Dax McCarty on MLS Expansion and San Diego FC’s Hot Start | OneFootball

With nearly two decades in MLS across multiple teams, Dax McCarty has seen just about everything — including what it’s like to play for an expansion club.

In American sports, expansion represents new growth and opportunities for teams and leagues alike. Throughout the “big three” American leagues — the NFL, NBA, and MLB — the ’80s and ’90s saw significant expansion across all three entities to varying levels of success, and while there have been grumblings of further growth, it’s been relatively quiet on this front in each league since the early 2000s. The NHL has been busier, adding 12 franchises since 1990, and welcoming the Utah Hockey Club (now the Utah Mammoth) in the 2024-25 season.

In comparison, Major League Soccer has been the most aggressive expander in the United States. The league has gone from 10 founding clubs in 1996 to now 30 with the addition of San Diego FC in 2025.

San Diego was an opportune market for MLS, as many sports fans in America’s Finest City were left heartbroken when the San Diego Chargers relocated to Los Angeles. The league pounced on the opportunity and entered a sports landscape that was ripe for success.

San Diego FC officially joined MLS in 2023 with a record $500 million expansion fee. It’s a club that was built with a clear vision from its ownership group and the Right to Dream Academy. From the start, the goal was to establish a powerhouse in MLS. Still, no one expected the team to become the first to qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs in 2025.

We’ve seen several MLS expansion sides get off to hot starts in their inaugural season: St. Louis City SC finished atop the Western Conference in 2023, and Austin FC finished in second the year prior. Previously, LAFC and Atlanta United also saw immediate success in not just their first MLS seasons, but in the years following as well.

San Diego has thrived as an underdog this season, overcoming major injuries that disrupted its original roster plans. With a few crucial adjustments and head coach Mikey Varas maximizing players who had previously flown under the radar, San Diego FC is achieving something extraordinary.

Dax McCarty during his time with Nashville SC. Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Dax McCarty, an 18-year MLS vet and current analyst on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, knows a thing or two about being part of an expansion team, helping inaugurate Nashville SC in 2020.

McCarty was a regular in the Nashville lineup, featuring in 121 matches across all competitions for the club, and relished his time in Music City.

“I had never played on an expansion team before, so I absolutely dreamed about becoming a cornerstone piece for a brand-new franchise — someone the fans could resonate with, someone the supporters would remember,” McCarty said.  “I think setting the foundation for a new club is a really unique experience. That’s not something a lot of players get to do: being able to come in and start from ground zero, start from scratch.

“That’s what really sold me on the project at Nashville SC. The city is amazing, a great city with absolutely fantastic support. Being able to go there, open a new stadium, open a new training facility, be part of the team’s history, and be the team’s first captain — honestly, one of the most memorable four-year stretches of my career was my time with Nashville. I’m very grateful for it.”

One aspect of playing for a first-year team that sometimes gets overlooked is the excitement of the fans having a say in the first division of the soccer pyramid.

“I think there’s always going to be a buzz…especially in the first couple of seasons in a new city getting a major league team,” McCarty said.” It’s a big deal. It’s a very big deal for cities, especially with soccer on the rise in this country. But nowadays, with Major League Soccer in a really healthy, established place, I think you have to have your organization ready to go from the get-go. In years past, that wasn’t always the case.”

When assembling an expansion side, some teams don’t put all their eggs in one basket from the start. San Diego, however, immediately made one of the biggest splashes in the region by signing Chucky Lozano, a top Mexican international.

As their later moves weren’t as eye-catching, critics — myself included — questioned their roster following the expansion draft. But Varas and SDFC proved everyone wrong, becoming the first team to qualify for the playoffs and are now pushing to be the first expansion side in MLS history to lift the Supporters’ Shield.

McCarty looked back at how Nashville constructed its roster ahead of its 2020 inaugural season in comparison to San Diego.

“(Nashville) didn’t wanna swing for the fences right away,” McCarty said.  “They didn’t wanna go all out with their roster build right away and spend every available dollar that they had to them. They wanted to make sure that they had a good, stable core of players.

“They had a good base, a good spine, and then they wanted to see what they had the first couple of months and then start to build from there and then try to see where they needed to grow, what strengths they had, what weaknesses they had. I thought that was a really prudent approach to building an expansion team and building a roster.”

Unlike Nashville, San Diego chose the opposite path, going all-in and signing big names like Lozano, Anders Dreyer, and Luca de la Torre, even adding several transfers midway through the season to fuel a playoff run.

“I think what San Diego is doing right now is incredible,” McCarty said. “It’s almost unprecedented in Major League Soccer. There wasn’t a lot of hype around their roster. I remember when LAFC built their expansion roster, they had a ton of hype around them. Atlanta United, a ton of hype around Atlanta United as an expansion team. There wasn’t a lot of hype around San Diego.

“Obviously, signing Chucky Lozano was a big deal, but other than Chucky Lozano and Anders Dreyer, I don’t remember thinking very much of San Diego’s initial roster. Then you hear about how they want to play and how they’re going to be expansive, and they want to keep possession and a high press. It just seemed like it was almost a dream, if you will. But I want to give full credit to Tyler Heaps, Mikey Varas, and the entire ownership group in San Diego for putting together a historic expansion season right now. They’re currently on pace to potentially win the Supporters’ Shield, which an expansion team in Major League Soccer has never done. It’s just truly been, I think, a fairytale season for them.”

It’s not just the big stars that are shining, however. San Diego’s initial roster plan shifted mid-season, with several relatively unknown players emerging as key contributors. Despite losing Marcus Ingvartsen to injury for much of the season and relying on Andres Reyes, who stood out during the New York Red Bulls’ playoff run last year, San Diego has remained at the top of the table.

“They’ve done it all year with two designated players that have played fantastic, and then the rest are players that are relatively unknown,” McCarty said. “Yet first off, the defensive midfielder, Jeppe Tverskov, has been the best No. 6 in the league, and Anibal Godoy is having a renaissance in his career at his older age, having one of the best seasons of his career.

“Obviously, a lot of unknown younger players have been playing a lot recently. Their fullback Luca Bombino seems like he’s been a great find, and they’ve done this all while not having an out-and-out striker. Milan Iloski, he was fantastic for 10 goals for them, and now he’s gone. It’s just been so impressive to see what San Diego has been able to do in an expansion year. They deserve a ton of credit.”

San Diego FC was supposed to be a curiosity, another expansion experiment in America’s ever-changing sports landscape. Instead, they’ve rewritten the script. In just their first season, they’ve gone from filling a void left by the Chargers to filling a stadium with belief, passion, and unexpected results.

Expansion teams are supposed to struggle, to stumble, to wait their turn. San Diego FC skipped the line. And if they lift the Shield, they won’t just be an expansion success story — they’ll be the blueprint.

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