Breaking the Mold: Three MLS mavericks carving their own recruitment pathways

From establishing clubs, their structures and departments from the ground up with the continued expansion of the league to negotiating creative ways of making their squad fit the rules regarding squad sizes and player registration, Major League Soccer presents Sporting Directors, Chief Soccer Officers, Club Executives and everyone else involved with the running of clubs with unique challenges and tasks.

One of the challenges they must deal with, which is a bit more relatable for club decision-makers all over the world, concerns player recruitment — using the transfer market to strengthen their squad and gain an advantage over their rivals for the new season.

The growing challenge in this area for MLS clubs at the moment requires them to find new markets other than those already well-established in the league, but with that, they must contain a great deal of competition for the very best players coming out of those markets.

For instance, Argentina has been a hotbed for MLS recruitment in recent years. However, the likes of Inter Miami, with Chris Henderson leading the sporting project and Albiceleste icon Lionel Messi in the squad, have currently got a very tight grip on that market, as evidenced by the 2024 winter transfer market, which saw a top young talent in Federico Redondo — highly sought-after not just in the US but all around the football world — make his way from Argentina to MLS and commit himself to the Florida-based outfit.

Henderson and all of those involved in the management of Inter Miami have spoken of the vision not just to build Inter Miami as a top competitor in MLS but as a global brand. They won’t be the only team in the US aiming to achieve this, but with household names around the football world such as Messi, Luis Suárez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba in the squad, David Beckham as the President and now the ability to lure top young talents coveted by clubs and admired by youth football savvy fans alike, they’re certainly doing an excellent job of building their brand and setting an example for others to try and emulate.

Still, that doesn’t mean other clubs should do precisely the same as them. In fact, with such established competition now in the Argentinian market, including Inter Miami along with the likes of Atlanta United, who have Thiago Almada on their books — signing him from Vélez Sarsfield back in 2022 — it may be wise for clubs to learn from the lessons taught by the likes of Inter Miami in this regard but apply the lessons in different ways. Learn from inspiration, but don’t aim to shadow it. Apply the principles acquired but in new, innovative ways to carve your own path.

Attracting talent from different parts of the world can help build a brand and help a team find a competitive edge both in the transfer market and on the pitch. You’ve got a lot of big fish from the MLS and elsewhere focusing on the Argentinian market, for one, right now — but plenty of other markets remain to be captured.

This recruitment analysis piece will highlight three MLS clubs who look to be on the path to carving their niche in the MLS transfer space, establishing themselves as the masters of their own particular area(s) of focus, further growing their brand in that region among fans, as well as their reputation among players as a viable option to enhance their career.

We’ll use data and statistics from recent transfer windows as well as comments and research into key figures involved with recruitment from these particular clubs to highlight why these three clubs are worth keeping a close eye on when it comes to MLS recruitment over the coming transfer windows.

Common MLS markets

Before we look at the clubs we’ve picked out for this analysis, we’re going to kick off our piece by establishing what the common markets are for MLS sides to shop in at present.

Firstly, figure 1 highlights from where MLS teams made their new signings within the past calendar year — the bigger the circle, the more players arrived from those particular regions.

Moving on to Figure 2, we’ve removed all but the top nine markets—the USA, England, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Norway, and Mexico.