Alan Koch is weary as he sips a much-needed coffee at a local Starbucks on Thursday afternoon.

The FC Cincinnati head coach had just days earlier concluded a stretch of travel that saw him cross the borders of a dozen countries in less than a week.

That's just one of the recent trips abroad Koch has taken as he continues to survey players for the club's inaugural Major League Soccer campaign next year, and he is tired, but that's not the principal impetus for his weariness.

The main cause of Koch's stress this week is the looming expansion draft, a mechanism through which FC Cincinnati can select five unprotected, current MLS players from 18 of the league's 23 rosters, and then either keep those players or trade them later for other assets.

As Koch attempts to explain the obstacles, proverbial horse trading, and misinformation that have complicated draft preparations, his iPhone buzzes constantly.

At one point, he holds the device up to reveal that he was just called by another MLS head coach.

"I'll take it later," Koch said.

The expansion draft mechanism is intended to help FC Cincinnati be competitive upon entrance MLS, but it's not so simple.

Other MLS clubs are trying to mitigate the potency of the mechanism by anticipating Cincinnati's needs and then leaving undesirable players unprotected.

Come Sunday, though, FC Cincinnati will be running the show that surrounds the draft, and there's not much the other clubs can do at that point to hide or direct Cincinnati away from their prized unprotected assets.

"People are now trying to influence who gets protected, who are unprotected and everyone’s trying to figure out what we’re trying to do," Koch told The Enquirer. "We’ve gone through a very, very thorough process to evaluate all the players in MLS. There are some players that we’d rather have than others, but we don’t don’t control that, so we won’t be making decisions until we get the (protected and unprotected) lists. That’s the first time we’ll actually be able to say, ‘we now control the decision-making process.’

"Right now, we don’t control the decision-making process. We control the research phase and trying to guess a little bit but we don’t have specifics in terms of who can we pick, who can we pick and trade. We’re not going to have to be reactionary. We control the business that occurs around our five selections."

FC Cincinnati will receive the protected and unprotected lists Sunday. Then, the technical staff and other club personnel will bunker down at the club's Downtown Fourth Street offices.

Koch said he expects he and his fellow technical staffers to work through the night designing their expansion draft plan.

Monday will be for reviewing the plan and fielding last-minute suggestions from other clubs.

By Tuesday, the framework for most of the club's business will be finished, Koch said.

In the typical style of the drafts that are common throughout American sports, FC Cincinnati should have a couple minutes to strategize between the announcements of its picks during the draft at MLS headquarters in New York City, but Koch doesn't think that will be necessary.

It's possible FC Cincinnati simply steps up to a lectern on Tuesday and announces things quickly, he said.

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FC Cincinnati's draft strategy: A multifaceted approach

You might have noticed that FC Cincinnati's been stingy with its announcements regarding its 2019 roster, and the offseason strategy was purposefully designed that way.

Koch confirmed the club has signed more players than it has announced so far. Another signing was reported Friday but not confirmed by the club.

Koch said the club is maintaining radio silence on some of their personnel progress to prevent teams from essentially blocking their path to helpful selections in Tuesday's draft.

"The reason for the silence is that we’re about to go play a game where teams will choose to protect or unprotect players," Koch said. "If we’re verbalizing or pointing out exactly who we’re to sign, we’re losing the advantage of going into this mechanism and trying to get the best players possible.

While most FC Cincinnati fans probably expect the club to use its five expansion draft picks to add five reasonably prominent and talented names to the 2019 roster, that's hardly a foregone conclusion. Some would call that unlikely or unrealistic.

It's unclear whether there will be players available that can be regular starting contributors. It's almost certain there won't be five players of that caliber and selecting for depth is more likely.

And then there are other possibilities.

"We’re actively in talks with other teams in terms of ‘let us know if there’s somebody that may interest you.' We’re open to other ideas of resourceful business, too," Koch said. "There are some people that are coming up with innovative ideas in terms of what we can get out of this. We might get five players, but we could get nothing. We could get a couple of players and also acquire the resources that would allow us to go out and get other players elsewhere, so that’s the interesting part of it right now."

Between now and Sunday, other MLS clubs will continue trying to anticipate FC Cincinnati's needs.

To the other clubs, Koch says it doesn't matter because "we're open to every position in terms of our roster building. There’s only one position that we feel quite confident."

He declined to confirm which position the team felt confident in.

Koch's other message to those clubs was this: "Good luck."

"Go for it," he said. "Try to guess which position it is because nobody will ever figure it out. Good luck to the other clubs in MLS trying to figure out who to protect and not protect because we are legitimately looking at every position.”