Sporting KC’s Burns: “We’re still looking to add during this window”

With the CONCACAF Champions Cup coming on Tuesday and the start of the MLS season around the corner, it was time for the annual Sporting Kansas City media day at Children’s Mercy Park. After a bitter cold practice open to the media, one where new Designated Player Manu Garcia took the field for the first time, it was time to talk to Sporting Director Mike Burns.

A variety of subjects were covered, but nerdy roster construction questions were front and center. Some of them came up in the larger media session but more of them were addressed in a one on one with the KC Soccer Journal.

Unique Deal: Garcia and Suleymanov

As a part of the deal that brought new Sporting KC DP, Manu Garcia, to Kansas City, a second player was included on the same transfer fee. Magomed Shapi Suleymanov, also from Greek club Aris, was included in a rumored $5 million transfer fee. As for how the fee is split between the players, Burns declined to answer.

“I won’t get into the specifics of the deal, and I hope you can understand and respect why,” said Burns. “Yes, Manu is a DP and Shapi is a TAM player… The overall compensation reflects that both from a transfer fee standpoint and a salary standpoint.”

The Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) designation means that Suleymanov’s salary plus pro-rated transfer fee over his guaranteed two years puts him in between the max budget charge of $743,750 and the TAM max of $1,743,750. Suleymanov is guaranteed for two years with a team option for the 2027 season.

As for the deal itself, “unique” was a word brought up.

“It was one that I have not been part of before and frankly,” started Burns. “I don’t think the folks at MLS had been part of a deal similar to that.”

There had been some hope from MLS roster nerds that the vast majority of the transfer fee could be applied to Garcia, who as a Designated Player has no limits on his compensation, to free up more spending elsewhere on the roster. It would have made a very unique deal an even better deal for SKC.

“It was an interesting deal,” said Burns. “It didn’t happen overnight, but we’re glad we got it done.”

Roster Construction Part 1 – Signings are Coming

The number one question fans tend to ask is when players will be joining the team. As things stand today, there are five open roster spots (six if you count the ability to loan a player to SKC II all year). The roster build is clearly not done.

“We will certainly add players this window if we feel they are appropriate,” stated Burns. “I feel like we’ve addressed some attacking positions with Dejan, Manu and Shapi. We could look to add someone in the midfield. We could look to add someone in the defense. I want to be also clear we haven’t fully decided on which model to go with. If we’ll go with the three and three or two and four. The great thing is where we sit right now, we’ll have the flexibility to do either. We do have targets. We do have players we are looking at right now.”

The “three and three” is three Designated Players and three U-22 Initiative players. If Sporting KC go with the “two and four,” that means one less DP, one more U-22, but also an additional $2 million in General Allocation Money (GAM) that can be spent anywhere on the roster.

“Nothing is finalized yet, but we’re still looking to add during this window.”

One player who won’t be signed is trialist Sebastian Cruz. He said his goodbyes to Kansas City this week.

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While the team can sign five or six more players, they’ll almost certainly leave themselves some flexibility for the summer.

“We may intentionally leave one or two spots open for the summer,” began Burns. “Because last year when I came in, we were only able to add one from a budget standpoint and from a roster standpoint. This year, it remains to be seen. If the right player that we’re trying to target is available, we’re going to sign the player now. But there is sometimes some benefit to adding a player or two in the summer if you can.”

As for if the signing they’ll make will be a Designated Player, it’ll have to be the perfect situation.

“I think to add the third DP right now; it would have to be what we all feel is the absolute right move,” said Burns. “To have two open under-22 spots potentially, is more beneficial than adding one Designated Player.”

Personally, U-22 Initiative players are a massive risk and unless they spend more on those U-22s, a DP might make more sense. Unless they plan to change the type of U22s they sign.

Roster Construction Part 2 – How to Spend on U22s

A common critique of the Sporting KC roster build is around how the team has chosen to spend on its U-22 Initiative players. There have been three in the club’s history: Marinos Tzionis, Robert Voloder and Logan Ndenbe. Tzionis departed last year, and GiveMeSport’s Tom Bogert reported that Voloder and Ndenbe hds transfer fees under $1 million.

We asked Mike Burns his philosophy on U-22 Initiative players and he indicated he wasn’t opposed to spending more, but it “has to be the right player.” If the player is going to come in and need time to develop, it’s harder to justify that spend versus someone who can come in and contribute right away.

As for the answer on if he believes in spending more in the attack after the previous signings tilted towards defenders, he’s open to it.

“Whether it’s this year or next year, I think it’s safe to say we’ll look to add at least one attacking under-22 player,” said Burns. “That doesn’t mean we won’t add a midfielder or a defender.”

Roster Construction Part 3 – Really Nerdy Stuff

For the real roster nerds, KCSJ asked Burns if he can move players back and forth from the senior to the supplemental roster. He confirmed they could, but it’s limited based on salary. A prime example could be Bassong, who made $99,953 in guaranteed compensation last year. If he moves down, that could open the door for a larger spend on a new addition to the roster since supplemental players are restricted on their max pay. Bassong actually made less guaranteed compensation than Memo Rodriguez, who was on the supplemental roster.

We currently don’t know their 2025 pay.

International Roster Spots: Part 1 – How Many are Open?

“Right now, we have one [international spot] open,” confirmed Mike Burns. Seven of the eight spots are filled, and he did confirm Dejan Joveljic is taking up one, which was unclear from the initial announcement of his signing.

In terms of the green card process, Burns didn’t want to get into the individual immigration status of his players. He confirmed it’s something they are working on.

However, someone clearly already has obtained a green card because last year there were five international roster spots in use (Agada, Leibold, Bassong, Vargas and Fernandez) and the team has added three internationals in this window (Garcia, Joveljic and Suleymanov).

Teams now have until the opening of the secondary transfer window (July 24th, 2025) to obtain a green card and free up an international roster spot.

International Roster Spots: Part 2 – Jan Jurcec

“We’d like to try to find a way to pursue [signing Jan Jurcec],” began Burns. “We have an international roster spot (pauses), I don’t want to call it dilemma or an issue, but we need to be, not just with Jan, but with all our international players, be diligent and try to be as smart as possible about who we add and when we add. Obviously, when you hit that limit, they are very, very difficult to get via trades in the league. I’ve been contacted multiple times in the last few weeks. Teams are more looking to add international roster spots, and they are hard to get.”

“We have a few more things to work through before we can get to a final decision on [signing Jurcec].”

As things stand today, if Jurcec were to sign, he would occupy the eighth and final international roster spot. Looking at the guys already in those spots, all the new signings seem likely to be large contributors. Fernandez, if healthy, falls into that bucket too. The other four who were previously taking up those spots are William Agada, Tim Leibold, Zorhan Bassong and Alenis Vargas. It’s unclear that any of them are likely to be regular starters.

Staffing Update

When we last spoke to Mike Burns before preseason, there were a lot of staffing decisions up in the air. Due to Burns’ journey around the world to sign players, the staff is still a work in progress.

“We have a little way to go on that… We brought in Lincoln Roblee as a domestic scout. We will look to add other scouts. We will look to add an Assistant Sporting Director. We will look to fill Z[oran Savic]’s role as one of Peter’s assistants. The reality is we’ve been so engulfed in player acquisition. That was the priority, and it still is. I don’t want that to come across that the staff is not a priority, but we needed to have some players on board by now.”

“It was literally just a time issue. There are only so many hours in the day to do things. When we prioritized, the players acquisitions were ahead of the staff acquisitions.”

Burns confirmed the only staffing move that had a deadline was getting a coach for Sporting KC II. The team introduced Istvan Urbani two weeks ago. And despite Roger Espinoza being present at preseason and at media day, he’s not Zoran’s replacement.

Coach Roger Espinoza? Checking in from media day. #SportingKC

— Chad Smith (@chadcsmith.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T16:12:27.946Z

Analytics Department: “That will happen”

“I would say right now we have a couple people that are dedicating time to the analytics department, but not a full-time dedicated analytics department,” said Burns. “That will happen. We’ll get there, we’re not there yet. We need to build out that department and we will continue to do so.”

It’s definitely good to hear an increased investment is coming in “analytics,” but it can take years to fully implement. Hopefully that process takes a significant step forward in 2025.

LA Galaxy Fire Sale

“I had been in conversations with [General Manager] Will Kuntz at the Galaxy for a number of months about various players,” stated Burns. “Not really thinking specifically about Dejan [Joveljic] at the time because we had Alan [Pulido]. When that changed, the conversations with Will accelerated because I knew they needed to make some moves for different reasons.”

The foresight of Burns is admirable. He, and certainly others, saw the Galaxy were in a tight cap situation. They’ve moved on from Joveljic, MLS Cup MVP Gaston Brugman and gave an undeserved pay cut to Yoshida because of the salary budget crunch. Burns pulled off obtaining Joveljic for exactly what the Galaxy are rumored to have paid for him four years ago, before he put up outstanding numbers in MLS. Part of that is because he was in communication with Kuntz before this became a possibility.

Mike Burns has accomplished quite a lot since joining Sporting KC last summer. Selling Kayden Pierre for a tidy profit, despite his injury history. Adding two new DPs, along with seven other signings. Selling Alan Pulido coming off one of the worst seasons of his career. The list goes on.

Sporting KC are still in the first window of a three window rebuild and the man seemingly doesn’t sleep. Keep a close eye on SKC’s Twitter account to know when another move is coming. There will be a warning.

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— Sporting Kansas City (@SportingKC) February 13, 2025