Kansas City Ties to This Years The Soccer Tournament

Tomorrow morning, the third edition of The Soccer Tournament kicks off in Cary, North Carolina with forty-eight men’s teams and sixteen women’s teams all battling out for two one million dollar prizes. Games will be broadcasted on YouTube and ESPN+. The teams are divided into groups of four and play a round robin group phase. From there, the group winners and runners up all advance to the knockout round along with the top eight third place teams on the men’s side. There it becomes a standard knockout tournament until a winner is crowned.

For those that have never seen The Soccer Tournament before, it’s seven on seven soccer for two twenty minute halves. After the forty minutes are done, the game enters Target Score Time. The target score is set by the winning team’s score plus one, or if the game is tied, the next goal. As the tournament advertises, it ensures that every game ends on a game winning goal, first team to reach that target score wins the game. Down 2-1 at the end of the forty minutes? The target score is three. Score two goals before the other team scores one and you win the game. An addition to Target Score Time is that if the target score isn’t reached in three minutes, each team takes a player off the field and teams play six on six. This continues, every three minutes with teams removing a player if the score isn’t reached until teams get down to two on two.

The rules make for some very exciting games and as the tournament has gone from it’s first year it’s made improvements to how it’s been run and executed to make it better. If you have time to watch some of the games, I suggest you do, it’s entertaining for what it is. It’s obviously not the Premier League, but it’s enjoyable and the target scoring adds a level of fun to it.

As with other years of the tournament, Kansas City is well represented in The Soccer Tournament, including a team from Kansas City this year on the women’s side. On the men’s side there are twenty players with ties to Kansas City, there are fourteen current or former KC Comets on rosters, three former Sporting KC players, two former Sporting KC academy players, and one former Sporting KC II player. On the women’s side there are eight players from Kansas City, five former FC Kansas City players, two former KC Current players, and one player who played for both FCKC and the Current.

If you’re basing it solely on KC ties, your rooting interest on the men’s side is West Ham United, who boasts six current KC Comets and one former Comet on their roster. On the women’s side your KC rooting interest is Kansas City II. So here’s a look at the players with KC ties in the tournament, how they’re tied to KC, and what teams they’re on.

Men

Say Word FC
Thomas Mancuso – former Sporting KC Academy

The CONCAFA Soccer Club
Phillip Ejimadu – KC Comets
Stefan Mijatovic – KC Comets
Zach Reget – KC Comets

West Ham United
Christian Anderaos – KC Comets
Rian Marques – KC Comets
Ramone Palmer – KC Comets
Robert Palmer – Former KC Comets
Erik Pereira – KC Comets
Lucas Sousa – KC Comets
Lesia Thetsane – KC Comets

Bumpy Pitch FC
Mitchell Cardenas – former Sporting KC
Leroy Enzugusi – former Sporting KC Academy

Sneaky Fox 97
Leo Acosta – KC Comets
Guerrero Pino – KC Comets

Borussia Dortmund
Chad Vandegriffe – KC Comets

Drunken Monkey
Nicolau Neto – KC Comets

Kwik Goal FC
Jimmy Conrad – former Sporting KC
Amir Lowery – former Sporting KC

Seleccion Potrero
Tomas Granitto – former Sporting KC II

Women

Angel City 7s
Lauren Sesselman – former FC Kansas City

US Women
Allie Long – former KC Current
Casey Loyd – former FC Kansas City
Heather O’Reilly – former FC Kansas City
Nikki Phillips – former FC Kansas City

Drunken Monkey
Ashley Nick – former KC Current

Wrexham
Brianne Reed- former FC Kansas City

Kansas City II
Isabella Field – from KC
Megan Hinnenkamp – from KC
Addison Lang – from KC
Mia Paugh – from KC
Lydia Ungashick – from KC
Evelyn Vitali – from KC
Sydney Watts – from KC
Laudan Wilson – from KC

North Carolina
Katelyn Rowland – former FC Kansas City and KC Current