With the MLS season winding down there are fewer former Wizards on the field playing each and every week. It appears that after returning to Trinidad, Daneil Cyrus may be looking to go back abroad again, as this article about the failings of the Trinidad national team, discusses Cyrus going on trial with a club instead of going with the Trinidad national team for the Caribbean Championship qualifiers this week.
Here's another week of former SKC Wizards updates. First, came word last week that Craig Rocastle
will not be playing for the Missouri Comets. Instead he has moved to Greece where he's joined his
former club, Thrasyvoulos Fylis FC, who is currently at the bottom of the second division in
Greece. In other news, Ryan Smith has come out with his side of what happened when he left KC.
Another week of former SKC Wizards updates, some extra news this week as well. By now you've heard
about Craig Rocastle signing with the Missouri Comets, but there's other news as well. Eddie
Johnson's club career continues to spiral down for him, as he's already out at Puebla in Mexico.
Apparently the forward failed his physical and was not fit and was released basically 2 days after
showing up in Mexico.
News started to leak out last night on through Thad, and today it was officially announced that the
Missouri Comets have added to their roster by signing former Sporting KC midfielder, Craig
Rocastle. Rocastle had been waived by Sporting at the end of this past season after two years with
the club. Rocastle should be available for Friday's match up against Milwaukee and then in Wichita
to take on the Wings on Saturday.
Here's your former SKC Wizards update for this week. Lots of news, including 6 new former Wizards.
Jeferson, Scott Lorenz, Craig Rocastle, Seth Sinovic, Ryan Smith, and Milos Stojcev are all now
classified officially as former Wizards. Also in the news is the movement of Tyson Wahl, who was
traded from Seattle to Montreal for allocation money.
First kick is Saturday, Sporting KC will step onto the field for the first time since losing to the
Houston Dynamo in the Eastern Conference finals back in November at Livestrong Sporting park. It's
the chance for redemption, for the chance to finish the unfinished business, and any other cliche
regarding making a comeback after being knocked down.
Today also marked the start of the waiver period in MLS. This kind of thing probably will
continue to get flushed out a little more over time now that the league has the Re-Entry drafts
that will be coming up in the next couple of weeks. For the most part any of these players below
just weren't good enough or were too pricy to be apart of that Re-Entry Draft.
Today the league released the list of players that have been exposed by their teams for Wednesday's
expansion draft for the Montreal Impact. Plenty of arguments are made about how bad the expansion
draft is. Teams do work to develop players than have to lose one of those players to an expansion
team.
Once again Kansas City runs the risk of losing one of their players in this year's expansion draft
to help fill the roster for the Montreal Impact. Yesterday MLS released the date as well as the
basic rules for the draft.
The draft will be held on November 23, 3 days after the MLS Cup final in LA.
The injuries for Sporting Kansas City seem to continue to mount up, with news on two more players
coming out today. First for some good news, the team posted on Twitter today that captain, Davy
Arnaud had returned to training. Combine that with the return of Craig Rocastle to game play
yesterday in the reserve game.
With one of my precious days off today from my job that pays the bills, I made my way to Swope for
Sporting KC's practice today and the press conference with Peter Vermes and Soony Saad. The one
thing that was most surprising about practice today was that it was more laid back than I thought
it was.
Sporting KC made 4 more roster moves today, waiving four players before today's waiver draft. KC
waived Jeferson, Craig Rocastle, Milos Stojcev, and Scott Lorenz. Jeferson Rocastle, and Stojcev
all three take up international spots that are now open to be used next year.
To go along with Roger Espinoza's call up for Honduras, four more Wizards players have been called
up to represent their respective national teams. Teal Bunbury, Peterson Joseph, Craig Rocastle, and
Shavar Thomas have all been called up to the US, Haiti, Grenada, and Jamaica respectively.
The biggest games of the international break are for Joseph and Rocastle whose national teams have
two World Cup qualifiers.
The Swope Park Rangers, Sporting KC's reserve side, moved their record in the reserve league this
year to 2-2-2 with a 1-0 win over the Colorado Rapids today at the Swope Park training complex. An
early goal by Soony Saad was the lone tally in the game. Both teams had some good chances, in a
game that was delayed for a period of time due to lightning.
Photo courtesy of Sporting Kansas City/Taylor Allan
Soony Saad scored for the first time as a professional, tallying the lone goal in Sporting
Kansas City's 1-0, weather-delayed victory over the Colorado Rapids in MLS Reserve League play on
Monday.
Saad, a standout at the University of Michigan last year who landed with Sporting KC in a
weighted lottery on July 5, took a pass from Teal Bunbury and found the back of the net on a shot
from the edge of the area to give SKC (2-2-2) all the offense it would need in the third minute of
the win.
Wednesday against Colorado was Kansas City's 17th game of the season, the midway point of the
season. KC played 13 of the 17 games on the road in the first half of the season, leaving them with
13 at home in the second half. Here are the midseason grades for Sporting KC players.
Korede Aiyegbusi - INC - Aiyegbusi has only played 93 minutes in league play for KC.
KC plays their second home game of the season tomorrow when they take on the San Jose Earthquakes
at LiveSTRONG Sporting Park. The Quakes come into the game having not lost since April 30th to the
Philadelphia Union. That's a span of 8 games in all competitions, 6 in league play, including last
week's 4-2 win in DC.
If the Portland Timbers are to return their winning ways in their upcoming matches, they'll have
to do so without centerback Futty Danso.
The Gambian defender has been ruled out for the next 2-to-4 weeks after injuring his shoulder in
Saturday's loss to the Colorado Rapids.
Danso was hurt in the 23rd minute of the match when going for a header against Rapids forward
Caleb Folan, and an MRI revealed that he escaped serious injury but will still need a spell on the
sidelines.
So it sounds like the injury that Craig Rocastle suffered with the Grenada national team in their
first Gold Cup game is kind of serious. Andrew Wiebe, Sporting KC's beat writer for MLSsoccer.com
posted on Twitter today that Rocastle was at training with a wrap on his leg. He also said that
Rocastle has a torn PCL and meniscus.
Only one of Sporting Kansas City's Gold Cup call ups made the field tonight. Shavar Thomas started
and played the full game for Jamaica as they took out Guatemala 2-0 thanks to two goals by Demar
Phillips. The Jamaicans now sit on top of their group as the only team to win both of their games
with a plus 6 goal difference.
Two teams with one win a piece after a combined 21 games played isn't exactly a marquee match up
but a national audience will get to see the opening of another soccer specific stadium in Kansas
City's Livestrong Sporting Park. It seems that every new stadium opening in MLS is more impressive
than the last, which is something that will serve the league well in general audience perception
for national broadcasts.
It's been a long couple months on the road for Sporting KC, the 1-6-3 record is some proof of that.
But tomorrow that changes as Sporting KC will be opening their home, Livestrong Sporting Park, when
they take on the Chicago Fire. As I mentioned earlier today, this game is a MUST win for KC on so
many different levels.
Shavar Thomas and Jamaica got their Gold Cup campaign off to a good start last night with a 4-0 win
of Craig Rocastle and Grenada. Both players started their game for their respective teams. Thomas
helped anchor the Jamaican defense which completely shut down Grenada. Rocastle on the other hand
was subbed at half time after getting injured in a collision in the first half of the game.
It's been a long 2 and a half months, but it's finally coming to an end tomorrow when KC ends their
10 game road trip in Toronto. KC ended their long losing streak last week in Colorado with a 1-1
draw against the defending champs. Toronto comes into this game on the backs of a humiliating 6-2
loss to Philadelphia at home.
Another month of the season is in the books for Sporting KC. In the month of May, KC went 0-2-1 in
league play, and added a win against New England in the US Open Cup qualifier. KC scored 2 league
goals in the 3 games, with Ryan Smith and an Omar Gonzalez own goal accounting for those goals. CJ
Sapong and Chance Myers added a brace in the Open Cup game, with Aurelien Collin adding a goal as
well.
Talked with Craig Rocastle about LIVESTRONG Sporting Park and playing for Grenada in the Gold Cup
Craig Rocastle will play one more game for Kansas City before joining Grenada for the Gold Cup
It appears that two Sporting KC players will be playing this weekend. Roger Espinoza was apparently
called up by Honduras for their friendly on Monday against Serbia. The call up was made before KC's
season ended and I've been unable to find any updates since the initial roster was released on the
2nd of November stating whether Espinoza was still participating or not.
While Sporting KC was busy qualifying for the playoffs, another Sporting KC player was busy with
his national team trying to keep their World Cup qualifying hopes alive. Craig Rocastle and Grenada
were playing St. Vincent and Grenadines in a must win game for both countries to keep alive in
Group E.
Yesterday was a good day for the two Sporting KC internationals involved in World Cup qualifying
during this international window. Peterson Joseph an Haiti got things started off well with a 7-0
win over the US Virgin Islands. After being up 2-0 at the half, Haiti made all 3 substitutions,
including sending on Joseph.
Among the highlights of the Dynamo Reserves' 2-0 win yesterday morning over the Kansas City
Wizards Sporks are a couple of very nice finishes from Alex Dixon and Colin Clark. When thinking
beyond this season, it's getting pretty clear that Dixon is a serious asset. Check out the moves he
makes to create space in a dangerous area before cooly finishing the chance.
Let's hope the Galaxy enjoyed their long 10-day layoff because as you can see by the schedule
with one exception from Oct. 5-15 the club will play the rest of the regular season with a game
every three or four days.
Getting things started is a rare (rescheduled) Labor Day match (live at 3 p.
Most Kansas City fans probably didn't expect Guadeloupe midfielder Stephane Auvray to play another
game for the Wizards ever after he had basically disappeared from training almost 2 months ago.
Today that became official as Sporting KC traded the midfielder to the New York Red Bulls. In
return, Kansas City get the Red Bulls second round pick in 2013.
Well in my prediction on Friday night I said that this game looked like it would be a dull, drab
0-0 or 1-0 result, and it turned out to be exactly that. After Toronto's 6-2 loss last week I
expected them to sit a little deeper and play a similar game plan to the one KC did in Seattle
after losing 4-1 to LA.
The 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup looked to continue to be a somewhat of a joke at the end of Jamaica's
4-0 crushing defeat over Grenada, some were wondering if the minnows of Gold Cup should have even
been invited. Perhaps the tournament should be winnowed back to the original 8 teams the Gold Cup
featured as recently as 1998.
With Marco Pappa playing for Guatemala in the CONCACAF Gold Cup during the month of June the
Fire will be without their leading scoring (tied with 4) and arguably most dynamic player for at
least three matches. This Saturday's match against Seattle, the stadium opener in Kansas City on
6/9, and the road game in Columbus on 6/12 are all matches that are certain to be Pappa-less for
the Fire.
In a series of announcements made at a press conference today, the biggest news for Comets fans is probably the re-signing of two key parts of the team over the past two years. The team has re-signed defender, Leo Gibson and goalkeeper Danny Waltman. Gibson had started out as a forward for the Comets in their first season back, but dropped back to defense due to injury issues and has become one of the better defenders in the league since.
Immediately following the Montreal Impact's expansion draft, MLS conducted its waiver draft, and
only one selection was made.
The Philadelphia Union used their spot in the order to nab former Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder
Nizar Khalfan. An energetic, athletic winger, the Tanzanian international scored a goal and
assisted on four others this past season with Vancouver.
