Sporting Announce Roster Composition

MLS’s roster compliance deadline was today at 7pm Central Time. At that time MLS teams needed to be compliant with MLS roster rules for their team ahead of the MLS season starting on February 21st. Sporting Kansas City announced their roster set up this evening.

With only twenty-two players on the roster, the question for Sporting was going to be how they set up their roster. The team announced that with their current roster they have fifteen players that are on the senior roster with the other seven on the supplemental roster to start the season. That leaves Sporting with three to five open senior roster and three roster spots open on their supplemental roster.

As the deadline loomed questions were raised about what would happen when it was reached and Sporting didn’t have the eighteen senior rostered players the league rules require. The answer is that nothing big would happen. Those three spots at the moment have the cap charge of a senior roster minimum ($113,400 for a total of $340,200) set aside. The rule about having eighteen senior rostered players was to avoid teams from signing fewer than eighteen and dividing the salary budget among those players instead of the eighteen. It wasn’t designed for the situation Kansas City is in where they just don’t have eighteen players who qualify for the senior roster. Presumably those roster charges go away as KC continues to fill their senior roster as David Lee referred to in his press conference. Players who are currently on the senior roster, but could qualify for the supplemental roster could be moved if or when Sporting sign more players to the senior roster. Based on prior years salaries there are at least four players that likely qualify to move if need be; Ian James, Wyatt Meyer, Jayden Reid, and Justin Reynolds.

Sporting announced that they are going to use the U22 model for their roster build. That means they’ll use the 2 Designated Player, 4 U22 Initiative, and get $2 million in allocation money for the season. Currently Sporting has just two of those four spots filled with Dejan Joveljic and Manu Garcia being Designated Players. Sporting could fill all four of those U22 slots during the season with their their cap hit being just $200,000 each.

Kansas City currently has just four of their eight international roster spots filled. Those roster spots are filled by Generation Adidas draft pick, Kwaku Agyabeng, defender Zorhan Bassong, new signing, Lasse Berg Johnsen, and Shapi Suleymanov. Joveljic and Garcia have both earned their green cards and will therefore not count as international forwards going forward, giving Sporting a little more roster flexibility.

What this means for the roster is that Sporting could add at least three, and up to five, players to the senior roster, depending on their cap situation. If the four players mentioned earlier, speculated to be on a senior roster minimum, are moved to the supplemental roster that could free up four more senior roster spots, cap spending dependent. This is because spots twenty-one to twenty-four can be making the senior roster minimum and still be on the supplemental roster. The key part is that while the roster is compliant, there are ways for Sporting to add more players to the roster and adjust the set up to get them to fit in compliance with the roster rules.

Below is Sporting’s roster break down.

Senior Roster (15)
F Stephen Afrifa
D Ethan Bartlow
D Zorhan Bassong
M Lasse Berg Johnsen
GK Stefan Cleveland
M Jake Davis
M Manu Garcia
F Calvin Harris
D Ian James
F Dejan Joveljic
D Wyatt Meyer
GK John Pulskamp
D Jayden Reid
D Justin Reynolds
F Shapi Suleymanov

Supplemental Roster (7)
M Kwaku Agyabeng
M Jacob Bartlett
F Taylor Calheira
GK Jack Kortkamp
D Jansen Miller
GK Ryan Schewe
M Cielo Tschantret

International Slots (4)
M Kwaku Agyabeng
D Zorhan Bassong
M Lasse Berg Johnsen
F Shapi Suleymanov

Designated Players (2)
M Manu Garcia
F Dejan Joveljic