Podcasts
Where in the world is Sporting Director Burns?
Dreaming of all the possibilities where Mike Burns could working to fill out the 2025 Sporting KC roster.
With four weeks until the first match, Sporting KC have a plethora of open roster slots. Peter Vermes tells us Sporting Director Mike Burns is currently wheeling & dealing overseas. Offers have been made and announcements are expected soon! The 2025 version of SKC could look very different.
The Shades of Blue Soccer Show tries to find reasonable expectations and decide whether or not we trust Mike Burns to get the job done.
So, where in the world is Sporting Director Burns?
Might it be Spain, locking down the next addition to the Catalan Café™? Sporting KC were linked with Unai Hernandez, the captain of Barcelona B.
He could be in Germany scouting a machine-like centerback. Maybe he’s in France signing the prophesized Number 10 and future Sporting KC Legend. Or if you really want to dream… Imagine Mr. Burns in a fancy boardroom, high atop a skyscraper in Saudi Arabia, fists pounding on the table in a tense battle with Gregg Berhalter for the right to sign Neymar!
The possibilities are limitless.
Do you trust Mike Burns to get the job done? Check out the episode below and let us know in the comments.
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The more apt question would be: What has Mr. Burns done in the past that would give anyone confidence that he can pull off this massive rebuild while under the control of PV?
Signed Homer Simpson to a lifetime contract?
Wherever he is, he had better be watching some pens sign some papers. There are only 10 days left in January and signing a replacement level forward and a youth prospect while selling your most talented player is not, uh, making the side better.
Weirdly, and this is probably just the Stockholm Syndrome speaking, I feel cautiously optimistic with just the little he has done, just because it was something and it wasn’t Vermes having to do everything. Very low bar, I know.
Would you rather still have Pulido?
No one disagrees signings need to get done, but that felt like a good bit of business. He had two guaranteed years left. If I had to watch him loaf around the field for 2 more years, I’m not sure what I’d have done with myself.
Not in this side, no. But that was not my point: an empty roster slot has no actual value, it just has potential value until it is filled by a player.
Addition by subtraction has value. It’s like having games in hand; you can’t assume you’ll win them, but the open space creates potential that isn’t otherwise there.
Having Pulido in that slot sets a ceiling on the potential, just as being games ahead of a rival sets a ceiling on where you can finish.
I’d rather have that roster spot open, just as I’d rather have games in hand in a playoff chase, rather than the other way around in both circumstances.
Ok, guys. I know that. Thank you for misunderstanding what I thought was a very real concern here: SKC have yet to sign anyone of any importance. Selling an albatross of a contract is cool and all, but only if you do something with that flexibility. Would you rather they not fill pulido’s roster spot? I guarantee you won’t go to a game and not see Pulido and say “wow! Look at all the money they are saving right now!”
Speaking for myself, and possibly the others, the disagreement is with this line:
Because we all, even you, seem to agree that selling Pulido was a good move. It did, in fact, make the team better because he just wasn’t contributing at a level that justified his salary. Even if they don’t sign anyone new, which they pretty much have to, some player is now going to get the chance to prove themselves that was otherwise blocked by Pulido’s albatross. If you’d said “isn’t enough”, there’d be no discussion. But bluntly stating that it wasn’t an improvement, either in results or methods, is I think what people are pushing back on here.
I’m not saying Pulido performed well enough for his pay or even half of it but he was still in the top 2 or 3 in goal contributions last year while being out of position. Sure, he wasn’t great, and the team is in a better position to improve without his contract, but until we do something with the money the on the field product is worse without him.
I know it’s a joke, but I still want to go on record as having opposed the (theoretical?) pursuit of Ronaldo and I absolutely do not want to see SKC going after Neymar.
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Okay, how ’bout a flyer on Matko Milljevic? I don’t know, he seems…troubled? But I watched both of the USMNT games and he looked pretty good. Might be looking for a spot to redeem himself and Vermes is supposed to be good at tough love.