Sporting KC
Jake Davis: Of the 1%, dirty yards, swords & being the face of Sporting Kansas City
“I’m just saying I feel like a player on this team. And that’s how I want to be. I don’t want to have an ego. I just want to be a good teammate to my teammates and be a good player on the field. I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

In 2019, Sporting Kansas City signed 17-year-old midfielder Jake Davis to Sporting KC II on an Academy contract.
Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes’ response? “I would say to [our staff members], I’m not sure we should have done that.”
Six years later at Saturday’s press conference before Sporting left for their first leg of Preseason 2025, Sporting’s biggest returning talent – German midfielder/winger Erik Thommy – said of Davis, “It doesn’t matter where [Jake] plays, he is going to be important for us.”
Indeed. As Kansas City enters a season after missing the playoffs in 2024 and after the jettison of long-time stalwarts Tim Melia, Remi Walter, Andreu Fontas, and Johnny Russell, Thommy and Davis are inarguably the faces of the franchise.
“If you want to put it like that, it’s a cool moment for me to just take a step back and examine it that way,” said the now 23-year-old Davis in a one-on-one sit down with the Kansas City Soccer Journal last Saturday at Compass Minerals National Performance Center. “But there are many other good players at this club. Me and Erik have had opportunities that have put our faces out there more. I feel like I’ve always felt wherever I’ve been a pro, a guy who enjoys the game and wants to do his best for his team.
“I’ve had to grow as a person having different opportunities [like being called upon to participate in] the press conference, sitting here with you, doing the Apple TV thing. But the biggest thing I’ve always learned is just keeping my head down and working. It’s so cliché, but that has made the biggest difference for me. It’s like blinders on a horse, you just keep going straight.”
The “one thing” about Jake
As Vermes continued to reflect on Davis’s journey at Sporting Kansas City that began in 2017 with the Academy and his own questioning of signing Davis to SKCII, he highlighted a clear trait that has enabled Davis’s growth: “But sometimes, what you see is that it is not just the quality of the soccer player, but do they have the personality for this profession? It’s not an easy profession… There are so many ups-downs to it; you have to have the wherewithal to see through it.
“The one thing about Jake you could see every time he came to the team was that it didn’t matter if he had made a mistake [the previous day]. He came back the next day, and he was all over it again. It didn’t matter what the guys said to him; he was there. What has kept him in the 1st team, is that. And now, the soccer is catching up to it because he can sustain those ups and downs based on his personality.”
In the moment, always.
“I’m very present,” Davis stated during our sit down. Nothing was truer on October 23, 2024 – four short days after a 2-1 loss at FC Dallas ended a next-to-last finish in MLS’s Western Conference (27th of 29 overall) in 2024. On that day at the end season presser, Jake Davis became, more than anyone and more than ever, the face of Sporting Kansas City.
Davis did not so much throw down a gauntlet in that emotional time after a disappointing season had ended, yet he promoted, pointed-out, and pointed the way towards recovery.
Excerpts include: “the little things matter”; a promotion of working those “dirty yards, the five extra yards that are – you’re so tired you don’t want to just take a couple more steps because you’re so tired, but you do it” when pointing out there were “a lot of moments” where “all of us could have done just a little bit more.”
Pointing the way to a mindset of doing “whatever it takes to win, whether it looks good, whether it doesn’t.”
A promotion of getting “one percent” better at every training while pointing out the team should go into the four competitions of 2025 (Champions Cup, Open Cup, Leagues Cup, MLS Cup) to “make the most out of everything we can” while promoting working also to make teammates better to foster stronger unity and less individuality.
And pointing to recovery via an illustration of his days with SKCII – by fighting all match, every match, like it is the last – “that’s what made [SKCII] special to me.”
“I think when I talk about togetherness, if you have 11 guys that can do that, results will come.”
None of it was groundbreaking. But it was passionate. And it was said with determination by a player who was not a part of any plan for the 1st team until he made himself part of the plan.
The here and now
After Davis spoke with the broad press Saturday, we sat down at a table outside the media room to cover a variety of topics more intimately. The questions of happiness, responsibility, and challenges surfaced with talk of swords and the joys of friendship:
KC Soccer Journal: Are you where you want to be at age 23?
JD: “Yah. Look, I’m very present. I committed my future to Sporting Kansas City. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I am prideful and proud about that. I’ve been here since age 15 – boyhood club.
“I feel like there is a big thing that young kids nowadays are like, ‘I need to go to Europe’ or ‘I need to do this or that.’ It’s never about working what you have now. I am very grateful to Sporting Kansas City. They changed my life. And I’m very proud. Obviously, I had a part in that performing and wanting it. But I am very happy where I am.”
KCSJ: Where do you feel you need to step up your game?
JD: “[I need to get better] at everything… I’m not satisfied with anything in my game. I’m happy with where I’m at and the type of player I am. (KCSJ interjecting… You scored some bangers last year! JD: ‘I did, but last year is gone. It’s special if I can do it again.) I am happy with the things I did last year, and I learned a lot about myself – what I can and can’t do – but when I go to preseason… it’s like a sword, you have to keep sharpening your sword.”
KCSJ: Tim Melia, Johnny Russell, Remi Walter, etc., are gone. What do you see as the biggest challenge coming into this season for the club?
JD: “We lost a lot of experience. That’s okay; things happen like that in the soccer industry. It’s about guys stepping up: voices. I need to step up. It takes courage and guts to voice your opinion. That is the most important thing between us – we have to be honest and have responsibility between each other, respect. We have a younger team. It takes guys with different experience, or no experience, to step up and say, ‘We are in this together.’
“That is the most important: keeping each other accountable. That is a challenge because guys are put in different positions than they were in the past because there were older voices to voice those opinions.”
During the press conference, Davis was asked if he saw his role shifting to being a recognized leader considering the side is now much younger. Davis stated, “I do look at myself in a different role, trying to be more influential and set an example on and off the field.” Speaking of Davis and his “great intensity and aggressiveness,” Vermes stated, “that strength can be very infectious for the other players on the team. We need more guys to [be more intense], and [Jake] could be a great example of that and other guys will understand how important that is. In this league, it can be huge result-getter.”
But don’t expect Davis to be ripping the captain’s armband from anyone.
KCSJ: Did your coaches see you as a leader as you grew up, having that persona? Can you be a leader who, as Vermes put it, can ‘get into someone’s face’ and stand up?
JD: “I think coaches saw me as a person who puts a lot of effort towards something, and I have a lot of passion… Coaches might think that rubs off in a good way on others.
“Being a captain for a professional team is a lot different than being a captain for a U-17 team. I think there is a point in my future where maybe I am going to be ready to be captain. Right now, I am doing my best to be prepared for that moment. I am not thinking that could be this year; it might not be next year. But if there is ever a moment that comes in my career, I am going to do my best to make sure I’m prepared for every aspect of what a captaincy looks like. There is a lot that I need to learn still.”
Of friends and teammates
“I went to see my boy.”
Davis was hurting at the end of the 2024 season, so he stayed at home in Kansas for two extra weeks to get fit. After a week at his boyhood home in Michigan, Davis headed to Italy to see his best bud: former Sporting Kansas City and current Venezia midfielder Gianluca Busio.
“Him and I are both soccer players, but we were never on the same team. He played for Sporting and I was on 2nd team, but we were never in the same locker room. Sometimes I would train, but we lived together, and we are friends because we are friends, not ex-teammates. We are just buddies.
“While I was there, it was interesting to see what his soccer experience is like, his day-to-day. It was us messing around and having a good time in Venice. We were like, ‘Look at us, two friends just walking around in Venice. What the heck?’”
…And the face of the club
Although flattered and proud to be thought of one of the faces of Sporting Kansas City, Davis keeps it straight.
“I’m not saying that no one has made me feel important, I’m just saying I feel like a player on this team. And that’s how I want to be. I don’t want to have an ego. I just want to be a good teammate to my teammates and be a good player on the field. I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
The growth. Being present. The one percent. The dirty yards. The honest, pointed voice. The sharpening. Maybe one day, maybe soon, we will all reflect on Davis and his teammates not only stemming the current Sporting tide, but reversing it. And all of it ending with our own affectionate wonder… “What the heck?”
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