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| When at his best, that's when you gotta watch out. |
[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]
Thumbnail History
Seeing Sporting Kansas City as the fourth-best team in MLS history makes sense and doesn’t at the same time – especially given all the ups and downs (more than I expected or remembered, certainly) and the fact that they had their last championship season 11 years ago. They alternated between success and failure more over their first 14 seasons, reaching MLS Cup here (e.g., in 2000 and 2004) and missing back-to-back post-seasons there (e.g., 1998 and 1999 and again in 2005 and 2006). SKC became more consistent over the back 14, missing the playoffs just three times, but, after their second MLS Cup, the trophies got smaller and then stopped coming. They’ve fielded some famous goalkeepers – e.g., Tony Meola, Jimmy “White Panther” Nielsen, and Tim Melia – and as many famous defenders (e.g., Ike Opara, Jimmy Conrad, Matt Besler), and I suspect most long-time fans of MLS associate them with seemingly eternal head coach Peter Vermes’ aggressive, grinding approach to the game. Kings of the 1-0 win, basically, or even claiming the game in penalties after they throttled the life of the other team’s attack and couldn’t shove in a goal of their own: that’s probably unfair, but that’s the reputation I hold in my head. We’ll see how that holds up below, but I’ll always quietly love them for coming into the league with beautiful rainbows on their kits and literally starting as the Kansas City Wiz. The fact they thought switching “Wiz” to “Wizards” made it better? Chef’s fucking kiss.
Best Season(s)
I might get some dissents on this call – particularly given the way it centers MLS Cup 2013, a game they won on penalties over Real Salt Lake in the coldest final in league history – but I’m going with 2012 to 2017. Despite some shaky finishes (e.g., 10th overall in 2014 and 2015), SKC added three U.S. Open Cups (in 2012, 2015, and 2017) to their second MLS Cup. The counterpoint is 2000, the season they did the double (winning Cup and Shield), but the league had such claustrophobic margins back then and I genuinely believe they built their best, most stable long-time roster in the 2010s.
Long-Term Tendencies
The loose impression holds up pretty well, honestly: a couple exceptional seasons aside (some recent, e.g., 2018, 2020, and especially 2021), SKC generally sticks at average or under it in terms of goals scored (18 of 28 seasons) and generally gets at average or under on goals allowed (17 of 28 seasons). Think a lot of stacked ‘n’ stubborn defenses, combative midfields and an occasionally-interrupted succession of attacking stars to turns Ds (or Ts) into Ws. For what it’s worth, I do think this is shifting, if slowly, and with Vermes’ blessing. He’s mellowed. Except when it comes to working the refs.
Identity
Athletic, aggressive, occasionally chippy, and sometimes dirty. Whether by intent or accident, they’ve tended to prioritize beating the opposition over outplaying/outsmarting them. Whatever I think about them, they feel like a great fit for the city they play for.
Joy Points: 26 (see end of post for methodology*)
10 Names to Know
Preki Radosavljevic (1996-2000)
Quirky damn player, a Serbian by birth who later became a U.S. citizen and USMNT star (he scored a winner against Brazil!), Preki came up through American indoor soccer to become the first of Kansas City-based player who specialized in turning draws into wins (50 goals, y'all). He had a magic left boot and good score from outside the stadium. One of MLS’s early greats.
Miklos Molnar (2000)
A Danish striker who came, saw, scored the one and only goal in MLS Cup 2000 at the 11th minute and left it to Tony Meola to make that goal stand up. Can’t think of a more Kansas City, Sporting or otherwise, player/situation.
Nick Garcia (2000-2007)
A product of the original MLS-elite pipeline, Garcia was part of the Project-40/Generation Adidas generation and drafted early in the 2000 SuperDraft – i.e., back when teams lived or died by the players they drafted. What he lacked for size and speed he made up with brains and he played a key role in Kansas City’s first, best era.
Jimmy Nielsen (2010-2013)
Melia (and the defense in front of him) posted better regular season numbers, but I’m giving Nielsen the honor of standing in for SKC’s long tradition of having a wide-limbed lunatic between the posts. Several teams in MLS have had better ‘keepers, but few have SKC’s tradition.
Davy Arnaud (2002-2011)
A work-rate lunatic, a wild-card, a leader: Arnaud stuck around Kansas City for a long time (2002-2011) and typifies a few things, trying to squeeze too much out of a utility player among them. I mean, what better defines a utility players than doing a lot of things well, but nothing exceptionally?
Thumbnail History
Seeing Sporting Kansas City as the fourth-best team in MLS history makes sense and doesn’t at the same time – especially given all the ups and downs (more than I expected or remembered, certainly) and the fact that they had their last championship season 11 years ago. They alternated between success and failure more over their first 14 seasons, reaching MLS Cup here (e.g., in 2000 and 2004) and missing back-to-back post-seasons there (e.g., 1998 and 1999 and again in 2005 and 2006). SKC became more consistent over the back 14, missing the playoffs just three times, but, after their second MLS Cup, the trophies got smaller and then stopped coming. They’ve fielded some famous goalkeepers – e.g., Tony Meola, Jimmy “White Panther” Nielsen, and Tim Melia – and as many famous defenders (e.g., Ike Opara, Jimmy Conrad, Matt Besler), and I suspect most long-time fans of MLS associate them with seemingly eternal head coach Peter Vermes’ aggressive, grinding approach to the game. Kings of the 1-0 win, basically, or even claiming the game in penalties after they throttled the life of the other team’s attack and couldn’t shove in a goal of their own: that’s probably unfair, but that’s the reputation I hold in my head. We’ll see how that holds up below, but I’ll always quietly love them for coming into the league with beautiful rainbows on their kits and literally starting as the Kansas City Wiz. The fact they thought switching “Wiz” to “Wizards” made it better? Chef’s fucking kiss.
Best Season(s)
I might get some dissents on this call – particularly given the way it centers MLS Cup 2013, a game they won on penalties over Real Salt Lake in the coldest final in league history – but I’m going with 2012 to 2017. Despite some shaky finishes (e.g., 10th overall in 2014 and 2015), SKC added three U.S. Open Cups (in 2012, 2015, and 2017) to their second MLS Cup. The counterpoint is 2000, the season they did the double (winning Cup and Shield), but the league had such claustrophobic margins back then and I genuinely believe they built their best, most stable long-time roster in the 2010s.
Long-Term Tendencies
The loose impression holds up pretty well, honestly: a couple exceptional seasons aside (some recent, e.g., 2018, 2020, and especially 2021), SKC generally sticks at average or under it in terms of goals scored (18 of 28 seasons) and generally gets at average or under on goals allowed (17 of 28 seasons). Think a lot of stacked ‘n’ stubborn defenses, combative midfields and an occasionally-interrupted succession of attacking stars to turns Ds (or Ts) into Ws. For what it’s worth, I do think this is shifting, if slowly, and with Vermes’ blessing. He’s mellowed. Except when it comes to working the refs.
Identity
Athletic, aggressive, occasionally chippy, and sometimes dirty. Whether by intent or accident, they’ve tended to prioritize beating the opposition over outplaying/outsmarting them. Whatever I think about them, they feel like a great fit for the city they play for.
Joy Points: 26 (see end of post for methodology*)
10 Names to Know
Preki Radosavljevic (1996-2000)
Quirky damn player, a Serbian by birth who later became a U.S. citizen and USMNT star (he scored a winner against Brazil!), Preki came up through American indoor soccer to become the first of Kansas City-based player who specialized in turning draws into wins (50 goals, y'all). He had a magic left boot and good score from outside the stadium. One of MLS’s early greats.
Miklos Molnar (2000)
A Danish striker who came, saw, scored the one and only goal in MLS Cup 2000 at the 11th minute and left it to Tony Meola to make that goal stand up. Can’t think of a more Kansas City, Sporting or otherwise, player/situation.
Nick Garcia (2000-2007)
A product of the original MLS-elite pipeline, Garcia was part of the Project-40/Generation Adidas generation and drafted early in the 2000 SuperDraft – i.e., back when teams lived or died by the players they drafted. What he lacked for size and speed he made up with brains and he played a key role in Kansas City’s first, best era.
Jimmy Nielsen (2010-2013)
Melia (and the defense in front of him) posted better regular season numbers, but I’m giving Nielsen the honor of standing in for SKC’s long tradition of having a wide-limbed lunatic between the posts. Several teams in MLS have had better ‘keepers, but few have SKC’s tradition.
Davy Arnaud (2002-2011)
A work-rate lunatic, a wild-card, a leader: Arnaud stuck around Kansas City for a long time (2002-2011) and typifies a few things, trying to squeeze too much out of a utility player among them. I mean, what better defines a utility players than doing a lot of things well, but nothing exceptionally?
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| Seriously, there was a doc about them as roomies way back. |
Matt Besler/Graham Zusi (2009-2020; 2009-2023)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a cheat to name two players, but SKC locked best friends Besler and Zusi into long-term contracts the same season and counted on them as foundations for the franchise. And, per the best seasons choice above, I believe that both Besler and Zusi repaid that faith season after season through the 2010s. They played a mind-blowing 649 in SKC colors between them.
Roger Espinoza (2015-2023)
And yet, if I had to name a “Mr. SKC,” I’d go with Espinoza. For me, he channeled the determination and combativeness that Vermes wanted to see on the field. The fact the man still has the lungs and legs to start 25 games in 2022 (and that’s after 285 career starts) speaks to how much the team valued him…his attacking stats flip to the other side of the coin.
Benny Feilhaber (2013-2017)
While Feilhaber wasn’t the first “flash” SKC player, he gave them attacking ability in an area of the field where they so often lacked it before. While that didn’t translate to their best attacking season, Feilhaber’s signing/tenure feels like the organization coming to the late realization that aggression wouldn’t be enough in the MLS 3.0 period. And he did deliver real numbers (e.g., 29 goals, 41 assists) while he was around.
Claudio Lopez (2008-2009...anyone else notice these were meant to be chronological? do you now?)
I’m using Lopez as a stand-in for all the players SKC signed hopefully, and who delivered a little and only for so long throughout the team’s long (for MLS) history (e.g., Molnar, Omar Bravo, Claudio Bieler, Kristztian Nemeth). SKC has historically asked a lot of its attacking ringers. They’ve only recently become better about filling in the supporting cast.
Johnny Russell (2018- )
I’d argue that the trend noted above started with Russell’s signing. For all that he’s delivered on his own (56 goals, 35 assists), Russell has had a better supporting cast in players like Daniel Salloi, Alan Pulido and even Gadi Kinda. That plays with a big, beating Scottish heart on his sleeve and seems to care as much about the team and city as Besler and Zusi ever did.
Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything
A long way from the top at 15th place overall, with a -3 goal differential, and decidedly average on final numbers on both the attacking and defending side – i.e., 48 goals for, 51 goals allowed, against a 48.6 average for goals overall. That averageness aside, I’m guessing SKC felt pretty damn good about their 2023 season overall after the flaming-bag-of-poo start to its season: they picked up literally three points from their first 10 games, a piteous 1-in-10 return that I’m sure has all involved vowing “never again.” They remained good for getting on the wrong side of a blowout to the end – with cross-state rival St. Louis CITY FC delivering two of them – but SKC answered that insult by knocking St. Louis out of the playoffs and by nearly as wide a margin. A lot of that early damage coincided with injuries to key players: once they had all hands and feet available, SKC punched even with the better teams in the West.
Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition
By the same token, the current roster looks all right for 2024 – not great, not league-beating, but all right. I have my doubts about Melia going another season (but he proved me all the way wrong in 2023), and the Dany Rosero/Andreu Fontas backline strikes me as over-zealous and slow, respectively (haven’t seen much of Robert Voloder, fwiw). They have a solid if unspectacular midfield duo in Remi Walter and Nemanja Radoja and, if I can tie a bow around my impression of this team’s state of ambition…voila! After that, I’m not sure how many season Russell has left, but I rate Erik Thommy highly enough to believe that, if they can keep some combination of Pulido, Salloi, and Willie Agada on the field for 25-30 games in 2024 (with Logan Ndenbe thrown in?), they should be competitive.
With Gadi Kinda gone (went back to Israel, pretty good-sized team, too), one thing I’m looking for is who they call in to replace him. Worth keeping an eye on, if nothing else.
* Joy Point Index
Winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League: 5 points
Claiming Supporters’ Shield : 4 points
Winning MLS Cup: 3 points
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2 points
Winning the U.S. Open Cup: 2 points
Winning CONCACAF Champions Cup: 2 points
MLS Is Back Cup: 2 points (yeah, yeah, I’m a Timbers fan; still, that was a tough one)
CONCACAF Champions League Semifinalist: 1 point
Making the Playoffs: 1 point
Missing the Playoffs: -1 point
Missing Playoffs in 1996-97, 2002-2004 (when 80% of the league qualified): - 2 points
Wooden Spoon: -3 point
Yeah, yeah, it’s a cheat to name two players, but SKC locked best friends Besler and Zusi into long-term contracts the same season and counted on them as foundations for the franchise. And, per the best seasons choice above, I believe that both Besler and Zusi repaid that faith season after season through the 2010s. They played a mind-blowing 649 in SKC colors between them.
Roger Espinoza (2015-2023)
And yet, if I had to name a “Mr. SKC,” I’d go with Espinoza. For me, he channeled the determination and combativeness that Vermes wanted to see on the field. The fact the man still has the lungs and legs to start 25 games in 2022 (and that’s after 285 career starts) speaks to how much the team valued him…his attacking stats flip to the other side of the coin.
Benny Feilhaber (2013-2017)
While Feilhaber wasn’t the first “flash” SKC player, he gave them attacking ability in an area of the field where they so often lacked it before. While that didn’t translate to their best attacking season, Feilhaber’s signing/tenure feels like the organization coming to the late realization that aggression wouldn’t be enough in the MLS 3.0 period. And he did deliver real numbers (e.g., 29 goals, 41 assists) while he was around.
Claudio Lopez (2008-2009...anyone else notice these were meant to be chronological? do you now?)
I’m using Lopez as a stand-in for all the players SKC signed hopefully, and who delivered a little and only for so long throughout the team’s long (for MLS) history (e.g., Molnar, Omar Bravo, Claudio Bieler, Kristztian Nemeth). SKC has historically asked a lot of its attacking ringers. They’ve only recently become better about filling in the supporting cast.
Johnny Russell (2018- )
I’d argue that the trend noted above started with Russell’s signing. For all that he’s delivered on his own (56 goals, 35 assists), Russell has had a better supporting cast in players like Daniel Salloi, Alan Pulido and even Gadi Kinda. That plays with a big, beating Scottish heart on his sleeve and seems to care as much about the team and city as Besler and Zusi ever did.
Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything
A long way from the top at 15th place overall, with a -3 goal differential, and decidedly average on final numbers on both the attacking and defending side – i.e., 48 goals for, 51 goals allowed, against a 48.6 average for goals overall. That averageness aside, I’m guessing SKC felt pretty damn good about their 2023 season overall after the flaming-bag-of-poo start to its season: they picked up literally three points from their first 10 games, a piteous 1-in-10 return that I’m sure has all involved vowing “never again.” They remained good for getting on the wrong side of a blowout to the end – with cross-state rival St. Louis CITY FC delivering two of them – but SKC answered that insult by knocking St. Louis out of the playoffs and by nearly as wide a margin. A lot of that early damage coincided with injuries to key players: once they had all hands and feet available, SKC punched even with the better teams in the West.
Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition
By the same token, the current roster looks all right for 2024 – not great, not league-beating, but all right. I have my doubts about Melia going another season (but he proved me all the way wrong in 2023), and the Dany Rosero/Andreu Fontas backline strikes me as over-zealous and slow, respectively (haven’t seen much of Robert Voloder, fwiw). They have a solid if unspectacular midfield duo in Remi Walter and Nemanja Radoja and, if I can tie a bow around my impression of this team’s state of ambition…voila! After that, I’m not sure how many season Russell has left, but I rate Erik Thommy highly enough to believe that, if they can keep some combination of Pulido, Salloi, and Willie Agada on the field for 25-30 games in 2024 (with Logan Ndenbe thrown in?), they should be competitive.
With Gadi Kinda gone (went back to Israel, pretty good-sized team, too), one thing I’m looking for is who they call in to replace him. Worth keeping an eye on, if nothing else.
* Joy Point Index
Winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League: 5 points
Claiming Supporters’ Shield : 4 points
Winning MLS Cup: 3 points
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2 points
Winning the U.S. Open Cup: 2 points
Winning CONCACAF Champions Cup: 2 points
MLS Is Back Cup: 2 points (yeah, yeah, I’m a Timbers fan; still, that was a tough one)
CONCACAF Champions League Semifinalist: 1 point
Making the Playoffs: 1 point
Missing the Playoffs: -1 point
Missing Playoffs in 1996-97, 2002-2004 (when 80% of the league qualified): - 2 points
Wooden Spoon: -3 point
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