MLS updates 2025 roster profiles

As is now becoming an annual tradition, MLS released the “roster profiles” for each of the league’s 30 teams. Essentially, these give some details about Designated Players, TAM Players and U22 players; while also explaining who is on the senior and supplemental rosters. It’s useful information for a league that is making improvements in terms of increased transparency.

Here’s how the Sounders roster looks:

If you’re a Sounder at Heart subscriber, most of this information should not come as a surprise. We track most of it on our “Salary Cap Position” page.

Still, it serves as good confirmation for things like the Sounders’ international spot situation (they have one open spot) and that they have three open U22 spots (in fact, they are the only team in the league without anyone filling one). The Sounders have said they intend to sign at least one foreign player to a U22 contract and it stands to reason that they will eventually fill the other spots, either with outside signings, by re-signing someone already on the roster or reclassifying someone like Danny Leyva, who would save them a little bit of money against the salary cap if designated as a U22 player.

If you’re looking for genuine news in this release, it’s probably that Leo Burney is on a full-season loan to the Tacoma Defiance. That’s not necessarily a huge surprise — he never seemed likely to seriously factor into the first-team roster this year — but this designation shed some light on the rules surrounding the lower-end of the roster.

Burney effectively takes up “slot 31” on the roster. That’s a spot that’s reserved for players who are 24 or younger, make the league minimum AND are sent on loan to a lower-division team. That player doesn’t have to be a Homegrown. Burney can still be called into the first team for four “short-term loans” or even be fully recalled, but then he would have to be moved to the supplemental roster and occupy one of the 30 other roster spots.

Notably, that is a different designation than the “off-roster Homegrowns”, which effectively allow MLS teams to expand their rosters well beyond the normal limits. Stuart Hawkins, who is now part of the supplemental roster, occupied one of those spots last year. There seems to be a very good chance that Snyder Brunell will eventually be signed to fill one of those spots, and it allows players to appear in up to six league games and an unlimited number of other matches.