On November 26th, FC Cincinnati started the process of building their roster for the 2026 season by announcing which players’ contract options they decided to exercise and which to decline. This was the first step in what should be a busy offseason for Chris Albright and company.
Option Decisions
The club chose to exercise the contract options for Tah Brian Anunga, Teenage Hadebe, Stiven Jimenez, Evan Louro, Kenji Mboma Dem and Matt Miazga, while declining the options for Kei Kamara, Yuya Kubo, Alvas Powell, and Brad Smith. As part of the announcement the club stated that they were in negotiations with Powell for him to return to the club next season.
Just because a player’s option was exercised, it does not mean that they will play for the club in 2026. An option may have been exercised on player that the club believe is still valuable and can be moved via a trade to get some type of compensation.
Loan Decisions
There were four players on-loan to FCC for the 2025 season, Brenner (Udinese), Lukas Engel (Middlesbrough), Ayoub Jabarri (Grenoble), and Dom Marczuk (Real Salt Lake). A loan deal typically includes a purchase option, which allows the team that took the player on loan to pay a fee and keep the player permanently. The loan option for Marczuk expired and he has returned to Real Salt Lake. The loan options for the other three players expire in December, and FCC is having discussions with their parent clubs on making the players move permanent.
2026 Roster
Here is the breakdown of the current FCC 2026 roster by position group:
Goalkeeper (3): Roman Celentano, Evan Louro^, Paul Walters^
Defender (6): Álvaro Barreal*, Gilberto Flores, Teenage Hadebe, Nick Hagglund, Matt Miazga, Miles Robinson
Midfielder (9): Tah Brian Anunga^, Pavel Bucha, Ender Echenique, Evander, Samuel Gidi, Stiven Jimenez^, Obinna Nwobodo, Luca Orellano, Gerardo Valenzuela^
Forward (3): Stefan Chirila^, Kévin Denkey, Kenji Mboma Dem^
^2025 Supplemental Roster, *On Loan
Currently FCC has 13 players on their 2026 roster who were on the Senior Roster in 2025, seven from the 2025 Supplemental Roster, and one, Alvaro Barreal, who was on loan to Santos in Brazil, and not expected to return to FCC.
In MLS, the salary of players on the Senior Roster are the only ones counted against the salary cap. The MLS roster rules state that a club must have 18 players on the senior roster. If a club has less than 18, a budget charge will be added to the salary cap for each open spot. Laurel Pfahler of Queen City Press reported that Nick Hagglund’s contract would move from the Senior Roster to the Supplemental Roster for 2026, which means FCC as of now only has 12 players on the Senior roster.
Currently FCC has approximately $3 MM in salary cap space to add at least six players to the Senior Roster.
Next Steps
As noted in our previous article, MLS Free Agency begins in earnest on December 10th, followed by the Re-Entry Draft and waivers. These events will help shape the FCC roster going forward.
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