Sporting KC
Russell Injury Update and a 3-1 Sporting KC Preseason Win
Highlights of all the Sporting Kansas City goals plus a Peter Vermes interview with updates on Russell, Leibold and signings.
Sporting Kansas City wrapped up their 2024 preseason with their first win over MLS competition in preseason since 2021. Sporting KC won 3-1 over Atlanta United, after falling behind 1-0 early, on the backs of a brace by Willy Agada and a goal from new signing Alenis Vargas.
Injury Updates
Sporting KC were missing both Johnny Russell and Tim Leibold from the lineup today. Both players have been involved in the other four preseason games, so that always leaves fans nervous when expected starters are missing. The good news is that Chief Soccer Officer and Manager, Peter Vermes, downplayed both injuries.
Leibold was said to have an “ear contusion” and Vermes was a little more vague on Russell, saying it was “a little bit of a knock.” The positive is that Leibold participated in an eight versus eight drill right after the Atlanta game and both Russell and Leibold are expected to fully participate in practice when it resumes on Tuesday back in Kansas City.
Both will be worth keeping an eye on in the lead up to the opener at the Houston Dynamo next weekend.
Preseason Lineups
As mentioned above, it was just Leibold and Russell missing from the ‘regular’ starters. Leibold was replaced by new signing Zorhan Bassong and Russell was replaced by Stephen Afrifa, who had primarily played on the left for an absent Daniel Salloi earlier in preseason. Salloi returned and had the shortest shift of everyone, going 45 minutes.
1' Underway for our final matchup of the 2024 #SKCPreseason! #SKCvATL
Starting XI ⬇️
Tim Melia
Jake Davis
Dany Rosero
Andreu Fontas
Zorhan BassongNemanja Radoja
Remi Walter
Erik ThommyStephen Afrifa
Alan Pulido
Daniel Salloi pic.twitter.com/AsO2WWooqr— Sporting Matchday (@SKCmatchday) February 17, 2024
Salloi was replaced at halftime by Alenis Vargas but more subs weren’t made until the 61st minute when the following moves were made:
- John Pulskamp for Tim Melia
- Robert Castellanos for Dany Rosero
- Willy Agada for Alan Pulido
In the 71st minute Memo Rodriguez replaced Erik Thommy and then the remaining six starters were subbed out to finish the game a few minutes later.
74' Host of #SportingKC subs…
Kayden Pierre 🔁 Jake Davis
Robert Voloder 🔁 Andreu Fontas
Jonathan Robinson 🔁 Zorhan Bassong
Jacob Bartlett 🔁 Nemanja Radoja
Felipe Hernandez 🔁 Remi Walter
Marinos Tzionis 🔁 Stephen Afrifa1-1 // #SKCvATL
— Sporting Matchday (@SKCmatchday) February 17, 2024
SKC Academy product, Jacob Bartlett, continued to get minutes with the backups over fully rostered player Danny Flores. The only other players on the roster who didn’t appear were Ozzie Cisneros (who hasn’t played at all in preseason), Chris Rindov, Ryan Schewe and the injured Khiry Shelton and Logan Ndenbe.
Vermes Postgame Interview
After the game, Peter Vermes spoke with Daniel Sperry of the KC Star and me. He covered quite a few topics. Outside of the injury updates mentioned above, he talked about a change in approach to player fitness, a lack of injuries this preseason, Florida versus Arizona for preseason, the team depth and of course, signings.
Perhaps the thing people want to know the most is when a signing is coming.
“Not sure yet,” started Vermes. “Obviously, we’re still looking and trying to make sure it’s the right fit. We could potentially still do somebody before this window closes but the objective is to either do it before this window closes or the summer window.”
The primary window closes on April 23rd and the secondary window is open from July 18th through August 14th.
Goal Highlights
Sporting KC provided some (mostly silent) video highlights, so we added some music to the SKC goals. The first two were scored off of penalty kicks by Willy Agada and the third and final goal was scored by Alenis Vargas and assisted by Felipe Hernandez.
Vermes said the PKs came from good buildup before the players were fouled. We can see Vargas is fouled to draw one PK but it’s not shown where third round pick, left back Jonathan Robinson, is tugged down to draw the other penalty.
Sporting KC open their season next weekend on the road against the Houston Dynamo. The game is available to watch on MLS Season Pass through Apple TV.
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I know folks don’t like to put too much stock into preseason matches, but I just can’t ignore the fact that Alenis Vargas has earned three penalties in five preseason matches, and from the highlights, they all seem to be the result of his speed and strength. As it looks like we are gonna have replacement refs for the start of the season, this kid could get us a lot of penalty shouts against some tired legs in the second half of games.
Most of the goals are not from last year’s staples. I hope that trend continues with play time.
I liked Vargas with SKC II last year a ton. Considering he’s 20 and started soccer at 16, it seems there is a lot of untapped potential.
Maybe he’s the DP signing I wanted at RW but on a massively budget friendly contract. That’s probably putting too much of an expectation on him, but I think he’s got some massive potential.
My thoughts exactly Chad! Vargas has DP potential on a homegrown contract. Watching him play last year and seeing a little from him in preseason, he could be like Alberth Elis. He’s THAT good. It might take a year or two to get there, but he’s got that type of potential.
tzionis might as well not be on the roster at this point. He’s buried on the depth chart and can’t even get in at his natural position.
THIS 100%. PV wrecked this dudes confidence and continues to try to turn Tzonis into something he isn’t. I wish Tzonis could move on from this team…I think he would find playing time, success and get his groove back anywhere else. I like him as a player but you can see he just isn’t comfortable…not like he was when he started playing at SKC. Dude was wickedly dynamic and fun to watch. Just another young player that PV had zero ability to develop…that list is getting super long.
He ruins players by wasting their most crucial development years out of position and on the bench. I used to love PV, but he is not actually doing the organization any favors running it the way he is. When you design your organization to develop talent from within, you have to actually be capable of doing that.
It’s hard to disagree that PV doesn’t develop guys. Hopefully Afrifa and Vargas jump off the page this year, but that may all be intrinsic.
Some guys are just busts and not good. Maybe that’s all that happened here. But it’s hard to ignore the HG track record of no development.
Tzionis probably does need to be sent away to free up that U-22 spot. That said, U-22 spots across the league are mostly misses. They are high risk, high reward moves. But they are gonna bust a lot it seems.
The failure to sign a creative midfielder…here comes another disaster of a start followed by a tooth and nail scramble for the 8th and final playoff spot only to declare it a great victory. Here’s an idea, maybe get your roster constructed before the season begins and try to win ALL the games, not just enough to scrape into the playoffs.
It’s going to be a weird year for me. I’m unhappy with PV, unhappy with ownership, and still pretty grossed out by the Wilkinson hire. Otoh, I love the players and the skc community and I already gave Apple 80 bucks. I’m planning on pointing my “fan-canon” more towards the Current (although they did trade away two of my three favorite players themselves) and seeing how that goes.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs are winning Super Bowls even when they aren’t clicking on offense because suddenly they’re a complete football team? Does anyone really believe our existence isn’t a simulation at this point?