Sporting KC’s Transfer Plans and Why Dejan and Manu are Gone

On Thursday, with six days to go in the 2026 summer transfer window, David Lee addressed the media. The team’s President of Soccer Operations and General Manager is making a habit of making key additions and subtractions, which naturally puts him in front of the media more often. Something he joked earlier this year he had never done so often in his career.

But he’s pretty dang good at it. He’s well-spoken and thoughtful in his answers. You can see there is a mission from the front office and he’s the voice of it to the public.

This week, we learned more about the departures of Dejan Joveljic and Manu Garcia, as well as the arrival of record U-22 Initiative signing Owen Wolff, who was purchased from Austin FC. Perhaps most interesting to fans of Sporting Kansas City, who still sit at the bottom of the Major League Soccer standings, we learned more about reinforcements.

Not everyone will watch the press conference (though it’s at the bottom of the story, if you are inclined), so we at the KC Soccer Journal want to capture some of the key answers from Lee.

“The least successful MLS teams are the ones that panic.” — David Lee

A Busy Close to the Window

When we spoke with Lee, he had six days to go in the transfer window. Today, that’s down to four. It’s safe to say he’s had a lot of different conversations in those two days and might not be sleeping much over the next four.

“But there’s an awful lot of conversations and frankly those conversations are changing daily right now,” started Lee. “A large part of my job is to be talking to people and being in the transfer market on a daily basis.”

“If you speak to people in Europe, it is one of the strangest markets that I think most people have experienced because it is so late. I think partly because of the World Cup and partly because the big teams that drive the market are still doing business. Your Manchester City’s and Liverpool’s of the world, they’re all still doing business in the last six days.”

“There’s an awful lot of players that are waiting for their futures to be decided. Players are coming onto the list and then you wake up and suddenly they’re not on the list anymore. We’re trying to remain as flexible as we can with all of our options. We’ve done a huge amount of work… Our focus is on attacking positions. I think that is fair to say between 10s, 9s, [and] wingers to try and look at how we enhance our attacking group and that is our focus for the remaining six days.”

Focusing on the attack makes sense. Sporting KC are dead last in MLS in goals scored and they just sold their leading goal scorer (more on him in a bit). As the old saying goes, sometimes the best defense is a good offense. But they won’t turn a blind eye to other opportunities. Particularly of interest may be right back and midfield, with both Jake Davis and Zorhan Bassong suddenly injured.

“There may be opportunities that come in,” continued Lee. “Other positions that we’re not expecting and we want to be nimble enough to take those if they are part of the long term [plan]. But yeah, there’s a there’s a huge amount of conversations going on. We were looking at two to three, two to four players, something like that. I still think that’s roughly the range that we would like to do.”

He did go on to add that Owen Wolff may be one of those and it’s possible it’s just one to three more signings at this point. Another theme emerged though, and that was to be smart.

“But again, they’ve got to be the right players,” said Lee. “I think the least successful MLS teams are the ones that panic. The ones that make maybe rush decisions that they haven’t done the due diligence on a player. Particularly with your DPs or higher value players. And [then] you’re stuck on those contracts and they’re not the right fit for the long term and that’s what we have to make sure we avoid.”

“We are trying to take a team and make quantum leaps in our competitive level.” — David Lee

Aggressive, but Responsible

When you are talking transfer fees above what Sporting KC already paid for winger Andre Luiz, you have to make wise decisions. The plan from David Lee is to be aggressive, but not irresponsible. It was a theme of the presser, maybe meant to provide cover if not as many signings get done as they would like.

“No one’s happy with where we are in the league. No one’s happy with the results that we’ve had,” began Lee. “And that remains the same and so we’ve got to try and find ways to improve the team as quickly as we can. And while the window is open that will be the focus. What I am really clear on though is we are not trying to make marginal improvements here. We are trying to take a team and make quantum leaps in our competitive level to get us back to the top of the top of the table. That is what we are going for.”

“If that means in my position some short-term sacrifices to make sure that the medium and long term, we can be a sustainably successful team, that is what we will do. But I’m hoping that we will be able to add some players before the window closes. I don’t know if we will, but I hope we will that can really take us forward. But it will not be at the compromise of the flexibility that we’ve now created.”

“The last thing we should do in the moment we’re at now is make a decision that might impact us from really taking one of those really big steps in a future transfer window. Not to say we won’t but that is going to be the focus to make sure that any decisions we take fit into the medium-term plan. We don’t [want to] get caught in trying to make a short-term move that probably will make people feel a bit better immediately and probably make Rapha a bit happier right now. But the reality is, we know where we are going and that is so clear to all of us here and we’ve got to make sure the moves we make have that in mind.”

Two More Designated Players

Things have changed drastically this year. Lee was hired nearly a year ago but has had about 10 months on the job. He came in under one ownership group, then news leaked that Peter Mallouk had become the team’s majority owner. However, even though that happened at the beginning of the year, this is the first real transfer window where Mallouk has put his stamp on the team. And the budget has changed drastically in that time.

Lee defended the decision to be in the 2 DP/4 U22 model to start the year. And even then, the players they were shopping for were different. At least when it comes to price point. Look at the rumored cost to acquire fellow U22, Diego Borges. It’s rumored to be just around $2m million. Wolff’s deal could shatter that with incentives.

And speaking of their new signing, Lee revealed the team has been trying to acquire Owen Wolff since last fall and Austin confirmed in their press release Wolff wanted to leave. The injection of Mallouk’s cash to do the largest internal transfer of a U22 Initiative player ever, may have changed minds. And it will certainly change the type of DPs that will replace Joveljic and Garcia.

“We do want to move the team into a three DP model,” stated Lee. “Whether that happens this window, the next, or ahead of the 2027-28, I’m not going to commit to. But we ultimately believe that probably that will give us the overall capacity to compete right at the top end of the league.”

Delaying those signings would disappoint some fans, but it’s the responsible thing to do over panicking.

If you panic, you could be like the LA Galaxy and make Joao Klauss a DP. Which opened the door for SKC’s rival to potentially sign DP striker Rapha Navarro from the Colorado Rapids. A move that certainly will make St. Louis City much better.

Maybe Sporting KC should swoop in and buy Navarro? He seems like an absolute talent that can do a lot of different things. They could certainly bid more than STL.

Why Dejan is Gone

First, there is the confirmation of what Seattle’s GM, Craig Waibel said. They hounded Sporting KC to make this move. It’s not like Dejan asked to leave.

Lee was clear. “We weren’t looking to move Dejan. We didn’t try to move him.”

But when an opportunity comes to open up a Designated Player spot, acquire $3 million in General Allocation Money (GAM) and find someone who may be a better fit, SKC couldn’t pass it up.

The last part, about fit, might be the most important. It’s not like Sporting KC were winning games with Dejan or Manu, despite their talent.

“I think we will look for a slightly different profile of player. We may not find someone that is as elite inside the box as Dejan because there’s frankly not many of those. But there is a huge amount of players that maybe have a little bit of a different style might be slightly better in the press or do things [like] be able to hold the ball up a little bit differently than Dejan. I think that can give us a platform to play slightly differently. We’re looking at those profiles now… It’s gonna be very difficult to replace Dejan like for like. I don’t think that’s something that we’re looking for. But we’re looking to try and make sure we just get the right profile in a striker.”

Why Take No Fee for Manu Garcia?

It’s a math and MLS rule problem. The team was negotiating to make a sale to Aris Thessaloniki. And any fee is better than no fee, right?

Well, it’s more troublesome than that. Manu would have still occupied a DP slot if they made the sale.

“It would have been wonderful for us if it were possible to do a transfer,” began Lee, but it simply wasn’t possible given what his new club were willing to pay for a salary.”

Manu didn’t need to leave. His $2,425,313 2026 salary was guaranteed. Not to mention, however much he was going to make next season.

Let’s editorialize a bit.

The timing ended up being poor. SKC probably want to maintain the flexibility to stay on the 2DP/4U22 model if they can’t get two DPs signed before the end of the window. To announce Andre Luiz, Manu had to go. Otherwise, Sporting KC would forfeit a potential extra $1 million in GAM to help build their roster. If they get two DP deals done in the next four days, that won’t matter, but why risk it? Had Dejan gone first, then Manu could sit on the roster (and perhaps at least be a useful substitute), until more deals could get done.

If no deals get done, he stays until the winter. When they can continue to try and negotiate a sale or choose to buy him out at that time.

But that’s all very messy. They made it clear to him he wasn’t in their long-term plans. Doing right by the player and letting him walk, will be a story passed among players when they consider coming to Kansas City. In the end, if Peter Mallouk is willing to spend that money, it only hurts his substantial bank account and it helps the team’s books to continue to improve the roster. Many owners wouldn’t make that decision for a team’s future and would instead just let the team languish.

Thursday is hopefully not the last time we’ll hear from David Lee this season. As more moves get done, we should get additional opportunities to talk to Lee.

Full Press Conference

The first 25 or so minutes are David Lee’s portion. If you are a sicko, you have to watch it at least once. Let’s not get into how many times we’ve viewed it.