MLS reveals 2025 roster building events

Major League Soccer is already working towards the 2025 season with the current campaign nearing the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs.

This winter’s roster building events will look a little different compared to last year. Last winter, the league was business as usual. Now, the MLS expansion draft will be used to help round out San Diego FC’s squad ahead of their inaugural 2025 season.

San Diego will have the opportunity to select five eligible players from other MLS teams in the Expansion Draft. However, MLS teams can choose to protect 12 players under contract on their roster that San Diego cannot select that will take place on December 11.

MLS free agency begins on December 12 right after the expansion draft. Several notable players currently set for free agency include LAFC trio Aaron Long, Jesús Murillo and Ilie Sánchez, New England Revolution center Tim Parker and Seattle Sounders duo João Paulo and Albert Rusnák.

The 2025 MLS SuperDraft, in which teams select eligible players from colleges in the United States and Canada, is scheduled for Dec. 20. Because San Diego is the newest team in MLS, it will have the first pick in each round and the remaining order will be determined by how the teams finished in the Western and Eastern Conference playoffs.

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