Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are starting your new year off right and that your holiday period was restful and restorative.

2024 has started with a bang in MLS silly season, for reasons largely unrelated to the Caps (if you’re a Rapids fan, however, you’ve likely been quite busy). But Tom Bogert of The Athletic is reporting a juicy morsel: Vancouver is nearing a deal to send Simon Becher to AC Horsens in Denmark for a reported fee of $400,000, plus a sizable sell on clause.

Becher wasn’t on my list of players about whom the Caps would be fielding offers from Europe but it makes a lot of sense. After Becher’s hot period as a super sub, his value is likely never higher than it is now and this is probably when you would expect him to make some sort of big move.

I think everyone was pretty comfortable with Becher as a backup striker but he also was not super prolific outside of his torrid pace in the middle of the season, meaning that the Caps could easily plow their transfer fee into finding another MLS-proven striker. You wonder if they will target a Brian White-esque buy low candidate, either from within the league or in the Canadian Premier League.

And while $400,000 is certainly not a huge windfall, remember this is a guy selected with relatively little fanfare in the Super Draft and who has been on a very low salary ever since — this is basically all pure profit for the Caps and retaining a nice percentage of any future sale makes this pretty good business.

At the same time, one of the MLS transfer accounts is claiming that Ali Ahmed is also drawing interest abroad, including from Sporting Lisbon. It was inevitable that Ahmed would be linked to a European move, particularly after he broke into the national team. And I think everyone in the fanbase would love to see Ali go succeed in a big league, because he certainly has that type of potential.

I can’t comment on whether this is accurate. But it does feel a little soon for Ahmed to go; he will get a ton of minutes this season and can improve his consistency and clean up some of the holes in his game. Much like Alphonso Davies, another full year will probably also boost his value, barring any injuries, and really put him in the shop window for a move to an even better league.

Maybe this is all just wishful thinking — losing Ali would be a big blow to the Caps’ hopes for the upcoming season. But such is life in MLS, where everyone is a selling club and your window to win anything is much more precarious than you might think.

Shameless Self Promotion

Caleb has been on a heater lately. First, he breaks down where the Caps should be looking to go in this offseason writ large. Then he turns his attention to what the expectations should be for Damir Kreilach next season.

Best of the Rest

More from Vanni Sartini on where the Caps stand heading into 2024, with some insight on how their attacker pursuit might go

Colorado have been busy, signing Manchester City keeper Zach Steffen and reportedly closing in on AZ Alkmaar man Djordje Mihailovic

Top free agent Miles Robinson, meanwhile, is off to FC Cincinnati in a major coup for the Shield winners

Jason DeVos is leaving Canada Soccer to go join John Herdman’s staff at Toronto FC