Three Sporting KC Roster Construction Problems Needing Solving
The pre-season is in full swing, four of the five games have been played. Sporting Kansas City are 1-1-2 after Wednesday’s 2-2 draw with Real Salt Lake.
While the team has generally kept its cards close in terms of lineups shown and the amount of preseason footage available, regardless of who actually starts regular season games (which we’ll be devoting a lot of time to). ), there are still some roster building puzzles that need to be solved.
Let’s break down the three most puzzling.
Why do Sporting KC have three left-backs?
Confusion has reigned since rumors surfaced that Sporting Kansas City wanted to sign German left-back Tim Leibold, most recently in the Bundesliga 2 with Hamburger SV. So confusing, in fact, that David Greenwald and I had quite a heated debate about it.
Peter Vermes seems to have hinted, as I prophesied, that if you can improve your team, you will. Regardless of why Leibold is here, it just doesn’t make sense from a rostering perspective. To quote his colleague LB Ben Sweat: “It’s a little [bit] of a head scratcher.”
In Major League Soccer, teams receive 20 senior roster spots that count toward their payroll budget. All three players on the left — Leibold, Sweat and Logan Ndenbe — are on the senior list. The fact that 15 percent of those seats are occupied by guys who only play one seat is frankly strange. Not to mention that Logan Ndenbe may be further buried on the depth chart and he occupies a valuable place in the U-22 Initiative (aka SKC spent big bucks to acquire Ndenbe).
That also doesn’t take into account all the salary spent as a left-back. Leibold is rumored to be making around $700,000 a season, which would make him one of the highest-paid fullbacks in the league (we won’t know for sure in a few months). Additionally, in 2022, Ndenbe earned $396,125 (with only $150,000 counted against the budget) and Sweat added another $200,000 in salary. That’s nearly $1.3 million for left-backs. In a league with such a tight salary budget, that doesn’t make sense.
Because of this, Sporting KC needs someone to move (unless, as Ben Sweat said, there are plans, he wasn’t told to move to CB). I disagree with him on the money being spent on Ndenbe. If someone wants to buy him now (the transfer window is already closed in most European countries) and you can recoup your costs, do it. However, if you take a loss, you might try trading Sweat. He’s an MLS veteran with a tasty contract in one of the most difficult positions to fill in global football.
Check out the guys’ revolving door KC had when trying to replace Seth Sinovic — even while he was still here. Let’s really look at it. As of 2016, the team has the following 12 left-backs: Sweat, Ndenbe, Leibold, Sinovic, Luis Martins, Amadou Dia, Rodney Wallace, Jimmy Medranda, Cristian Lobato*, Yohan Croizet*, Tyler Pasher and Ever Alvarado.
*Sure, Lobato and Croizet didn’t play much there, but they tried.
Long story short, maybe a needy team is coming along looking for someone like Sweat and Sporting KC should be listening.
Why are there only three centre-backs?
Admittedly, Peter Vermes has vowed to address this issue, saying, “I think you’ll see another person sign up for the team in that position.”
Still, it’s worth talking about. The team currently has Andreu Fontas, Kortne Ford and Robert Voloder as the only players in the roster whose main position is CB. Of those players, Fontas and Ford have missed a lot of time in their careers with injuries.
Outside of those three, PV has said Nemanja Radoja CB can play (although he didn’t play anywhere last preseason due to injury) and Ben Sweat has previously played in a back three, but both options don’t seem ideal (Sweat even said). he tends to focus more on offense than defense).
In 2022 and many seasons before that, SKC would have five players to fill the two starting spots for centre-back. Since 2022 they have been withdrawn from Nicolas Isimat-Mirin and Kaveh Rad and have yet to replace them. Even if they sign a player, that player will have missed most of preseason and the chance to integrate into the team.
With an extraordinarily busy season of extra games ahead for the Leagues Cup, at least one commitment needs to be made. Sporting KC only have two squad spots left so one is probably all we get unless someone else gets moved.
If the solution to only having three is to add someone like second-round pick Chris Rindov, I think most will be underwhelmed. I have no idea how he’s doing pre-season, but I think if Sporting KC added a CB who could step in and start all the time if needed, it would go a long way toward making them contenders this season. Historically, second-round picks aren’t those guys.
SKC’s offseason buyout
Earlier this week, MLSsoccer.com’s Matt Doyle suggested that Sporting Kansas City should capitalize on their one-off buyout for Gadi Kinda in the off-season.
“I left Gadi Kinda off the depth chart below (the chart only goes four deep!) as he’s still injured,” Doyle said. “It’s starting to feel like a problem that they might have to solve through an acquisition.”
I don’t blame the guys on the league website sometimes for their takes because they try to cover 29 teams and we cover one. But that hot take is one I can’t get behind (he also suggested a Pulido buyout earlier in the offseason). First, if Sporting KC were to take over Kinda’s buyout, they should have done so last year so they could have added a designated player and salvaged their season (although, in Doyle’s defense, they should have done it preseason). started and at the time they thought Kinda was coming back).
In terms of his health, I feel Kinda is further away than Pulido, but Vermes hinted they both have the potential to play in the season opener on February 25. I don’t think Kinda will play (although I wouldn’t rule out Pulido, who is back in practice).
The other thing that came up was that I assumed Sporting KC had already used their one offseason buyout on Uri Rosell when it was cancelled. Well, it turns out that’s not quite the case. Speaking to sources within the team, Rosell has not claimed the waivers, but Sporting Kansas City have until the February 24 roster compliance date to decide if they want to use their only offseason buyout on him.
Here I expand a bit on a “rostering problem that needs solving”. If SKC doesn’t take advantage of the buyout, his salary ($475,000 in 2022) would count towards his payroll budget that season. I think Kansas City will take advantage of the buyout and get the money off their books (even if they ended up paying Uri).
I’m guessing but not sure, the only reason to wait is if they actually need to use the buyout on a more expensive player. I can only see that if someone who is more expensive gets injured and is going to miss the season, so you want that bigger sum of money back in your budget to make a move. But again, this hypothetical injury (I don’t believe in spells, don’t burden me with future injuries!) would have to happen before February 24th.
I am confident that Uri’s contract situation will be resolved. There’s no point in not taking advantage of the buyout. You might as well get the roster spot And the salary budget.
I feel decent that the centre-back’s situation is being addressed (let’s just hope the signing is big enough). The left-back is by far the most enigmatic.
I toyed with adding a fourth “issue” that stems from Khiry Shelton signing a minimum three-year extension (and an option for a fourth year). If that doesn’t result in a huge pay cut, I’m still a little stunned. However, with first-round pick Stephen Afrifa not coming, the team need someone to be the third center forward behind Willy Agada and Alan Pulido (although I’m still not convinced that should be Khiry, Ozzie Cisneros also plays there) .
Outside of those parts of the roster, assuming health (which is a big assumption), Sporting Kansas City in 2023 feels like a real contender. I hope and expect great things from them.
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