For the Glory KC

S3E42 (#107) -

For the Glory KC is back with the 107th episode of the show.

The week of the offseason we've been waiting for and simultaneously dreading has arrived. Sporting Kansas City announced their roster moves, including moving on from eight players. And it sounds like they wanted to move on from more.

Due to an emergency, Sheena missed her second straight podcast (it's a really good reason, find it in your heart to forgive). In her stead we brought on not one, but two extra co-hosts: KC Soccer Journal staff writers Juan Cisneros and Josh Wallace.

Due to their intricate knowledge of all things Sporting KC, the podcast lost a bit of its casual perspective, and we went much deeper. Discussing the departures, along with the players that stayed, and if we agreed with them or not. Juan had a hot take on Memo Rodriguez that Josh and I roundly rebuffed.

We also got into who should be the captain of the team with Johnny Russell gone and where the future of the goalkeeper position lies with Tim Melia also out the door.

We couldn't talk about so many players leaving without reliving our favorite memories of Russell, Melia and Remi Walter, including legendary penalty kick shootouts, Melia dropping a Rock Bottom on Cristian Roldan, Russell nearly fighting all of the Vancouver Whitecaps and Remi scoring bangers.

A part of Sporting KC announcing all these moves was new Sporting Director, Mike Burns, talking to the media for a better part of half an hour. If you missed it, Burns hit on a lot of topics, that we discussed as well, including:

We also spun back in time to talk about Sporting KC II's roster moves from last week, which leaves the team with just four players under contract for 2025. Plus, the other guys we wouldn't mind see coming back that are out of contract (Sebastian Cruz and Ethan Bryant among others).

Then we had to talk about the tough KC Current loss that sees their season come up just short of playing in the NWSL title game. We talk through whether we are rooting for or against the Orlando Pride and Marta. Plus, set things up for a 2025 title run in the NWSL.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E41 - For the Glory KC is back with the 106th episode of the show.

This week, there is very little Sporting Kansas City in the episode, but they always find their way into the show, simply for comparisons sake if nothing else. Plus, I ran into Graham Zusi at the KC Current game, so we have to talk about that!

Instead of SKC, this is a KC Current focused episode considering they just won a home playoff game in the NWSL for the first time in a decade (and that was FCKC). Kansas City hosted the North Carolina Courage and pulled out a 1-0 win on an 8th minute Temwa Chawinga goal.

To break it all down, Xander Kennedy joins the show this week as one of our resident KC Current experts here at the KC Soccer Journal. He and I go through the changes to the lineup and if it was the best path to victory. We break down the team effort that led to the Chawinga goal and find a few unsung heroes on that play.

The game wasn't one way traffic either, as NC had some big chances, including the wide-open miss by Alene Gomes and the goal that was called off for a foul by Manaka on Almuth Schult. Speaking of Schult, we both sing her praises as she's in the 99th percentile in some key goalkeeping stats.

And the topic of protecting Temwa had to come up after the referee let her basically be abused throughout the match, something that didn't go unnoticed by Vlatko Andonovski. It led to an interesting scuffle between Bianca St. George and Ellie Wheeler after BSG taunted Temwa after hacking her to the ground.

Xander and I also share some Graham Zusi stories, talk about Inter Miami being bounced from the MLS Cup Playoffs and the rest of the NWSL playoff matchups.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E40 - For the Glory KC is back with the 105th episode of the show. 

This week, we do what we've teased off and on for months. We play Fantasy Sporting Director (move aside Mike Burns!) for Sporting Kansas City. It's something we did last year too.

I imagine, you may want to play along as well. We'd love to hear from you in the comments, or on the various social media accounts we plug at the end of every podcast, who you would or wouldn't keep. There are 16 players that are either out of contract or on options years. Do you bring people back at a discount? Move on entirely? How much turnover do you foresee.

We've already made the case the overhaul may not come this offseason, though movement definitely will. Sheena and I agreed on a few moves, but there was a surprising divide on a few players and some relatively big names we've decided to move on from (though we did a fair amount of waffling).

We also both briefly discussed the reaction to my editorial from the week, "Blame Ownership, Not Vermes, for Sporting KC's Failings."

Additionally, the KC Current deserve our attention after another win to wrap up their 2024 regular season. They have scored more goals than any team in NWSL history, and they did so in an essentially meaningless game. Well, it wasn't meaningless for the Chicago Red Stars, but you couldn't tell from their play in the first half. Chicago fell to 8th place and hit the road to face the Orlando Pride, while KC already knew they'd be hosting the North Carolina Courage next weekend in the opening round of the playoffs.

Sheena and I briefly talked about the happenings in MLS including upsets of Real Salt Lake, Inter Miami and the Columbus Crew in the playoffs. Plus, FIFA playing games by putting Miami in the Club World Cup against MLS's wishes.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E39 - For the Glory KC is back with the 104th episode of the show.

Sporting Kansas City's offseason got underway this week with two big chunks of news coming out. First, the MLS Players Association released the final 2024 salary information much later than in previous years. That meant we found out the salary of new signing Joaquin Fernandez, an increase in compensation showed up in the numbers for Alan Pulido and a new signing was leaked out.

Ian James, a yet-to-be-announced Homegrown signing for Sporting KC is set to join the team at just 16-years-old. We're excited for Ian, but also want to temper expectations a bit for such a young player to make an immediate impact.

The other info came in the form of Vermes' first press conference after the season ended. There were a lot of insightful things said which can give a clue to what is coming in the next few weeks and years. A few stand out topics include:

There were also a handful of dates that came out around Sporting KC's 2025 season starting. We know MLS play will begin on the weekend of February 22-23. We also know that the CONCACAF Champions Cup (CCC) draw will take place December 10th where Sporting KC will learn their first opponent. SKC could be playing as early as February 4th!

What didn't make it into the podcast, yet again, was our Fantasy Sporting Director discussion. Next week (probably) we'll get into who should stay and who should go from the 16 eligible players.

Not to be left out, the KC Current won their second trophy of the season. This time, the much more prestigious Summer Cup was lifted on Friday night in San Antonio in front of a meager crowd. KC had to work their way through a competition featuring all the NWSL teams and many of the Liga MX femenil teams. Kansas City defeated NJ/NY Gotham in the finals, but the game, much like the initial tournament, came during an international break. Gotham were particularly devastated with injuries and absences, but the Current were shorthanded too. Temwa Chawinga scored two more goals, bringing her total in all competitions to 23 for 2024.

The KC Current also announced a new contract for Vanessa DiBernardo that runs through 2026 with a mutual option for 2027. Plus, it was leaked that options were picked up for 2025 for Bia Zaneratto and Regan Steigleder.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E38 - For the Glory KC is back with the 103rd episode of the show. 

After a week off, the podcast returns. Sporting Kansas City also had a week off, and now we know the offseason schedule, so the urgency to do our fantasy Sporting Director episode has waned for a week. It'll make a great topic for next week.

This week though, we briefly talk about the action on the field in the season finale. Sporting KC lost 2-1 to FC Dallas, but technically outscored them if you count that Joaquin Fernandez own goal.

The more interesting topic of conversation was the lineup, but more so, who wasn't available and why. Suddenly added to the injury report were Jake Davis, Johnny Russell and Remi Walter. Also out were Andreu Fontas, Khiry Shelton and the known surgery to Dany Rosero. It could have been the absolute last chance to see a handful of those guys. Oh, and Tim Leibold played right back. That was something.

After the game, Sheena and I reflect on the season. Technically it's the second worst record ever, but there are more games now, so the points may be inflated. Was it actually the worst season ever? We also gave our takes on the Sporting KC Pitch Black award winners, and we only took umbrage with one category: Newcomer of the Year. Memo Rodriguez was snubbed, and we have the stats to back it up.

Things were happier on the Missouri side of soccer as the KC Current just keep winning. Two more wins for the ladies, but they still linger in fourth place as the Washington Spirit and Gotham refuse to drop a single point. In the last nine days, the Current have defeated expansion Bay FC and the San Diego Wave and Temwa Chawinga has just kept shattering records. We have some funny press conference stories, and of course, cover the retirement of Desiree Scott.

Since Sporting KC are done, we also circled back to the MLS Cup Playoffs and our retired segment, the Messi Update. Inter Miami set the single season points record, and Messi led the league in goal contributions, despite missing significant time. Atlanta United snuck into the playoffs (shades of SKC in 2023) and Sheena will not be watching the 18-team playoff.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E37 - For the Glory KC is back with the 102nd episode of the show.

Sporting Kansas City are one game away from the end of their 2024 season, but it's effectively over. This past Saturday served as the final home game of the season. According to my colleague, Mike Kuhn, a statistically terrible one. We keep our conversation about the 3-0 loss to LAFC to a minimum, though Tim Melia and the debut of Joaquin Fernandez got some time.

Mostly, we focused on a few of the players who are out of contract after the 2024 season. First, Sheena's favorite, Remi Walter. He was a surprise addition to the starting lineup after Khiry Shelton was a late scratch with a calf injury. He pushed Jake Davis to right back and took his spot in the midfield before coming off in the 60th minute. Was it his final appearance?

Then the attention turned to Johnny Russell. He wanted to score so bad, but it just wasn't coming off for him. He ended the night with just 0.1 xG (per FBref) of the teams meager 0.7 xG. In 31 minutes, Erik Thommy accounted for 0.4 of that total. But we're not talking about Thommy (this week).

Russell stared off into the distance, taking it all in for a while, after the final whistle blew. It was the look of a man who knew it may be his final time in a Sporting KC uniform. For his part, he wants to come back, though apparently, it's not been discussed yet.

Next week on the podcast, we'll look closer at the whole roster, and all 16 guys that could potentially be gone, and make our roster decisions.

After the Sporting KC talk ended, things livened up with wins from the KC Current and SKC II. The Current pulled just one point out of second place in the NWSL standings with three games to go. Sporting KC II on the other hand were bounced from the playoffs despite their victorious efforts. Benny Feilhaber also confirmed he's out of contract after the season and he's "uncertain of his future."

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E36 - For the Glory KC is back with the 101st episode of the show.

Sporting Kansas City had a busy, but ultimately disappointing, week. To take things in reverse order we start the discussion with For the Glory KC heading into enemy territory to experience CITYPARK as SKC took on St. Louis City SC. We give our thoughts on the stadium, the atmosphere, the food and everything else that happened in the soccer portion of the trip. And we're happy to report the in-person fans were much better than the online ones.

And it came up in the conversation, so here is the story I promised about the state of Sporting KC's offseason rebuild and why it may be slower than fans would like. Complete with math (everyone's favorite)!

The week started off with the promise of a chance to win a trophy, but that came up short too. Sporting KC headed to Los Angeles to take on LAFC but came up short against the better side. The game was not without controversy as an unconscionably bad call may have tilted things. We talk about that, plus other happenings from the game. Jake Davis and Tim Melia played out of their minds. And Khiry Shelton got some undeserved hate when he shut down Denis Bouanga, one of the best players in the league, all night.

The KC Current played to a controversial result of their own. Michelle Cooper was impeded by a referee, who definitely changed directions into her path to gift Gotham their only goal of the game (though KC shouldn't have shut off in the moments after that). Kansas City were the better team, and probably deserved all three points. Missed chances and final passes plagued the team, despite Temwa Chawinga adding to her Golden Boot leading pace. The Current remain in fourth place with four league games to go.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E25 (100 overall!) - For the Glory KC is back with the 100th episode of the show! Wow... 100!

Since it's the 100th episode, we did things a little different this week. The first segment takes a more historical look Sporting Kansas City and our relationship to the team. We tell stories about how we got into Sporting KC and our journey to this point. Then we do our all-time Sporting KC starting XI, except we really just did a team from the last decade (as is explained in the pod).

I finally got a chance to ask Remi Walter about his contract and sprung that news on his biggest fan, my co-host Sheena, during the episode to get her live reaction.

We briefly went into the last three Sporting KC games, but instead of breaking down each one, since it's been over a week since that Seattle Sounders game, we took themes from each game and worked them into the episode. The three big topics were:

We also had to discuss the sad news of Felipe Hernandez being released.

The KC Current played exclusively on Amazon Prime since we last did an episode so that limited the audience and their time on the episode, though they did clinch the playoffs!

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E34 - For the Glory KC is back with the 99th episode of the show! (Our 100th episode is next week, should we do something special?) 

Sporting Kansas City and the KC Cauldron put on a cool event this past week. Manager Peter Vermes (he joked several times, he's not the Sporting Director anymore) and CEO and President Jake Reid did a town hall with KC Cauldron members. I share just a couple of the many, many stories that he shared and questions that he answered. I would call it a 'must attend' event and if you are a member of the Cauldron, you should definitely go next year. And if you aren't a member, you should probably consider joining. I really enjoyed meeting people and all the information we got from the event was great and you aren't going to hear most of it elsewhere.

We also got into a conversation about how Major League Soccer may change their transfer window dates. It seems like a real thing that may happen by 2025. Check out the reporting on it by Tom Bogert. 

Sheena and I also had to discuss the 1-1 draw between Sporting KC and the New York Red Bulls. It really felt like SKC were going to steal all three points after a very up and down first half. We get into the goals (including this fantastic Davis to Pulido number), the thin lineup and the bad refereeing.

Speaking of bad officiating, we have to discuss that ridiculous second yellow/red card to Jake Davis.

We also had to talk about the blown PK call where Shelton was cleaned out in the box, but the ref swallowed his whistle. It feels like the game could have been very different if not for some very inconsistent officiating.

The KC Current played at the same time as Sporting KC and got back to their winning ways. They won a tight 1-0 game where the Utah Royals had a handful of really good chances, though the Current were clearly the better side. The game marked the return of Bia, another start for Almuth Schult and a different tactical look from Vlatko and company.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

S3E33 - For the Glory KC is back with the 98th episode of the show! (Our 100th episode is coming up, should we do something special?) 

Sporting Kansas City keep the momentum going with a huge semifinal win over Indy Eleven to book a place in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup finals against LAFC. They got there on goals by Johnny Russell and Dany Rosero.

It wasn't always smooth sailing for Sporting KC though, as Indy Eleven gave them all they could handle in the second half, but Tim Melia repeatedly came up big to keep a clean sheet. The game also marked the return of Logan Ndenbe to the starting lineup and overall had a unique lineup that looked a lot more like 2023 than 2024 (with the exceptions of right back Khiry Shelton and midfielder Jake Davis).

The game came to an end with an ultimately meaningless penalty kick that was missed by Alan Pulido. It made us wonder who should have taken the PK instead of Pulido based on who was on the field, as well as who would have gone if a game came to penalties.

The KC Current continued to faulter as they lost their third straight NWSL game. This time it was the North Carolina Courage who got the better of them. It made us wonder if it's simply a slump, them running into tougher teams, or if they aren't as good as we thought they were.

The team also made a series of transactions this week trading away Hanna Glas and Jordan Silkowitz while bringing in Kayla Sharples (formerly of Bay FC) and signing a few extensions. The NWSLPA also announced their list of free agents, which were loaded with KC players, including: Elizabeth Ball, Kristen Hamilton, Vanessa DiBernardo, AD Franch, Nichelle Prince, Almuth Schult, Desiree Scott and Mallory Weber. Who should Vlatko prioritize to keep? 

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few topics, including:

And there is no good way to talk about this, but a Sporting KC fan tragically lost her life as a result of injuries suffered in an auto accident outside the US Open Cup game on Tuesday night. If you'd like to donate to the family of Summer Lynn, they have a Go Fund Me setup.

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Upcoming Schedule:

We recently turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.