Sporting KC
Rumor: Sporting KC “Nearing Deal” to Sign Spanish Midfielder
Have Sporting Kansas City found their Designated Player #10? Tom Bogert of Give Me Sport and Daniel Sperry can confirm interest.
Throughout the offseason, there has been a lot of consternation from Sporting Kansas City fans. It sometimes feels like all the other teams are making signings and KC are sitting idly by, despite their message being Mike Burns is at work! While there have been a couple rumors this offseason, this is the first one from known MLS insider Tom Bogert of Give Me Sport.
🔵🇪🇸 Sources: Sporting KC nearing deal to sign Spanish midfielder Manu Garcia from Greek club Aris. All sides hoping to finalize soon.Garcia, 27, had 4g/2a in 18 league appearances this year. Mostly played as CAM this year. One cap with Spain.🤝 Ilias Kallonas
— Tom Bogert (@tombogert.bsky.social) 2025-01-21T21:13:05.060Z
Bogert says, “Sporting KC nearing deal to sign Spanish midfielder Manu Garcia from Greek club Aris. All sides hoping to finalize soon.”
The KC Star’s Daniel Sperry confirmed the rumor and added that the team is looking for a fee in the neighborhood of $4 million.
Garcia plays for Aris Thessaloniki from the Greek first division. They currently sit at sixth place in a 14-team league.
Transfermarkt lists Garcia as a midfielder who primarily plays attacking midfielder but has spent time deeper in the midfield and as a left winger. TM also lists his current value at €3 million (approx. $3.13m USD).
More About Manu Garcia
Manu just turned 27-years-old at the beginning of January, so he’s a young 27. He was part of the Manchester City (England) youth setup after coming over from Sporting Gijon (Spain). If you are familiar with how City operate, they tend to loan young players out over and over. Because of that, Garcia has had quite a few stops, including Deportivo Alaves B (Spanish 4th tier), NAC Breda (Dutch first tier) and FC Toulouse (French first tier).
In 2019, Garcia was sold back to Sporting Gijon. He spent time on loan with Alaves (Spanish 1st division) before being sold to Aris Thessaloniki in the summer 0f 2022 for approximately €3.20m.
This season, Garcia has made 18 appearances (1,446 minutes), scoring four goals and adding two assists. In the 2023-24 season he only made seven appearances (261 minutes) and had a single assist. 2022-23 was more successful with 17 appearances (1,143 minutes), four goals and two assists. That is, until he got hurt.
He missed significant time with a knee injury that year. The injury caused him to miss about half that season and lingered into the next season (hence the limited minutes in his middle season in the Greek Super League). He’s now nearly two years removed from that major injury.
In his loan season in the Spanish top flight (La Liga), he had no goals and a single assist according to FBref. Perhaps his most successful season was in 2019-20 at Sporting Gijon when he played 40 matches (37 starts) for 3,065 minutes while adding three goals and eight assists.
Garcia is also a Spanish international. He only had one cap for the senior team, but he featured more extensively in their youth setup.
Budget Fit
If this is true, and Tom gets more rumors right than he gets wrong, Garcia would likely be a DP. He’s under contract through the summer of 2026 so a transfer fee would be required to peel him off Aris’ roster. An in prime 27-year-old attacking mid likely isn’t going to come cheap.
We won’t know his official roster designation until he is signed. All signs point to him being a Designated Player if the move gets over the line.
Highlights
Here are a few highlight videos of Garcia.
What are your initial thoughts on the Spaniard? Weigh in down below in the comments.
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I guess maybe Spain is the answer to “Where in the World is Mike Burns”.
Or Greece
Watching the Highlights of this dude is a good thing. Something that is notable his ability to lead the striker with the ball. Many of his through his passes are to space and that is money to see.
If this pans out this could be a good thing. Of course we dont know until he is integrated into the team. But if Mr. Bogert is saying things it most likely will occur.
Now Mr. Burns let’s see how you do with the contract. Maybe it will be a 2 year deal with some options. The Dude is 27 and has already has some surgeries. Is this becoming a theme with our new signings? I hope we learn from the Alan deal in how contracts are structured.
If this signing pans out. Good on the FO. It shows that they are doing what they said.
Thanks Mr. Chad for the article!
Hmm, this honestly excites me less than the other rumored Spaniard. I know he’s had some limited minutes, but with 3g 8a as his top season nearly 5 years ago now, that doesn’t excite me. The younger player had similar numbers, but I’m more inclined to take someone with the upside for improvement over someone in their late 20s.
that being said, at least there’s someone coming in and he seems to be a decently good player. I’m pessimistic about us bailing these big signings at the moment, but I’ll try to reserve judgement until we’ve actually seen him play (if he comes).
I’m going to be as positive as I can be here. I think he is a talented player with some very clear skill. I do think he would help SKC and make the team better.
I’m not sure the numbers and injury history clearly identify him as a potential marquee #10 in MLS. (In short, not a Cucho Hernandez)
I’ll push back mildly on the injury history. It’s basically one big injury. Now, maybe he’s never the same. But he’s reached pre-injury numbers.
For a comp, go look up Carles Gil’s numbers pre-MLS. They weren’t impressive. Pretty mid (Sperry posted them to Twitter I think…). But he’s been quite good for the Revs. And Burns signed him.
But that was 2019 and the league is changing. Who knows if that formula still works.
Your comments are fair and appreciated. I should know to manage my expectations with SKC better. I hope he is better than I think he will be…the team needs him to be better than he ever has shown at any stop prior.
Here is my frustration: the Greece Super League isn’t even in the top 20 ranking for soccer leagues world wide. MLS is ranked 8th. If he is putting up these numbers in that league, why would we think he will magically do better in a better league?
The injury comment was simply frustration with SKC consistently pursuing ex knee injury players. He missed more than a season. I have to believe that SKC could sign a #10 that doesn’t have a season ending knee injury in their past, contributes more goal contributions than 1 every 3 games and is young enough to stay for at least 5 years.
Last season, he had 4 goals and 2 assists in 1446 minutes. 2 assists is very concerning because this is the team’s creator. 1 goal contribution every 241 minutes doesn’t inspire confidence.
Honestly, I’m really putting this out there for you to prove me wrong Chad. I really want to be wrong…I want this guy to be awesome. I want SKC to get a Cucho, Evander, Reynoso (without the bad behavior), Muktar (or others that don’t come to mind right now). Is this that guy? I’m struggling to believe. I want to…my logical brain won’t allow it.
I would love to prove you wrong, but I was a little underwhelmed too. If the rumored fee is right, it’s right around the Gadi Kinda number and from a similar league. I was hoping they’d be shopping in a bigger bracket.
And younger sounds better. And no injury history sounds better.
It’s in the mold of what they’ve done before. There isn’t really any hope of a sell on value unless he explodes and leaves in a year before he’s ‘over the hill’ (in soccer terms).
Hopefully he’s great and he can give the team 4-5 really good years and becomes a club legend. And hopefully the sales will come from U22 or Homegrown guys to keep getting that extra $3m in GAM each year to make the middle of the roster better.
At this point it’s just wait and see I suppose.
I like how we are “near” a deal for one midfielder when we’re “near” the season starting and there are still multiple holes that need filling.