The Next Nine Days in the Transfer Market are Critical for Sporting KC

It has been a turbulent week for Sporting Kansas City. One week ago today, the club mutually parted ways with Manu Garcia. And while it’s not yet official, it seems certain the club’s other existing Designated Player, Dejan Joveljic will depart for the Seattle Sounders.

On the other side of the equation, Sporting KC added the fourth most expensive DP signing in Major League Soccer history when they announced Andre Luiz last week. That doesn’t even include the rumored chase for what would be the second most expensive DP ever, in Nico Fernandez Mercau from NYCFC.

To say President of Soccer Operations and General Manager, David Lee, has been busy, would be an understatement. While he announced the team has added heads of departments for Scouting, Analytics and Performance, none of them have seemingly left their prior jobs yet. A lot is still falling on Lee.

And a lot more will be on his shoulders for the next nine days.

The secondary transfer window in MLS remains open until September 2nd. That’s nine days from now. Lee has said they want to be active. “We will be in the market for a number 10, hopefully in this window,” said Lee. He also indicated they wanted to add a second attacker, perhaps because he knew the Joveljic negotiations were ongoing when he spoke with the media last week. Or maybe that’s in addition to needing to replace Joveljic. MLS insider, Tom Bogert, has added the team wants to add two Designated Players by this winter, if not in this window.

Now we just need those dominoes to start falling.

“I think what you find in these last two weeks [of the transfer window], particularly with the fee that we’ve paid for Andre Luiz and the potential to pay a fee similar to that or more for other players, all of those players have opportunities in Europe,” said Lee.

“Sometimes you’re waiting for dominoes to fall, and they might be waiting for an opportunity at a Champions League club and maybe that doesn’t materialize. And then all of a sudden, we might be option number two or three for them, which is perfectly okay when you consider the other teams that they’re looking at. And so, you have to be ready to react to availability in the market.”

The problem is the windows in the big five leagues are open until the day before MLS closes theirs. There isn’t a lot of wiggle room if players are holding out until the last moments. Plus, some windows in smaller European leagues and elsewhere in the world close after MLS.

It’s an improvement that MLS moved their window back (it closed August 21st last season). In future seasons it could be beneficial to have the window run longer to grab talent on free transfers that didn’t land on a team. In order for those players to join, even on a free, they need to move during the transfer window so the league can request their International Transfer Certificate (ITC).

With just a day between windows closing, and other countries in Europe and elsewhere remaining open, players may choose to wait instead of coming to MLS.

Of course, if Sporting KC are paying transfer fees, the free transfer part isn’t important, but business still has to be done by September 2nd.

Then again, every player cannot have a fee. There are two open DP slots left and a reported $3 million in additional General Allocation Money (GAM) from the Joveljic deal to use on players with fees, but the team may be better served by signing free transfer players and using some of that GAM on salaries (not to mention trading for international roster spots).

This MLS season isn’t officially lost yet, which is stunning, but Sporting KC really need to set themselves up for success in the Sprint Season and beyond. If they can get one or both DPs signed, they will have time to start building chemistry for the rest of the year.

If the moves don’t get done, then the Sprint Season may be lost before it begins, as players take time to acclimate to MLS and its style of play and unique travel demands.

I suspect David Lee may not get much sleep in the next week and a half.