Sporting KC
Marinos Tzionis headed to Serbian SuperLiga
Sporting Kansas City U22 Initiative signing Marinos Tzionis has been transferred to Serbia to play for FK Čukarički.
After a few weeks of speculation and a two-year plus stint where he struggled to find the field, Cypriot forward Marinos Tzionis has been transferred to FK Čukarički of the Serbian SuperLiga.
The 23-year-old arrived in Kansas City in 2022 as a U22 Initiative signing from his hometown club Omonia Nicosia in Cyprus.
During his time with SKC, Tzionis made 64 appearances across all competitions, including 57 regular season matches. The young Cypriot scored six goals and two assists in all competitions for Sporting KC.
This season, Tzionis played in nine games and started in four of those games. He averaged about 30 minutes played per game, which equals his career regular season average for SKC.
During his time in Kansas City, Tzionis also made several appearances with the Cyprus national team in the UEFA Nations League, World Cup and European Championship qualifiers, and in friendlies.
Tzionis joins FK Čukarički as they begin the 2024-25 season in the Serbian top-flight. Čukarički have never won a league title, but have placed third on four separate occasions, which earned them spots to compete in the UEFA Europa League.
While most Sporting fans expected the club to add a player to the roster, moving on from Tzionis could prove beneficial for both sides.
What it means for Sporting is that they freed up a U22 Initiative roster spot which could be something and maybe this means a signing will finally be arriving before the transfer window closes in mid-August.
Thanks to the expanded playoff field, SKC are surprisingly not out of the hunt and just survived a brutal seven-games-in-22-days stretch where they finished with a 4W-1D-2L record.
With the Leagues Cup approaching, followed by the final stretch of the regular season and a US Open Cup semifinal matchup with the USL Championship’s Indy Eleven, a new signing could be a breath of fresh air to help push through to the end.
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I’m actually quite glad for Tzionis. Dude never fit at SKC and I don’t think PV ever valued what he brought to the table. I hope he finds success with his new team.
He feels like one of many poster children for PV the coach not figuring out how to get the most out of the players PV the chief soccer officer (or whatever the title has been) acquired.
Always felt like he was underused and underrespected.
I personally liked what Tzionis had to offer, but as many others have said, he was never given a fair shot.
Any word on if there was a transfer fee? If not, or if it’s super low, that will be very disappointing. I’ve always thought we used the U-22s poorly but this would just be further confirmation that we don’t know how to utilize this spot which doesn’t bode well since we would most likely use the 2 DPs and 4 U-22s roster construction base on our past builds.