Building for 2023: Looking at the FC Dallas goalkeepers

Nov 28, 2022 - 4:06 PM

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The world of Major League Soccer has slowed down a great deal these last few days, thanks in large part to the World Cup in Qatar. That means the news surrounding FC Dallas has also come to a screeching halt as well.

So that means it is a great time to dust off an old series that we do every offseason, where we go section-by-section on the FC Dallas roster to see how it is going to be constructed for the upcoming season.

Today we’ll kick this off with a quick look at the goalkeeping situation with the team.

Background information

For starters, I like to point out the salary cap: the 2022 season was at $4.9 million and will go up in a decent way to $5.12 million.

As most of you know, MLS teams can buy down a player's salary with allocation, either of the general or targeted variety. Those ‘Garber Bucks’ as some like to call them, help bring a player's salary cap hit down. In recent years, FC Dallas has received a lot of extra allocation from selling some of their Homegrown players to European teams.

Typically, returning players see an increase in their salary each year unless it has been agreed with the club that they make less, as in the club and player worked out a deal.

Current status and questions

A couple of weeks ago, FC Dallas made their end-of-year roster announcements and we were left with the same group of keepers for 2023 that we had all throughout 2022. Three of them. Maarten Paes came in on loan at the beginning of 2022 and quickly earned his spot as the team’s top goalkeeper, which then earned him a full-time transfer to the club.

What kind of bump will Paes get in year 2? This may be the only question worth thinking through for this group. In 2022, Paes was relatively cheap on the salary books ($187,500.00), nearly a full $125k less than his backup Jimmy Maurer. Ideally, you flip their salaries if you can but I doubt that will happen here. More than likely, Paes will see his salary go up to Maurer’s level in 2023, only to pass it the following season (he does have a very lengthy contract that could go through 2027).

Will Carerra get any time in 2023? You want to see Homegrown players progress, and for a young keeper like Carerra, I hope the club does a bit more to get him minutes in 2023 by way of a loan to a USL-C team. The club has plenty of goalkeeping options at North Texas (and in the academy, for that matter) that they’ll need to push Carerra’s minutes now rather than create an HGP logjam in goal before long.

The money

Here is what our guys made against the cap in 2022:

Maarten Paes - $187,500.00

Jimmy Maurer - $292,887.00

Antonio Carerra - $85,019.00*

Total - $479,887

* HGP salary does not count against the salary cap

Money moving forward

As I’ve mentioned, expect bumps for all three in pay, which means the total spent on this group against the salary cap could end up hovering close to $550k next season. I’ve long said that you want to spend wisely on goalkeeping in this league, and I still feel like this is a solid amount to spend. Not too much, but definitely not too little, either.

Final figures and thoughts

Typically you don’t carry more than three keepers in a season, and I doubt FC Dallas will have to do much else in this department for 2023. The only thing standing in the way may be an injury or some unexpected transfer. Either way, FC Dallas should be set for the long term here.

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How do you think FC Dallas will handle their keeper situation in 2023? Let’s discuss it below.