Getting Reacquainted with Sporting Kansas City, MLS's Good Team Going Through Some Things

What passes for thrills in KC, in player and shirt form.

Thumbnail History
I’ll always quietly love them for coming into the league as the Kansas City Wiz and with a rainbow motif on most of their early. The fact they thought switching “Wiz” to “Wizards” made it better? Chef’s fucking kiss. The team itself, however, has never been particularly lovable. Preki, one of MLS’s first, great attacking players, lined up for them over their early seasons (and caught the eye of U.S. Soccer doing so), but most of SKC’s most famous players are defenders – e.g., Nick Garcia, Richard Gough (briefly, I think), Matter Besler, Ike Opara, Jimmy Conrad (fungi) – defensive midfielders – e.g., Matt McKeon, Diego Gutierrez, or, quite possibly “the most SKC player” ever, Roger Espinoza – or goalkeepers, e.g., e.g., Tony Meola, Jimmy “White Panther” Nielsen, and Tim Melia. They’ve had some fun teams – think the 2021 team when both Daniel Salloi and Johnny Russell had banner seasons, or the Benny Feilhaber years (2013-2017, effectively) with Krisztian Nemeth, peak Dom Dwyer, and Claudio Bieler running in front of him, and SKC Eternal Graham Zusi pitching in from the wide spaces. Those teams had some successes – MLS Cup in 2013, a cold fucker played on the U.S. equivalent of the Russian steppes, but mostly U.S. Open Cups – and, despite the fact they scored more goals in my head than they did on the field, those teams still represent the beginning of a time when this team finally put some effort into entertaining. Still, I have never stopped thinking of them as the team that rode Meola and an 11th-minute goal by a Danish forward on a professional pit-stop (Miklos Molnar) to victory in one of the dullest MLS Cups ever played (2000). While I wouldn’t quite say their best days are behind them, the trophies have gotten smaller since their 2013 MLS Cup, and then stopped coming altogether after 2017. To be clear, that doesn’t represent some kind of radical drop-off – SKC has made the “real playoffs”(i.e., the quarterfinals or better) in five of the past eight seasons – they’re just not winning anything…and most of those playoff experiences stalled at the quarterfinals. And yet, that combined record raises them to sixth-best all-time team on the Joy Points Scale. I suspect most long-time fans of MLS associate them with seemingly eternal head coach Peter Vermes’ aggressive, grinding approach to the game, but that doesn’t hold up as well as it used to. And that could be what’s going wrong. Or was going wrong…

Getting Reacquainted with Sporting Kansas City, aka, MLS's Barely Magical Wizards

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.

An MLS History Project, 2000: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Least Watchable of Times

Bro. Don't. It doesn't end well.

First, and full disclosure, you can skip this post and just watch a young Rob Stone tell you the story of the 2000 MLS season. That’s about an hour of your life (and why'd they stop making those?!), so this’ll be shorter. Probably. I do go on…starting now…

If I gave the impression that I can place some, or even all MLS Cups in time, this is inaccurate. The 2000 MLS Cup Final, on the other hand, sticks in my memory like a rock in a shoe. It was the first final in league history that I dreaded and prayed to all the gods I can name (it’s a lot) to keep it from coming to pass. It did, obviously, and the 2000 Kansas City Wizards team that won it was that rock in my shoe. It took their more recent face-lift and a general improvement in their approach to the game to make me stop hating them. So, that was what? 15 years?

The Wizards won MLS Cup that season by beating a far more interesting Chicago Fire 1-0 on an 11th minute goal by Danish import, Miklos Molnar. To look back through brighter lenses, that awful ending casts a shadow over a season that sparkled with all kinds of massive debuts. The 2000 season saw the great incoming and upcoming of some of the most important players in MLS history, but it was the latter group (e.g., the upcomers) that teams would rely on and build around for the entire decade to come. As you’ll see when I get to them, these aren’t all household names; better still, at least one actual legend made a lot of noise when he joined the league, only to leave it with a bitchy little Teutonic whimper. I’ll get to all that, but, first, I’ve got to talk about MLS’s updated mechanics.

A lot of league’s most infamous gimmicks – no ties, the 35-yard shootout that prevented them, the ridiculous scoring system that followed from, keeping time on a scoreboard clock that counted down to 0:00 with no input from the referee, and so on; just all the comical misjudging of what American soccer fans wanted, not to mention the idea that that stupid shit would lure fans of America’s Big 4-5 to soccer (deep breath) – those all died with First Kick 2000. Don’t take that to mean the fever had totally broken: