Every starter from a team that made a run to the MLS Cup Final will return to Crew SC this season. That is both a comfort and a curse for coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter.

Every starter from a team that made a run to the MLS Cup Final will return to Crew SC this season.

That is both a comfort and a curse for coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter.

�Our objective in the offseason was to make the team stronger than it was last year,� Berhalter said after an indoor training session Tuesday. �It was simple. But it gets harder to do that as you have a better team. You either have to get rid of (starters) and replace them or you have to bring in better guys underneath them.�

The Crew chose the latter.

It signed three free agents (veteran Americans Corey Ashe and Conor Casey and versatile Dane Emil Larsen) and one first-round draft pick (Guatemalan Rodrigo Saravia).

It also acquired American-born Egyptian defender Amro Tarek on a one-year loan from Spain�s Real Betis and added Norwegian forward Ola Kamara on a transfer from Austria Wien.

Whether any of them can overtake a returning starter, or at least create the internal competition that Berhalter craves, remains to be seen.

The Crew opened camp on Jan. 23 but won�t play a competitive game until Feb. 17, during the final leg of its preseason in Tucson, Arizona.

Kamara is likely to join the team in Arizona, but every other new player has been present for at least a portion of camp. Midfielder Tony Tchani said he liked what he saw this week, from veterans and newcomers alike.

�Everybody is working hard,� said Tchani, who rejoined the Crew on Monday after spending a month in camp with the U.S. national team. �I haven�t see one guy taking it easy. Every guy is going 100 percent. That�s good to see. You want to keep that same level we had last year.�

Earlier this week, the Crew waived midfielders Sergio Campbell and Roman Gall. Campbell, a Jamaican, was the club�s first-round draft pick last year but was a casualty of his international status.

In a nod to its status as a developmental league for American soccer, Major League Soccer allows its teams only eight international roster spots, though they can trade for more. With its slow-and-steady approach to growth and its cost-controlling single-entity system, MLS has a thrifty-but-pliable $3.66 million salary cap this season.

Fortifying the roster of a top-level team made this offseason the most difficult of his tenure, Berhalter said, and that doesn�t include the added wrinkle of his star striker, Kei Kamara, still angling for a pay bump after arriving late to camp.

�It�s much tougher financially,� he said. �As your team gets better, to bring in guys better than what you have, it�s hard. It�s a lot of money on the international market.�

Berhalter indicated he does not have much more to spend.

The Crew still has a handful of roster spots available and defender Waylon Francis is close to acquiring a green card, perhaps opening an international slot before the league�s Feb. 28 roster compliance deadline.

But the heavy lifting is likely done.

�Speaking hypothetically, the only thing that would be done �big� is if an existing player went elsewhere,� Berhalter said. �That�s the only way we could manage it from a cap standpoint.�

smitchell@dispatch.com

@smitchcd





Crew roster

The Crew has one open spot on its 20-man senior roster and three open spots on its eight-man supplemental roster, though it plans to only fill two of those. Each MLS team gets eight international slots but can acquire more slots via trade.



Senior roster



19 of a maximum of 20 players (minimum 18):



GK Steve Clark



D Harrison Afful*



D Corey Ashe



D Waylon Francis*



D Michael Parkhurst



D Gaston Sauro*



D Tyson Wahl



M Ethan Finlay



M Frederico Higuain



M Hector Jimenez



M Emil Larsen*



M Cedric Mabwati*



M Justin Meram



M Mohammed Saeid*



M Tony Tchani



M Wil Trapp



F Conor Casey



F Kei Kamara



F Ola Kamara*



Supplemental roster



Five of a maximum of eight (salaries do not count against cap):



GK Brad Stuver



D Chad Barson



D Amro Tarek



M Rodrigo Saravia*



M Ben Swanson



In camp, unsigned



GK Matt Pacifici



M Chase Minter (2016 draft pick)



M Marshall Hollingsworth (2016 draft pick)



*–international



