Today was Sporting KC's last training session in Kansas City before heading off to Arizona for a few weeks. A fairly light session for the most part, that involved two teams scrimmaging, and a third team working off to the side.
First game:
Orange team - Nielsen, Collin, Olum, Harrington, Warzycha, Thomas, Aiyegbusi, Dwyer, Kamara
Blue team - Kronberg, Myers, Cesar, Besler, Sinovic, Sassano, Joseph, Convey, Saad
Neutral - Zavagnin
Only one goal in this one, a Joseph Peterson and Luke Sassano worked a very nice 1-2 together finishing with Joseph flicking the ball past Nielsen and into the net.

I have gone ahead and updated my list of capped Sporting KC players total. This is a list of players that have played for Kansas City and been capped by their respective national teams at any time. New signing Bobby Convey, along with Daneil Cyrus and Peterson Joseph are the only new players to join the list.

Kansas City gets to step onto the field and get the Dallas game out of their minds tomorrow when they take on the LA Galaxy. The Galaxy come into this week not having played a game since August 25th due to Hurricane Irene. They'll be without their newest designated player, Robbie Keane who returned to Europe for Ireland's Euro qualifiers during this international break.

Starting Line Ups

Fire

GK Johnson

D Ristic, Cuesta, Gibbs, Segares

M Oduro, Pause, Paladini, Bone

F Puerari, Nazarit

Bench : Conway, Robinson, Husidic, Nyarko, Chaves, Videira, Barouch

SKC

GK Nielsen

D Harrington, Besler, Collin, Myers

M Sassano, Arnaud, Bravo

F Kamara, Bunbury, Smith

Bench : Kronberg, Diop, Stojcev, Zusi, Cesar, Sinovic, Sapong

Here are stats from yesterday's US Open Cup game.
That's the first time we've won by 5 goals since our 6-1 win over Des Moines in the US Open Cup on 8/3/2005.
That's the first time we've scored 5 against an MLS team since we beat Dallas 5-1 on 7/3/2004
The last time we beat an MLS team by 5 goals was 4/29/00 AT Colorado, 5-0.

I know that it is too much to ask for a team to win every game, but is it too much to ask for the team to play smart and with heart? As a dedicated fan I want my team, including the coach, to come into each game and play to the best of their ability. And this is where the Wizards have let me down.

My MLS rankings. I put way too much thought into these.
1. Real Salt Lake - An uninspiring draw for sure, but not damaging enough to knock them from the top perch.
2. LA Galaxy - You know things are going well when Juan Pablo Angel scores.
3. New York - Three of last four goals allowed have come on set pieces.

The MLS Player's Union has released player salaries for this year, as of May 1. There are certainly come surprises on KC's list. Here is the list, at the end I'll have my thoughts on the salaries. For those wondering why there are two numbers, the first number is the player's base salary, meaning what counts against the cap.

I was away for the weekend refereeing a youth soccer tournament which kept me from watching this game live. But thanks to my DVR I was able to record and watch this game this morning. SKC played a pretty good game and the defense gave up only 1 goal and no red cards. But some of the same problems plagued this team in the 1-0 loss to the Red Bulls.

Another away game, another 3 goals given up, and another red card. These are things that are becoming way to common when talking about the Wizards games. The only difference with this game from the previous is the fact Sporting KC played solid for most of the game. For the first time I don't feel like SKC beat themselves in this game.

The weather might not have been the best for a game, but it would be hard to blame the poor play from both teams solely on that. The Crew showed why they have only scored 4 goals the entire season. And the Wizards showed why they have given up more goals than any other team.

Formation

Vermes decided after the embarrassment in Vancouver that he would go with the exact same line up for this game.

A 10 game road trip is not an ideal way to start a season! But, the Wizards scheduled this on their own. They knew they would have to travel to some hostile environments and need to get points pick up points in order to avoid falling too far back in the standings. After picking up 3 points against Chivas and almost stealing a point against Chicago while playing down a man I expected a positive result from the trip to Vancouver.

With all the injuries and callups, Sporting Kansas City put out a lineup that was a little short on experience but they pulled together.Chance Myers flies through the air after having started in place of an injured Harrington...While Roger Espinoza is normally a starter at left back, he was a center back against Chicago.

Sporting Kansas City and defending Champion Colorado scrimmaged on Saturday to 0 - 0 result. Kansas City played three lines.1st lineup played 60 minutes:Nielsen; Harrington, Cyrus, Correa (Santos), Espinoza, Mravec, Milos Stojcev, Arnaud, Kamara, Bunbury, Bravo2nd lineup played 30 minutes:Kronberg, Sassano, Thomas, Besler, Lorenz, Kirakosyan, Rocastle, Auvray, Diop, Myers, Djeziri3rd lineup

I realized today that I hadn't updated one of my stats this offseason, and since I've been having some writers block when it came to writing about Houston's move East and the roster rules, I figured maybe this would break me out of it. Davy Arnaud is 3 games away from the 200 game mark and should easily hit that this season.

Continuing some of my stat updating before tomorrow's opener for India in the Asian Cup, here's an updated list of Wizards/Sporting KC players and the number of caps they have for their national teams.
USA
Tony Meola - 100
Alexi Lalas - 96 - 9
Chris Henderson - 79 - 3
Mike Burns - 75
Peter Vermes - 67 - 11
Mike Sorber - 67 - 2
Josh Wolff - 52 - 9
Brian Bliss - 44 - 2
Eddie Johnson - 42 - 12
Frank Klopas - 40 - 12
Roy Lassister - 30 - 4
Eric Eichman - 29 - 4
Preki - 28 - 4
Jimmy Conrad - 28 - 1
Mark Chung - 24 - 2
Chris Klein - 22 - 5
Kerry Zavagnin - 21
Mark Santel - 8 - 1
Herculez Gomez - 8 - 2
Davy Arnaud - 7 - 1
John Diffley - 7
John DeBrito - 6
Nick Garcia - 6
Yari Allnut - 5 - 2
Kevin Hartman - 5
Sasha Victorine - 4 - 1
Steve Pittman - 3
Matt McKeon - 2
Alan Prampin - 2
Ken Snow - 2
Diego Gutierrez - 1
Curt Onalfo - 1
Teal Bunbury - 1
Argentina
Claudio Lopez - 58 - 10
Armenia
Yura Movsisyan - 5 - 3
Cameroon
Samuel Ekeme - 32
Canada
Alex Bunbury - 64 - 16
Pat Harrington - 1
Denmark
Miklos Molnar - 18 - 2
Finland
Antti Sumiala - 36 - 9
Grenada
Craig Rocastle - 5
Guadeloupe
Stephane Auvray - 20 - 2
Haiti
Josué Mayard - 17 - 2
Holland
Dave van den Bergh - 2
Honduras
Roger Espinoza - 15 - 3
Hungary
Zoltan Hercegfalvi - 3
India
Sunil Chhetri - 40 - 19
Jamaica
Onandi Lowe - 65 - 27
Shavar Thomas - 35
Jermaine Hue - 30 - 11
Wolde Harris - 28 - 7
Khari Stephenson - 26 - 3
Peter Isaacs - 15 - 4
Akeem Priestley - 3
Liberia
Dionysius Sebwe - 7
Mexico
Omar Bravo - 63 - 15
Nigeria
Uche Okafor - 34 - 1
Puerto Rico
Taylor Graham - 3 - 1
Russia
Igor Simutenkov - 20 - 9
Scotland
Richard Gough - 61 - 6
Mo Johnston - 38 - 14
Serbia and Montenegro
Vuk Rasovic - 5
Sierra Leone
Kei Kamara - 6
Trinidad and Tobago
Gary Glasgow - 53 -11
Scott Sealy - 25 - 2
Anthony Noriega - 5
Yugoslavia
Refik Sabanadzovic - 8
Zimbabwe
Vitalis Takawira - 26 - 12