Sporting KC Win Their Preseason Opener

Sporting Kansas City opened their 2026 preseason schedule with a game against Florida International University. It’s become a bit of a tradition over the last few years. In 2025, they stunningly lost to their collegiate opponent.

We don’t know a lot about how the 2026 encounter went, but we know one thing: they won! Treble incoming? [insert sweaty smiling emoji]

We kid! Of course, it’s a game they should absolutely win against an inferior opponent. But everything was working against them. They’ve only had a coach for a bit under two weeks. And it’s not even clear if he has his Visa and is allowed to coach. Sporting KC still only have 18 players on their roster and many of the guys that got into the game are on trial, play for SKC II, are an unsigned draft pick, or are from the Academy. Only 13 of their 18 rostered players were in the game.

Details on the Three Defenders on Trial with Sporting KC

It’s not like the team was setup for success, yet they found a way. They defeated FIU 1-0 on Saturday. Here is everything else we know about the game.

The Highlight (singular)

The win over FIU was not streamed. The team didn’t even do their usual thing where they talk about the high points on their SKC Communications Twitter account. No, they simply gave out a recap and showed us a low angle of the game winning goal from Shapi Suleymanov who was assisted by Dejan Joveljic.

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According to the article summarizing the game, “Sporting scored the only goal of the training game in the eighth minute when Shapi Suleymanov slotted home from 12 yards off an assist from Dejan Joveljic after Jake Davis had created a turnover high up the field.”

The only other mention of a near goal comes from SKC Academy midfielder, Makhi Francis, who “rattled the underside of the crossbar from 20 yards out.”

The Lineups

The team played only 60 minutes, which each lineup getting 30 minutes apiece. As always, there probably isn’t much to look into with who starts and who was in the second lineup, but even more so with so few players actually signed to the roster.

In the first lineup, only two of the players – Wyatt Meyer and Jayden Reid – are not signed to the team. They are both on trial. The team literally doesn’t have a left back on the roster, so Reid starting makes sense. Meyer started over Jansen Miller, who didn’t play at all. Hopefully whatever held him out of the game is just precautionary.

The only other rostered players who didn’t play all make sense. Zorhan Bassong was away with Canada. Calvin Harris just joined the team a couple days ago. And Ryan Schewe and Jack Kortkamp are both goalkeepers. Cleveland and Pulskamp are expected to be the top two options, so of course they played.

Who Played that You May Not Recognize?

We covered trialists Meyer and Reid above, but the third trialist – Ethan Bartlow played with the second lineup. Nikos Clarke-Tosczak is Sporting KC’s second first round draft pick from this year’s draft, and he lined up at left back.

Shane Donovan is signed to SKC II. He’s a kid capable of playing all over but appears to have lined up at left winger. Right-back Jack Francka is from the Academy and is “old” at 16. He was joined by two more Academy members, 15-year-old Luca Antongirolami and 14-year-old Zamir Loyo Reynaga.

Luca lined up at CB, his natural position. He’s spent quite a bit of time in the United States youth national team setups over the last couple years. Zamir is a six-foot-tall attacking player who we saw make his debut for SKC II in their last home game of the year at attacking midfielder. He was lined up at striker, though that could have been more of a false nine. We were told by then coach of SKC II, Ike Opara, that Zamir can play all four attacking spots in the 4-3-3. Ike said, “he didn’t look out of place by any means” in his debut minutes where he became the youngest player to ever play for Sporting KC II.

Sporting KC have two more preseason games in Florida before a brief return to Kansas City. Then they close out preseason in California for three more games at the Coachella Valley Invitational. Up next are the Chicago Fire on Saturday, January 24th at 9:00AM CT.

Sporting KC and Partial KC Current Preseason Schedules Released