We can’t (or won’t) tell if these signings will be good or not, but we certainly can say what kind of vibes they bring to the table. The winter transfer window has officially come and gone. And w...
We can’t (or won’t) tell if these signings will be good or not, but we certainly can say what kind of vibes they bring to the table.
The winter transfer window has officially come and gone. And while the Euro football normies somewhat snooze over the midseason shuffle, it’s the most wonderful time of the year for MLS roster wonks. Us sickos scour the internet and theorize about which big names and undiscovered gems might arrive to North America in search of footballing glory, a big old paycheck, or some combination of both.
Since the league’s inception in 1996, the January window, a mere footnote in the more prestigious European leagues, has been the busy shopping season for MLS as contenders seek to bolster their Supporters’ Shield and playoff credentials, while bottom-feeders occasionally swing big and hustle to claw themselves out of the doldrums.
While the splashiest moves come from Europe and South America, the median MLS transfer is of the intra-league variety. There’s something to be said for signing players who are familiar with the competition, who understand the level of physicality on the pitch and the tribulations of frequent long-distance travel off it. But there’s no certainty that any given signing will actually work, even when it might seem like a slam dunk. Any attempt to evaluate MLS transfers in advance will invariably leave the evaluator with egg on their face and a laundry list of buffoonish receipts that can later be aggregated and packaged as USDA certified, Grade A freezing-cold takes.
That’s why I’ll be taking a different approach to “grading” a few high-profile January transfers and free agency signings. Below, we’ll take a look at some of the biggest moves from the early bit of 2026, and explain a bit about how they make us feel. Real vibes stuff, you know?
Walker Zimmerman: Nashville SC to Toronto FC
Grade: Your favorite band releases a genre-defying album and you don’t hate it.
Toronto FC has finally moved on from the ill-fated Italian Era and is seeking to reassert itself on the Eastern Conference table. Despite finishing in 12th last season, putting up a measly 32 points in 34 matches, Toronto’s defense wasn’t the issue, allowing the third-fewest goals in the Eastern conference.
But yet another season in the bottom half of the standings led the club to opt for a change, declining to pick up the contracts of veteran depth defenders Kevin Long, Raoul Petratta, and Sigurd Rosted.
Walker Zimmerman arrives as a ready-made partner to the young, talented Zane Monlouis, an Arsenal academy graduate who signed for the Ontarians in February of last year. He suffered a season-ending hip injury in June, but his rehabilitation went better than planned and he figures to be back fighting for his spot in preseason.
Nashville could have figured out a way to re-sign Zimmerman, a player who served as their captain, scored the first goal in club history, and was part of the squad that lifted the U.S. Open Cup in 2025, the first major trophy for the club. He was a high-profile member of the relatively-successful U.S. men’s national team at the 2022 World Cup, and he served as one of the major faces of the franchise as it gained massive traction and support from the sporting community of the Music City. Injuries certainly hampered his latter days with Nashville (he was brutally bicycle-kicked by Kerwin Vargas and subsequently hospitalized back in April), and the club ultimately decided to let the blond behemoth test the waters of free agency.
After a career-defining spell in Nashville, Zimmerman insists that he joined up with Toronto to win trophies. He’ll fit well into Robin Fraser’s system of building from the back, and he’s got an ambitious long ball or two in his locker that just might work against opponents who play high lines. He’s tall, physically imposing, and when he makes a career move he tends to stick around for a while.
While the USMNT seems to have moved on, there still exists the remote possibility that Zimmerman could earn a call up to the 2026 World Cup squad as a depth option. He’ll be arriving to Toronto with a chip on his shoulder, and if he can turn around a club that has recently seen some huge swing and misses in the transfer market, he just might make himself into a legend for an unthinkable fourth MLS club.
Hector Herrera: Deportivo Toluca to Houston Dynamo
Grade: Your ex-boyfriend, who got in a fight with your dad, shows up with a boombox outside of your house and promises you he can change.
It’s fair to say that Hector Herrera’s first stint with the Houston Dynamo didn’t go exactly as planned. He started poorly for the club, and it seemed that his age and recurring hamstring issues would prevent him from being the midfield force that he was for Porto and Atletico Madrid. But eventually he settled into the league and led the Dynamo to the 2023 U.S. Open Cup and a surprise Western Conference Finals berth in 2023 when they were undone by an inevitable LAFC side. He was an integral part of manager Ben Olsen’s revamping of the club’s culture and performance on the pitch.
2024 was not so kind, and while they finished a respectable fifth in the Western Conference, the Dynamo were dumped out of the first round of the playoffs by the Seattle Sounders. Late in the final game of the series, Herrera was sent off for spitting in the direction of referee Armando Villareal. He subsequently earned a three-game ban from the league, which as of this writing he has not yet served. During his time in Europe, Herrera gained something of a reputation as a dirty player, and he hasn’t done much to undo that in recent years.
Herrera spent 2025 with Toluca in Mexico, but claims in interviews that he never actually wanted to leave Houston. He struggled all last year to claim a starting spot in Toluca, and a falling out with the Mexican federation has seen him languish without a national team call up since he originally joined MLS in 2022. His campaign of bridge-burning has been nothing short of impressive, as he rankled the Mexican soccer community by claiming that he deserves to be considered a top-five greatest ever Mexican player at the expense of legends such as Cuahtemoc Blanco and Jorge Campos.
The Dynamo regressed in 2025, and one gets the impression that patience with Olsen might be running thin as he struggles to squeeze the juice from a talented roster. Will Herrera make the Dynamo’s midfield better? Almost certainly not. The midfield group down in H-Town is already old, with Junior Urso on the wrong side of 35 and new signing Agustin Bouzat from Velez Sarsfield is 31. Artur remains the heartbeat for Houston in the center of the pitch, but even he will turn 30 in March.
Maybe Herrera will come in, turn back the years, and be the player he once was for the Dynamo. If it’s up to me to guess, however, I’d say that the inertia of late-career ineffectiveness has already taken hold. Herrera will be on the bench by May.
Cristian Espinoza: San Jose Earthquakes to Nashville SC
Grade: A man in cowboy boots steps on a rake but finds a 100-dollar bill on the ground.
Nashville SC, under the tutelage of the GOAT USMNT manager BJ Callaghan, went into last year’s first-round playoff matchup against Inter Miami all bluster and bravado. “We won’t be scared of Messi!” they assured us. Well, they ought to have been. Despite eking out a win in the second of the three-game series at Geodis Park, Nashville finished well and truly clowned in the two matches played in Miami.
Inter Miami successfully negated the Hany Mukhtar-Sam Surridge pipeline, which left Nashville with few ideas in attack and rendered them all but toothless. The Heron’s offensive firepower was unmatchable; Nashville had no chance of winning a match that turned into a basketball game.
With Jacob “Maple Messi” Shaffleburg shuffling off to LAFC, Nashville found themselves in need of a dynamic playmaker to complement Mukhtar and Surridge. When the San Jose Earthquakes inexplicably moved on from Argentinean winger Cristian Espinoza, the opportunity was too great to pass up.
The Earthquakes could have picked up Espinoza’s option for a sixth year, but declined it in favor of letting him walk. It’s a rare thing to have a marquee, Designated Player-quality forward player simply fall into your lap, but that’s more or less what transpired with Espinoza. But there’s more to the story than San Jose making a simple business decision.
On a recent episode of the “Unfiltered Soccer” podcast, Landon Donovan hit us with the shocking revelation: the San Jose Earthquakes simply “forgot” to trigger the option for the final year of Espinoza’s contract. Donovan insisted that manager Bruce Arena desperately wanted to retain the winger, but that someone on the roster-building side of San Jose’s operation screwed the pooch and inadvertently let Espinoza become a free agent.
His numbers were down last year but only slightly, and he still managed to find the net four times and provide another nine assists. At 30 years old, Espinoza still has plenty to offer in MLS, not least because he’s hardly a pace merchant. His technical ability and penchant for combining in the final third makes a front three of Mukhtar, Surridge, and Espinoza a tasty prospect.
Dayne St. Clair: Minnesota United to Inter Miami CF
Grade: The Pentagon successfully lobbies for an increase in funding.
Inter Miami seemed to be doing a sort of bizarre TikTok challenge when they repeatedly downgraded their goalkeepers but managed to keep on winning. Drake Callender suffered a sports hernia and was sidelined for much of 2024. Callender had been instrumental in Miami’s run to the 2023 Leagues Cup title, and had by this point broken through with the USMNT to the degree that some had him pegged as a threat to become the nation’s starting keeper.
The club had the chance to reintegrate Callender in late 2025, but they baffled expectations when they decided to ride with Argentinean Oscar Ustari, whose sole claim to fame was that he happened to be on the 2008 Olympics team when Lionel Messi won a gold medal.
Ustari, thanks to being very old, suffered a hamstring injury in the lead-up to last year’s playoffs, at which point the Herons were forced to make due with the 23-year-old American-born Argentina youth international Rocco Rios Novo. Rios Novo played well enough as Inter Miami captured an MLS Cup for the first time in club history. But he never made any saves that made you get out of your seat, nor did he save Messi and Co.’s bacon in any pivotal moments.
Imagine Inter Miami with a bonafide shot-stopper? Well that’s what they’re getting in Canada’s No. 1, Dayne St. Clair. Having represented Minnesota United nearly 150 times, St. Clair has established himself as the preeminent goalkeeper from north of the border, and playing in Dade County with Messi will only heap on the pressure and expectations ahead of this year’s World Cup on home soil. St. Clair turned heads in the 2024 Leagues Cup group stage against Necaxa, when he kept a clean sheet and recorded an eye-popping 16 saves en route to a 1-0 victory, despite the Loons playing for the better part of 70 minutes a man down.
Perhaps the signing of St. Clair will spur Inter forth to the CONCACAF Champions Cup that has eluded them. He’s got a strong presence in the penalty area to deal with all sorts of set piece shenanigans, decent distribution, and an excellent track record of saving penalties. It’s hard to imagine the juggernaut of South Florida getting even better, but employing a top-five MLS goalkeeper and turning a position of weakness to one of strength is going to make them nigh-impossible to beat in 2026.
Mbekezeli Mbokazi: Orlando Pirates to Chicago Fire
Grade: You bought the expensive duct tape this time, and you’re pretty sure it’s gonna hold up.
Chicago Fire FC earned accolades last season when they bucked the franchise-defining trend of being absolutely terrible. In addition to new manager Gregg Berhalter, a bevy of big signings played a significant role in the club’s return to the playoffs last year.
Jonathan Bamba, Hugo Cuypers, and Phillip Zinckernagel, aside from having fantastic names, breathed new life into a previously turgid attack. The Fire notched 68 goals last year, 28 more than the season prior and second in the East only to Inter Miami’s 81. But while their offense turned prolific, their defense was leaky, as evidenced when they crashed out of the first round of the playoffs with a 3-0 loss to the Philadelphia Union at home.
Mbekezeli Mbokazi is only 20 and has already established himself as a full South African international. He became the youngest captain in Orlando Pirates history in the first round of the African Champions League last season, and was nominated for the CAF Young Player of the Year in what amounted to a breakout season.
But as common footballing logic goes, the age of 20 is mighty green for a center back. MLS attackers tend to be large and fast, and Mbokazi stands at only 5 feet, 10 inches. How will he cope with a more physically-demanding, faster paced game than he is used to in South Africa?
A September 2025 World Cup qualifier against Nigeria might hold the key to answering this tricky query. Faced with a vaunted, fleet-of-foot Nigerian front line containing the likes of Adamola Lookman and Alex Iwobi, Mbokazi turned in a Man of the Match performance in Blomfontaine to secure a 1-1 draw and a valuable point which helped South Africa secure the top spot of Group C.
Displaying a maturity and comfort on the ball well beyond his age, Mbokazi figures to be a key component of South Africa’s first World Cup appearance since they hosted in 2010. He also had a fantastic display against a Mo Salah-led Egypt in the recent AFCON tournament. Although South Africa lost 1-0, his performance drew some significant attention and even had his coach saying he deserved to be playing in a top league.
Who knows if Mbokazi can help the Chicago Fire lock down some of its defensive issues. But if he can improve their goals-against figures by, let’s say 10 goals, Chicago figures to be among the top finishers in this year’s Eastern Conference.
Category: General Sports
