Sporting KC
Sporting Nearing Deal for Two Additions
Sporting Kansas City is reportedly closing in on two new signings for the club.
🔵🇪🇸 Sources: Sporting KC nearing deal for Spanish attacking midfielder Manu Garcia from Aris. Close, but not totally there yet.➕ SKC also close to sign winger Shapi Suleymanov from Aris. Total deal for both in region of $5 million.🤝 @ilkallonas.bsky.social
— Tom Bogert (@tombogert.bsky.social) 2025-01-25T17:24:08.559Z
According to Tom Bogert, Sporting is closing in on signing the previously reported Manu Garcia as well as his teammate with Aris, Shapi Suleymanov. The deal for the two players is reportedly in the region of $5 million. After today’s preseason game against the Chicago Fire when asked about signings, Peter Vermes said “I wish I could give you guys confirmation. There’s some things that are very close… everyone is working to try to get deals done.” Vermes continued, saying that we should be hearing about them in the next couple of days.
The prior reported Garcia, a Spanish midfielder, looks to be the “10” that Kansas City has made a priority this offseason to acquire. The 27-year-old has made eighteen appearances for Aris this season, recording four goals and two assists in 1,400 minutes for the club.
The new name to the deal is Russian winger, Shapi Suleymanov (full name: Magomed-Shapi Kamilyevich Suleymanov). Suleymanov joined Aris on a permanent transfer deal this past summer from Russian club FC Krasnodar after spending the 2023-2024 season on loan at the Greek club. Over his year and a half now in Greece, Suleymanov has appeared in fifty-one games across all competitions, recording seven goals and adding five assists.
Aris was the third stop in three years on loan from Krasnodar after loan spells in Turkey with Giresunspor in the 2021-2022 season and Israel with Hapoel Be’er Sheva in the 2022-2023 season. Prior to that he’d been a regular contributor for Krasnodar, where he’d come up through the club’s academy. He was regularly appearing for them in their Champions League and Europa League games.
Suleymanov has predominately played as a right winger in his career, but has spent time in most offensive positions at times throughout his career and based on highlights appears to be able to hit a decent free kick.
Suleymanov has found himself in trouble in recent history, twice getting lengthy suspensions. The first came in May of 2023 as the result of actions in a players riot during his time with Hapeol Be’er Sheva. He got a ten game suspension after actions at the end of Hapeol’s 2-1 win over rival, and league champions, Maccabi Haifa. The ten game suspension was the largest for a player from his team and the second largest overall in the incident. The second was a five game suspension at the end of the 2024 season because of his actions towards the referee after the final whistle in Aris’s 1-0 loss to Panathinaikos on a last second goal in the final of the Greek Cup.
The pair of players would help to fill holes currently on Kansas City’s roster that currently sits at twenty-one a few weeks ahead of the season opener against Inter Miami in the CONCACAF Champions Cup on February 18th.
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Shapi is interesting. I mean a highlight reel is just that, but he really seems to look to cut in and take that shot on his left. We used to have someone like that. Not one hint of defense in the reel, and he doesn’t look like he’d be much of an assist machine, but maybe Agada can get some rebounds off of his shots. He’s a little guy. I wonder how many red cards he’ll get when he gets bounced around by big center backs?
As a former Russian major I’m intrigued by the idea of a Russian player, to go along with my affinity for our various German players (also a German speaker).
Yes, I know that’s not the best way to evaluate signings.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the negotiations. What is it really like? We read of all these sign players for big dollar amounts and seems smooth from the outside.
these two I think would be good additions to the team. But what happened with Barcelona B dude? Why were we close and then nothings happened? Not angry just interested.
again, I’m thankful we are hearing things. It seemed with bliss… absolutely nothing was being said. It seems like Burns is working hard and trying.
again the “window” is just now getting ready to open. It’s ok if we we stink for a while. This isn’t going to be brand new right away. Anything worth doing is going to take time.
For the “Barcelona B dude,” that’s Unai Hernandez. He went for a big fee between 5-6 million Euros to a Saudi team.
I get the feeling that rumor was about drumming up interest to drive up the price. SKC asked for a quote is basically the gist of the rumor. I don’t doubt they were interested but then potentially the price got too high.
Cool cool,
I honestly Appericate the rumors. It makes the offseason a bit more enjoyable. Are you optimistic about these 2 current players they are seeking?
do you know the ins and outs of a deal between olayers? To me that would be real fascinating to see how and what all goes into getting just one player signed.
thanks for the info!
its good to hear that we have players coming. It feels a little concerning that Garcia is our mythical 10 given his stats. That doesn’t strike me as answer to that position, but again I’ll hold judgement until we’ve seen him play. I know that we probably have to wait till the summer before we get a big signing, but it can feel disheartening to watch Austin drop more money this transfer window than we have in our entire existence while we keep getting random guys from Europe.
Let’s just hope Austin spent really poorly and patience is a virtue for SKC.
I’m interested where they go with the next DP. It feels like it needs to be a winger, but with the Shapi rumor maybe they change their plans. He has a ton of unrealized potential. But maybe he’ll never realize it. At one point Transfermarkt had his value at €13 million. It’s plummeted since he’s never become what the hope was.
I still think SKC needs a playmaking winger to compliment the 10 they are rumored to be signing. That way, the two could work together to create as I’m not sure Manu is the guy that can create for the team alone. I’d feel pretty good about this if I knew they were looking at a 10+ assists per year winger too. Maybe Tommy could be that guy at LW.
I’m oddly excited to see Tommy at LW. He keeps trying to play that position anyway and he’s shown more energy and killer instinct there than Salloi lately. Imagine what he might do if he got to focus on the part of the game he clearly likes best.