inaugural roster.
“We’re anxious, of course, ahead of it," Reyna told media on a virtual press conference Friday. "Trying to prepare as best we can, then we’ll have a very busy 48 hours. ... It’s a challenge but we’ve been preparing, doing a lot of homework on what we expect other teams’ lists will be. There’ll be a few surprises but we’ve been working on this for months."
Strategies in recent iterations of expansion drafts have been balanced, in teams using selections for both their own rosters and for trades. Nashville SC got more value in trades last year, acquiring $150,000 GAM from FC Cincinnati for Brandon Vazquez as well as Joe Willis from the Houston Dynamo for selecting Zarek Valentin. LAFC did a bit of both, selecting two bonafide starters (Latif Blessing, Tyler Miller) while using two picks to trade for Laurent Ciman ahead of their inaugural season.
Austin are focused more on making selections for their squad rather than trades, but they'll be expecting a number of opportunities.
“We’ve had conversations with teams but our focus is adding players," Reyna said. "We’re going into this with the idea of adding five players. Obviously when the expansion list is delivered to everybody, we’ll get calls on Monday. But the idea is adding players, we need to build a squad. We’re focused on that first.”
“We’re looking for a variety of players in different positions, looking for starters, reserves and players you can develop," Wolff added. "The important thing is their quality, fitting our game model and their character as a person. Are they up for what we’re trying to do in Austin?”
Austin have made just two official signings — attackers Cecilio Dominguez and Rodney Redes — and will be in for a flurry of moves over the next few weeks.
The draft will set up Austin nicely to continue their offseason, slowly building their roster. They have numerous targets in every position, both domestic and abroad. As more pieces fall into place, further decisions can be made more easily.
“Depending what we get in the expansion draft will have an effect on certain targets we have outside of the league," Reyna said. "There’s some patience required on when to make decisions because we don’t want to perhaps bring in a player when we can get a similar profile domestically for maybe better value. There’s a lot of moving parts and a bit of a waiting game we need to play with some decisions. Certainly after expansion draft, we’ll have even more clarity in the other decisions we need to make.”
