Agada to have Surgery and Dom Dwyer is on Trial

No sooner does our weekly injury and availability update come out before more news breaks around Sporting Kansas City‘s unending injury woes. It started with the news that Dom Dwyer is on trial with the team.

A familiar face in #SportingKC training today: Dom Dwyer.

— Daniel Sperry (@sperrydaniel94) April 20, 2023

It seemed like a puzzling move knowing that Sporting KC just got back Alan Pulido, and Willy Agada lit the league on fire at the end of 2022. Then Managing Editor of the KC Soccer Journal Thad Bell dropped the news that Agada has a stress fracture that is going to require surgery and will be out “a while” per manager and sporting director Peter Vermes.

It looks like Agada will have surgery for an existing stress fracture on his tibia. Will be out for "a while" according to PV. #sportingkc

— Thad (@TheBackpost) April 20, 2023

Does it Have to be Dwyer?

So, why Dom Dwyer and not someone else? There are likely a multitude of reasons. The team may not have much financial flexibility. Despite Sporting KC’s transparency compared to chunks of the league, it’s still very gray how much extra General Allocation Money (GAM) they may have in their coffers from trades and transfers.

Another reason is the primary transfer window is closing on Monday, April 24th and there simply isn’t time to make a move internationally, so teams are forced to look domestically. Trades can still happen around Major League Soccer, or teams can sign domestic players that are out of contract. Here is where Dwyer comes in.

Dom Dwyer is a familiar face. He’s also second all-time in scoring in Sporting KC history behind Preki. However, he hasn’t been anywhere near that form in recent seasons. Last year he made 22 appearances (five starts) for Atlanta United. He did score four goals in just 605 minutes, a marked improvement over the prior years.

Before that he spent one season with Toronto FC, where they literally paid FC Dallas to trade for him (then they promptly bought out his contract and released him). Prior to that, he spent three seasons with Orlando City. The first of which was very successful (13 goals across 25 starts) before injuries slowed him so much that he only played 124 minutes in his final season and didn’t score at all.

Is this a good move? We’ll definitely spend a lot of time on that in the coming weeks. And at this point, he hasn’t been signed yet. It may not happen, but if I’m a betting man I’m saying it will. But as Mike Kuhn wrote in a fantastic story, you can’t always come home again.