Sporting KC, Manu Garcia Mutually Terminate Contract

After a whirlwind of rumors since being left on the bench Saturday against the Colorado Rapids, Manu Garcia’s tenure in Kansas City came to a close tonight. Sporting KC announced that the club had agreed to mutually part ways with Garcia. Along with that, Sporting bought out Garcia’s guaranteed contract so he will no longer occupy a Designated Player spot for Sporting KC.

Garcia looks set to return to Greece and join his former club, Aris Thessaloniki, who has reportedly already agreed to the basic terms of a deal. He leaves Sporting having appeared 47 times for the club across all competitions, scoring four goals and adding 14 assists.

His lack of starting for Sporting has been a point of contention for fans since before the World Cup break. As a Designated Player, and one of the best players on Sporting, his lack of starts brought frustrations to the surface that were added with the team’s lack of results on the field.

No transfer fee?

The initial reaction to the announcement itself is likely a lot of surprise with the lack of a transfer fee for Garcia from Aris. Especially after the reports from Greece said that Aris was in negotiations with Sporting to acquire Garcia.

And while it’s disappointing Sporting isn’t getting a fee, it doesn’t hurt Sporting directly that they’re not. Usually with transfer fees teams can convert some or all of that fee into allocation money that can be used to strengthen the team elsewhere. With Designated Players though, if a DP is unable to be bought down, then none of the fee can be converted to General Allocation money (GAM). Garcia was unable to be bought down with allocation money, so any fee KC received wouldn’t have been able to convert. Meaning in the end the lack of a fee only affects Sporting ownership and their decision to eat the rest of Garcia’s contract in the buy out.

The hope in this situation, with reports that Garcia wanted to go back to Greece, is that Sporting is seen as doing right by the player and it puts them in a good light for player acquisition, showing that they’re not going to stand in a players way.

Where does Sporting go from here?

So what does Sporting do now? There’s still time left in the transfer window, it’s still open for a little over two weeks, closing on Wednesday September 2nd. KC now has a second open DP slot that they can go out and fill. They still have Andre Luiz, who presumably will be finalized and announced soon to fill one of those two spots. Tom Bogert on Soccerwise today reiterated that Sporting has been looking to add two DPs to the roster during the summer window.

Even with the addition of Luiz, the club still needs help to avoid finishing last and ending up as one of the worst teams in the league’s history. As of right now they have the fewest goals (18), tied for the most conceded (48), and worst goal difference (-30). Most rumors and reports other than Luiz have gone silent at this point. Yann Gboho seems uninterested in leaving Europe at this time and Mohamed Salah has signed with Trabzonspor.

Kansas City has traditionally been quite good at rumors not leaking out until the deal is almost done, so it’s not unlikely that Sporting will add another DP this window. And making the decision to part ways with Garcia now is hopefully a sign that the work to fill his slot has progressed enough that they felt comfortable letting Garcia go.

In the short term this hurts, when Garcia hasn’t been on the field for Sporting there’s been a lack of ability to progress the ball up the field to Dejan Joveljic and KC’s wingers. Add in Lasse Berg Johnsen’s suspension against Colorado and the midfield progression was almost non-existent. KC also loses one of their more press resistant players, which for a team that head coach Raphael Wicky wants to play out of the back is important when a team steps up to press. This presumably puts more pressure on Berg Johnsen to be that outlet in the midfield. The struggles against the press have been very apparent over the last couple games. Heading into Wednesday’s game against a surging St. Louis City SC seems like a bad time to be playing your rival.

Good luck to Garcia as he moves on from Kansas City.