Western Conference: 5 teams to watch in the winter transfer market | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

The MLS winter transfer window doesn’t officially open for a while, but that doesn’t mean the shopping hasn’t started (sorry for the double negative).

Chief soccer officers (CSO) and agents are on the phone basically 24/7 this time of year trying to get deals done, and we’ve all got notifications turned on for Tommy Scoops’ social accounts. If you don’t, consider that a PSA.

For the time being, here are five Western Conference teams I’m keeping a close eye on in the buildup to the 2026 MLS season.

Sporting Kansas City

Nobody in the league (other than maybe Toronto FC) has more room to work with this winter than Sporting KC, not just in terms of salary-cap space but in terms of premium roster slots. New CSO David Lee has four to use, which means he’s going to get the chance to mold this team to his liking in his very first window.

And that’s part of what makes this team so much fun to keep an eye on: nobody really knows what Lee’s conception of an MLS team looks like, because in his previous job, Lee was overseeing a City Football Group (CFG) team. And in such a role, be it in North America or Australia and other stops in between, the job is not to mold the team in your own image of what you think soccer should look like, but to mold the team in CFG’s image of what soccer should look like.

During his New York City FC days, Lee was not without some level of autonomy and power. But word is that signing young Designated Players like Talles Magno or U22 Initiative players like Agustín Ojeda and Julián Fernández were CFG initiatives that he had to execute on. There were bigger, global considerations to the work he was doing.

There’s none of that with Sporting. The job is to add pieces he thinks will build this thing into a winning soccer team again, and so I’m very curious to see what that means. I’d actually say I quite like his first move, a low-cost trade for veteran goalkeeper Stefan Cleveland, who I’ve always liked. I wouldn’t be shocked if Cleveland turned into a starter.

But I’m more interested in the big moves he’ll make – whether he’ll go after a third DP, and whether he’ll build towards the 4-3-3 formation Sporting’s run about 98 percent of the time since 2009, or whether this will be a new roster build with a new formation at the heart of it.

San Diego FC

San Diego FC sporting director/general manager Tyler Heaps authored one of the best expansion seasons – and one of the best front office debut seasons – in MLS history, putting together a roster that was both deep and talented not just because he clearly has a great eye for talent, but because he’s got a very good understanding of how to bring in talent (from MLS or elsewhere) on a cap-friendly deal. Aníbal Godoy as a free agent, Chris McVey via trade, Luca Bombino on a loan that turned into a very affordable permanent acquisition, Manu Duah and Ian Pilcher via the SuperDraft… no stone was left unturned.

That includes taking in underperforming veterans from elsewhere on what are essentially partial contract dumps. The best example from last year was Amahl Pellegrino, who they got from San Jose for basically nothing, and who turned out to be a crucial attacking piece down the stretch and into the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.

They’ve reportedly already pulled that trick again this offseason, getting Lewis Morgan from the Red Bulls for very little (and RBNY are, from what I’ve been told, covering well more than half of Morgan’s salary). Like Pellegrino, Morgan is a winger by trade who can also operate through the middle in San Diego’s system.

While there is some risk here – Morgan missed most of last year, and has been only sporadically healthy as he approaches 30 (though it’s good that San Diego got him for an even-numbered season) – it’s an acceptable amount of risk given the commensurate amount of upside, as well as the type of quality, proven depth this team will need if they want to compete across multiple competitions across 10 months, during which they may log 50+ games.

The bigger questions lie elsewhere on the front line, though:

Vancouver Whitecaps FC

The Whitecaps just put together not only the best season in club history, but one of the best seasons in league history as they became the first MLS team to make the final of three separate tournaments, while coming within three points of the Supporters' Shield.

They were, in other words, in a serious hunt for four separate trophies. And they did it by playing beautiful soccer while developing players, both young and old, to the peak of their respective abilities.

Of course, they won just one of those trophies, so the job for sporting director Axel Schuster this offseason is to figure out how to get a little bit more quality into the first XI so there's a little bit more push in the biggest games. I don’t think that means another Thomas Mūller-esque signing, but this team has never been hesitant to make moves within the league.

Even bigger, though, is the question of whether they can keep this team together:

There’s a lot to juggle here. The good news is these are all first-world problems, as “our guys are so good that we’re expecting to have to bat away lucrative offers” is the No. 2 sign (after winning trophies, of course) that you’re doing your job as a club.

LA Galaxy

There’s actually not much to juggle here at all: the Galaxy are bringing back most of their team (it remains to be seen if that’ll include Diego Fagúndez, whose option they declined but with whom they remain in discussions). That may seem like a bad thing since they missed last year’s playoffs, but they played at about a 50-point clip across all competitions from June onwards, which included a very credible run to the Leagues Cup semifinals and eventual third-place finish, which meant qualification for the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup.

Over that second-half run, they finally developed depth by playing down-roster players, guys like academy product Harbor Miller and MLS NEXT Pro call-up Chris Rindov, who should give the Galaxy more flexibility to compete on multiple fronts as well as a higher floor to avoid the type of slog they experienced to start last season.

That leaves three jobs for them this winter:

That last one is TBD, and it’s one of the biggest variables in the West this year. They said in their roster decisions release that they’re in negotiations to bring back Matheus Nascimento, but man, using a U22 Initiative slot – their only available premium roster slot – on him last year was one of the team’s biggest issues. Nascimento wasn't consistently productive in Brazil for Botafogo, and that didn’t change in 2025 for LA.

Can they get a real, high-level answer in there? The hit rate on U22s isn’t high, but there are good, young No. 9s out there who can help you win. If the Galaxy get one of them, they could end up back above 60 points and in contention once again.

San Jose Earthquakes

San Jose already made one of the headline moves of the offseason by letting Cristian Espinoza hit free agency. Espinoza's 30, so he’s at the tail end of his prime, but he’s still one of the very best chance creators in the league and is maybe the most coveted guy out there. 

All reports indicate the Quakes are desperately trying to re-sign him, but 29 other teams are surely salivating at the prospect of signing him.

They’ve obviously got their hands full with that, but they’ve got other fish to fry as well because they’ve 1) cleared out a ton of roster and cap space, and 2) got to fix a defense that couldn’t stop anyone last year.

That means there will certainly be new defenders. I’m actually high on San Jose’s young cadre of center backs, and Bruce Arena’s always done great work with CBs acquired via the SuperDraft, but still. There’s obviously going to be at least one addition to that group.

I’m actually more interested in what happens along the front line, where last year’s starter – Josef Martínez – is reportedly about to sign with Club Tijuana in LIGA MX. Chicho Arango is still in town as a DP (and reportedly on a new contract), as is Preston Judd, but… I don’t know. All of this feels like it could be torn down at any moment with an eye towards putting together a new group.

I could be wrong about all this: It could just be “re-sign Espinoza, add one veteran CB and call it a day.” But I don’t think so.