Here are some more stats for you as the Wizards season is now over. Unfortunately most of them are depressing. You'll be seeing more stats this week as I get the information finalized.
KC scored 33 goals this season, tying the 99 and the 01 Wizards for the lowest scoring team in Wizards history. Click to continue reading...

After today's training session, some clowns from the Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey circus that is in town through Sunday this weekend stopped by to taking on some of our players at Swope. Our guys included in the game: Matt Besler, Adam Cristman, Eric Kronberg, Kevin Souter and Graham Zusi. The Wizards ended up winning the game, but those clowns could play a bit. Click to continue reading...

by Matt Besler - Kansas City Wizards
Welcome back to the 6th week of "Across the Midwest Pitch." It's been a crazy last couple of weeks, with seven games in 20 days (five on the road). As a team, we have traveled over 10,000 miles. Many players, including myself, have logged over 500 minutes in these days. Click to continue reading...

The KC Wizards and Swope Park Rangers took part in a scrimmage today against PDL side, the Des Moines Menace today at the Swope Park training complex. Unfortunately I didn't find out about the game until after it had already started so I missed the beginning of the game. In the first half though, the Wizards starters (minus Santiago Hirsig who was rested due to a minor injury) played against the Menace. Click to continue reading...

Besler trimmed the bushes at his parents' house in OP Monday.
The Kansas City Star All-Access series continued Monday on the team's day off. Ryan Young spent the day with Wizards rookies Matt Besler and Graham Zusi at the Besler residence in Overland Park. The rookies are living in Matt's childhood home, for now, while they save money and look for suitable apartments. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday, our KCW Reserves/Swope Park Rangers crushed the Springfield Demize of the PDL 11-0. Wizards goals scored by: Thompson (5), Zusi (2), Wolff, Kraus, Leathers and Morsink. Boris Pardo was in goal for the full 90, recording the shutout. For a full rundown of the game, visit Down the Byline or go back and read through the Wizards Twitter feed at www. Click to continue reading...

The Swope Park Rangers, the Wizards reserves, completely destroyed Springfield's PDL team, the Demize, today at the Swope Park training complex 11-0. The Rangers today were made up of all the players that didn't play in LA Saturday, along with Graham Zusi and Abe Thompson, who appeared as subs on Saturday. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards once again took care of KC's PDL side, the Brass today out at the Swope Park training facility, 4-1. Unlike last week when the two teams played, the Wizards first team actually took part in part of the match, playing the first 45 minutes, with the reserves playing the second half. Here's the lineup for the Wizards in the first half. Click to continue reading...

I found out about this game only yesterday, but the Swope Park Rangers took on KC's PDL team, the Brass today out at the Swope Park training complex. Here's the lineup that started the game.
Pardo
Harrington - Leathers - McKenzie - Marquess
Morsink
Souter - Zusi - Gomez
Kraus - Thompson
The Rangers dominated the game from the start, but didn't create many good chances early. Click to continue reading...

Today, members of the Wizards first team, including Matt Besler, Graham Zusi, Eric Kronberg and Boris Pardo walked around the Swope Park Soccer Fields, mingling with young players and fans. Wizards staff members grilled hot dogs for anyone who was interested. Check out some pictures below:

Click to continue reading...

Today the Wizards held their weekly press conference out at the Swope Park training facility in preparation for Sunday's game against the San Jose Earthquakes. Along with Coach Onalfo this week was Wizards goalkeeper and multiple MLS record holder, Kevin Hartman. Onalfo spent some time talking about the injury issues that the team has been struggling with. Click to continue reading...

It's early in the season, but already Kansas City is suffering through some major injury issues on their team. Before the season even really got started, the Wizards were already missing 3 players that were expected to be on the opening day 18 man roster. Eric Kronberg, Chance Myers, and Adam Cristman all missed the start of the season due to surgery of some kind. Click to continue reading...

Back in the middle of March, the MLS players union a href="http://www.mlsplayers.org/files/3_15_09_salary_info_club.pdf"updated the list of salaries that MLS players receive/a. Included in the list are all but one Wizards' player, Graham Zusi. Other than him, the entire Wizards roster is listed. There is one change from the a href="http://www. Click to continue reading...

Thad has posted this week's interview with poll winner, Davy Arnaud, in a href="http://www.backpost.net/2009/03/wizards-practice-03-26-2009-press.html"his latest write up/a about practice today and the Wizards press conference. Not only was Thad able to get an interview with this week's winner, Arnaud, he also got an interview with runner up, Graham Zusi. Click to continue reading...

When I arrived at practice today, the team was playing some of the normal small 3 team scrimmages. Here Kurt Morsink heads the ball to a team mate...The team then did various set piece practices, corners, free kicks, both defending and attacking. Here most of the wall jumps....Getting ready for a corner. Click to continue reading...

div style="text-align: center;"a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ytBoRdQYZp0/ScK9hGuUvVI/AAAAAAAACMc/83R_KkZKOKI/s1600-h/DaveNeal.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 306px; height: 400px;" src="http://1. Click to continue reading...

On the preseason trip to Mexico, the rookies had to perform a skit for the rest of the team. Jimmy Conrad declared Matt Besler the winner and after talking to both Besler and Zusi it was confirmed that Matt took the prize. Well the second round of the rookie competition was held at the Kick off event. Click to continue reading...

a href="http://www.backpost.net/2009/03/graham-zusi-signed.html"Thad at The Back Post/a has the story that Wizards second round draft pick, Graham Zusi has officially signed with the team. According to Thad's report, Zusi has signed a senior contract with Kansas City. Definitely a deserving contract, as Zusi has had a fantastic preseason, and based on other reports seems likely to come in as a preseason favorite for rookie of the year. Click to continue reading...

Graham Zusi signed a senior contract this morning. No further details... Click to continue reading...

The MLS Players Union has released this years player salaries to the public. Overall, the minimum salary has improved to $20,000 with the majority of the players making at least $34,000. According to the list, the Wizards have the second lowest base salary, with $1.806 million. That is with the Wizards only currently having 22 of the 24 roster spots full. Click to continue reading...

Jimmy Conrad...Jimmy talks about the trip to Mexico, the last game on the trip, team bonding, rookie initiation and how Hirsig will fit in.Graham Zusi...Graham talks about being with the Wizards, the trip to Mexico, getting some preseason opportunities and his rookie initiation. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards continue to get results this preseason, as they moved to 4-0-2 today with a 1-1 draw with Chivas de Guadalajara's reserves, a reserve team that included Jared Borgetti (who was at one time linked with a move to the Wizards) and former Chivas USA player Francisco Mendoza. The Wizards starting lineup seems to be materializing lately for the team with the only big challenge left for a starting spot is Aaron Hohlbein vs Matt Besler for who gets to start next to Jimmy Conrad. Click to continue reading...

Not long ago Zusi was playing college soccer. Now he's battling with former Argentina international Claudio Lopez in training every day.
Check out Cole Young's story today in the KC Star about rookie midfielder Graham Zusi and his trip from college powerhouse Maryland to the pros. Just a few months ago, he was sitting in classes and scoring goals to help his team win a championship. Click to continue reading...

Not long ago Zusi was playing college soccer. Now he's battling with former Argentina international Claudio Lopez in training every day.
Check out Cole Young's story today in the KC Star about rookie midfielder Graham Zusi and his trip from college powerhouse Maryland to the pros. Just a few months ago, he was sitting in classes and scoring goals to help his team win a championship. Click to continue reading...

Went by practice on Monday. When I got there they were scrimmaging 7v7 with the following three teams.Green team: Lopez, Wolff, Jewsbury, Conrad, Besler, Arnaud, HartmanOrange team: Morsink, Souter, Hohlbein, Espinoza, Thompson, Leathers, PardoBlue team: Kraus, Watson, Beres, Pizarro, Marquess, Zusi, BrownThere may have been some changing around of a couple people but I think this was how they Click to continue reading...

I went to practice last Friday. Sorry this post took so long...Team doing the warm-up run...A small side game while goalies and field players practice set pieces in background...Full size scrimmages towards end of practice. Both rookies looked pretty good to me. Here Besler moves the ball up field... Click to continue reading...

The Wizards are back in Kansas City after finishing their training in Florida at Bradenton. Before they left, they had one more scrimmage against a team from the IMG Academy. The Wizards won the game 7-1. Graham Zusi got another preseason goal off an assist from Jimmy Conrad (whose birthday is today, Happy Birthday Jimmy) to open the scoring in the 25th. Click to continue reading...

After having schedules not line up with other MLS clubs in town, we played a scrimmage yesterday against a team from the IMG Academy in Bradenton. We won 7-1 on three goals in the first half and four in the second.
Lineup: Hartman (Pardo 46); Leathers, Conrad (McKenzie 65), Hohlbein (Besler 46), Marquess (Kraus 65); Zusi, Jewsbury (Morsink 60), Arnaud (Pizarro 65) Souter (Watson 46); Wolff (Cristman 46), Lopez (Thompson 65). Click to continue reading...

After having schedules not line up with other MLS clubs in town, we played a scrimmage yesterday against a team from the IMG Academy in Bradenton. We won 7-1 on three goals in the first half and four in the second.
Lineup: Hartman (Pardo 46); Leathers, Conrad (McKenzie 65), Hohlbein (Besler 46), Marquess (Kraus 65); Zusi, Jewsbury (Morsink 60), Arnaud (Pizarro 65) Souter (Watson 46); Wolff (Cristman 46), Lopez (Thompson 65). Click to continue reading...

The Wizards and New York Red Bulls finished in a 4-4 deadlock in a high scoring preseason game. A mix of starters and bench players started the game for KC, who took the lead when Matt Besler played a long ball that Josh Wolff put through to Claudio Lopez who was in on goal. Lopez rounded the keeper and finished for the early lead. Click to continue reading...

Thad over at The Back Post recently had a phone interview with the Wizards Technical Director, Peter Vermes. He had to divide the interview into three posts, but you can see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 on his blog. Part 1 deals mainly with new players. The team is looking at a couple players, and 1-2 may join the team for training down in Florida. Click to continue reading...

Tomorrow the Wizards begin working towards the 2009 MLS season, as preseason begins. Tomorrow, preseason begins out at the Swope Park training complex on field 3. The rest of this week and part of next week will be spent either at Swope or at the KC Sports Lodge. After that, it's off to Florida to train in Bradenton from the 29th through Feb. Click to continue reading...

Greetings Hillcrest Road followers. The 2009 season is already upon us, as Wizards training kicks off tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. CT on the turf field (field 3) at our beautiful Swope Park Training Center. All sessions are open to the public, so if you're off work, head on over to see the first training session of the new year in person. Click to continue reading...

Matt Besler with the Don.
Wow, welcomed home by snow! Nice...unless you're driving. Here are quotes from PV and Coach and all of the new picks. We're excited about the group, and they seem pretty happy about joining our squad and fighting for a spot:
KANSAS CITY WIZARDS TECHNICAL DIRECTOR PETER VERMES
On the draft as a whole
"In the end I think we had a good draft. Click to continue reading...

So I'm back from St. Louis and ready to give a full recap of the Wizards draft. While it's hard to tell immediately what will come of this draft, looking at it, I think the Wizards got some good players with their picks.
1(8) - Matt Besler - D - Notre Dame
Besler is a local kid who grew up watching the Wizards and certainly endered himself to those Wizards fans who traveled to St. Click to continue reading...