Podcasts
Sporting KC’s Salaries and Two Massive Comebacks
It was a huge week for Sporting Kansas City between salary news and two big games with two mostly good results.
For the Glory KC is back with the 138th episode of the show!
Sporting Kansas City returned to action for a double game week, but before we get to the games, we have to talk about the MLSPA salary release that included a lot of new numbers for Sporting KC players and a lot of updates to existing players. Needless to say, there are some shocking numbers that are both too high and frankly, too low.
After that, we moved to the two games from the week, first tackling the 2-1 come from behind victory over Charlotte FC. The game featured two stoppage time goals, including Mason Toye’s first ever for SKC and Dejan Joveljic’s hamstring injury/cramp inducing 11th! At the beginning of both sequences, you’ll find Manu Garcia pulling the strings. That’s despite a nasty head injury he picked up.
We also sufficiently got off top with an update to why Khiry Shelton’s hair was pink, Wilfried Zaha somehow avoiding a dissent yellow and John Pulskamp heroics.
How is this not dissent? Should be a second yellow. #SportingKC #SKCvCLT
— KC Soccer Journal (@kcsoccerjournal.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T02:13:15.469Z
For Real Salt Lake’s 1-1 draw against Kansas City, we had to discuss the return of Johnny Russell and William Agada. Including Russell’s beautiful (if painful to watch) header and his new haircut. Sheena’s favorite topics often have nothing to do with soccer, so Erik Thommy’s goal celebration seemed to evolve into the “bowling arrow.”
Matt Besler also went on the wall and shared some parallels with both Jansen Miller and Jacob Bartlett. The lineup found SKC short-handed and led to the first ever MLS start for 17-year-old Ian James at center back.
But no Sporting KC game would be complete without refereeing controversy. While Jake Davis being sent off got a lot of the attention, that actually appeared to be the right call. It was what happened to Davis just before his sending off that left us baffled. How Gozo remained in the game is unbelievable.
Just watched the #SportingKC game this morning. Kickout by Gozo, studs to the knee, somehow escapes a red… Unbelievable. #SKCvRSL pic.twitter.com/zuVyX0YktV
— Chad Smith (@PlayFor90) June 29, 2025
The KC Current are in their summer break, but they make an appearance in the Digital Crawl with the key re-signing of Michelle Cooper to a long-term deal through 2028.
In the Digital Crawl, we also touch on a few more topics, including:
- USMNT drama against Costa Rica
- Ronaldo’s new contract
- Our Benny Feilhaber update
- And Kansas City World Cup base camp news, including a story tying England to KC
Here is a rundown of topics and start times:
- New Sporting KC Salaries are out! – 5:26
- SKC have an epic comeback against Charlotte – 34:13
- A not quite as complete SKC comeback against RSL – 55:04
- Digital Crawl – 1:25:22
Upcoming Games
- USMNT vs. Guatemala, Wednesday, July 2nd at 6:00PM CDT (in St. Louis)
- Mexico vs. Honduras at 9:00PM the same night
- Sporting KC @ Colorado Rapids, Friday, July 4th at 8:30PM
- SKC II vs. Portland Timbers 2, Saturday, July 5th at 12:00PM
- Gold Cup Final is Sunday at 6:00PM
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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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The Ref was not great… It is tough watching. I feel like many of the rules that have been implemented are just not being called. A big one would be time wasting by kicking the ball away… that one is never called. I felt we saw that often in the matches. Anyway… not good games for the refs.
For the most part the salaries were ok. I do thank Radoja salary is outlandish. Tim L. surprised me that his was that high as well. John Pulskamp is a steal at the 250K… He deserves more. Shelton might be too high too.
I do kind of wish that coaches salaries were mentioned. That would really interesting to see. I am curious how the coach search is going. I am not sold on KV yet being the head coach. Do you all think he deserves the head coach job based on what we’ve seen so far?
I thought Ian James did a great job for his Debut game. The dude has great potential. Im looking forward to seeing him develop.
My guess is that as long as the improvement continues, he’ll get the long term job. That seems to be the SKC Way – which isn’t all bad. My hope would be they are interviewing, talking to, doing due diligence on guys that would be a perfect fit to further the rebuild. I don’t know who that would be, but I wouldn’t want it just handed to KZ. If they can’t find that perfect (or nearly so) guy, give KZ a short contract and see what happens next.
only 4 points out of 3 home games against sub-500 teams didn’t help.
Yeah, this is a good point. I’ve seen a lot of people saying, ‘4 points in a double game week is good,’ but that ignores the Dallas home game before that.
I’ll give Dallas a bit of an asterisk because of some terrible officiating that led to the Acosta PK and then the red card to Shelton ended it.
But at some point, you can only have so many asterisks.