Two Sporting KC Rumors and Vermes Says it’s Pulskamp’s Job

For the Glory KC is back with the 116th episode of the show!

Sporting Kansas City have not one, but two rumored signings coming to town. While it’s two rumored players, they are both from the same team. The first one we learned about early last week appears to be the Designated Player #10 the team has been saying they are chasing. That’s Manu Garcia (learn more about Manu here).

The second rumor is for right-winger Magomed-Shapi Suleymanov (more on Shapi here). Both players play for Aris in the Greek first division. The rumored combined fee, according to GiveMeSport’s Tom Bogert comes in around €5 million.

We get into the details and stats for each player and try to decide if these feel like good signings. One notch in favor of Garcia, despite his lower numbers are those of another Spanish midfielder Mike Burns brought to MLS. Look at the stats both before and after arriving in MLS:

• La Liga: 74 GP, 3 G, 9A, 4,702 min
• LALiga2: 49 GP, 4G, 1A, 3,044 min
• Premier League: 28 GP, 2G, 2A, 1,799 min
• MLS: 157 GP, 39G, 45A, 13,402 minutes and an MLS MVP

That player? Carles Gil for the New England Revolution. He joined just a year younger at 26-years-old and went from relatively unimpressive numbers to being one of the best players in the league. There is no saying if Manu Garcia can do that, but Vermes and Burns surely have to hope so. It’s worth noting that both Garcia and Suleymanov were held out of Aris’ game this weekend. Teams don’t do that for no reason, but it’s always possible it still falls through.

Manu Garcia and Shapi Suleymanov, the rumored #SportingKC targets, aren't in the lineup today. (h/t to @alvanderp.bsky.social for pointing this out)

— Chad Smith (@chadcsmith.bsky.social) 2025-01-26T14:26:07.199Z

Randomly snuck into the middle of this rumor conversation was a prior rumored signing, Unai Hernandez, who appears headed to Saudi Arabia for big money. We also found a way to work in Dom Dwyer leaving the Oakland Roots.

Former #SportingKC forward Dom Dwyer is leaving the Oakland Roots. (From Dom's Instagram)

— Chad Smith (@chadcsmith.bsky.social) 2025-01-26T22:31:02.831Z

In addition to talking rumors, we have to mention the second straight preseason loss for Sporting KC, this time to Chicago. It’s tough to take much from a game we didn’t see, but there were some good quotes from Peter Vermes and Erik Thommy.

One of those quotes was Vermes confirming he’s happy with John Pulskamp as the starting goalkeeper and he has no plans to add a veteran keeper. It’ll be an extremely young GK room with Pulskamp (23), Ryan Schewe (22) and Jack Kortkamp (16 now, 17 on the 28th). Is that the right decision?

Finally, the KC Current and the entire NWSL have their schedule announced. They open the season (again) against the Portland Thorns, this time on March 15th. They play a perfectly balanced 26 game regular season schedule, 13 games, against all 13 other teams, before a break, then they repeat the task after the CBA summer break. There were some potential road trips combining SKC and Current games on the docket as well.

23 of those 26 games are on National TV (ION, ABC, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN and Prime).

At some point talking about the Current the subject of watching games at a bar to avoid buying Amazon Prime came up. One potential spot, is the female-owned The Dub KC. If you heard us talking about them and want to support them, check out their Instagram or website.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few more topics, including:

• SKC II will play their games at Swope Park this season
• Robert Castellanos lands with the Tampa Bay Rowdies
• The USMNT just keep winning
• Naomi Girma is the largest transfer for a female player ever
• Meila Brewer and Evan O’Steen get youth National Team call-ups (KC Current non-roster invitees)
• And Neymar isn’t coming to the Chicago Fire

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

• Sporting KC Rumor: DP #10 Manu Garcia – 5:01
• 2nd Sporting KC rumor for a Winger – 22:28
• Another preseason game for SKC, another loss – 32:27
• Thommy to forward and no veteran competition for Pulskamp – 38:05
• KC Current schedule released – 52:26
• Digital Crawl – 1:06:20

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they’ll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

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