By Jimmy LaRoue

After several months of visa issues, the Norfolk SharX will finally have a full roster for the first time all season when it travels Saturday to Wichita.

Brazilians Marcus Schmidt and Jeferson Brandao de Oliveira, who were signed by SharX coach Jon Hall on a preseason scouting trip to South America, received their visas and will be available against the Wings.

photo courtesy Jarred Donalson
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.

The second step in the MLS offseason also occurred today as MLS teams waived players to make room on their rosters. Not surprisingly Portland did not waive a single player but quite a few other teams did waive players. Including Vancouver, who waived 3 players and Toronto, who waived 7 players.

All of the waived players are now free to sign with any club in any country they wish.

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.

Wednesday's MLS Expansion Draft provides the Montreal Impact a chance to build the foundation for its MLS roster, and the club will have some decisions to make based on how much it wants to spend and which direction it wants to go off the bat.

Designated Players Julian de Guzman, Andres Mendoza, Mustapha Jarju, Branko Boskovic, Frank Rost, Milton Caraglio, Omar Bravo and Jeferson are all free for the taking (although Rost is likely to return to Germany after a few-month stay with New York), giving the Impact the option to make a major investment immediately.

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.

Confused a little?
Thanks to The Front Men for tipping this off. Word out of Peru is that Sporting Kansas City is after Sporting Cristal's midfielder, Carlos Lobaton. Lobaton is a Peruvian international with 20 caps for Peru so far. He's played 220 games for Cristal since 2005. Before that he'd for 5 other Peruvian clubs since beginning his professional career in 1998.

Personally I don't see a ton in this story, but it's been a major talking point the past few days. One of the team's designated players', Omar Bravo told Univsion this week that he had "a lot to think about" with regards to next season. Specifically Bravo was talking about last Sunday's conference final against Houston.

In the final game of the year for Sporting KC, the Swope Park Rangers finished out the reserve league season today at Swope Park against FC Dallas. The Rangers fell 5-3 to Dallas as Ruben Luna scored 4 goals to help Dallas to the win. Luna opened the scoring in the 28th minute. Jeferson equalized for the reserves in the 37th from the penalty spot after Soony Saad was fouled in the box.

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.

No KC didn't win their friendly with Chivas de Guadalajara last night, the two ended up drawing 2-2, but the bigger thing to take from the game last night was that no one picked up an injury and most of the projected starters that played last night didn't play more than 45 minutes. Last night also turned into a better night in league play yesterday for KC, as two teams chasing KC in the playoff race dropped points.

Sporting KC had a chance to really move away from some of the teams in the Eastern Conference, but some poor finishing on the few chances created against the San Jose Earthquakes kept them from taking all 3 points. In a game that was fairly unexciting for much of the game turned wild in the 85th minute as San Jose grabbed the lead only for Teal Bunbury to equalize 30 seconds later to give the teams a share of the points.

photo courtesy of Jarred Donalson
KC has probably their biggest game of the season to date tomorrow when they take on the Philadelphia Union at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. One point separate KC and Philadelphia, with the Union having a game in hand on KC. The Union are coming off of a big home win over the East leading Columbus Crew 1-0 last weekend.

After spending the last two months at home, Sporting KC goes back onto the road where they'll take on the surging Real Salt Lake. RSL has won their last 3 games, two of which were on the road. Last week they defeated Seattle in Seattle 2-1 thanks to an own goal and a goal by Alvaro Saborio. Salt Lake is currently ranked 4th in the very strong West and in place to have to play a wild card game in the playoffs if they started tomorrow.

After releasing its initial list of player salaries in May, the MLS Players' Union recently released an updated edition, which includes all of the new signings from an active summer transfer period.

More recent Designated Player signings Robbie Keane, Frank Rost, Mustapha Jarju, Jeferson, Milton Caraglio, Danny Koevermans and Torsten Frings are included in the bunch.

The MLS Players' Union released updated player salaries today. Five players have been added to the list for Kansas City while 3 players are gone from the list. One other player has seen their salary increase.
Added to KC's salary list are Daneil Cyrus, Jeferson, Joseph Peterson, Soony Saad, and Seth Sinovic.

Sporting Kansas City had a big opportunity to get themselves into a more favorable playoff position on Saturday when the 3rd place Houston Dynamo came to town. The Wizards grabbed the opportunity and took full advantage of it defeating the Dynamo 3-0 at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. KC set out from the offset and took the game to the Dynamo, controlling play extremely well early on.

By DAVID GUBALA

Sporting Kansas City completed the impressive climb from last place in the Eastern Conference to first place with their latest victory at Livestrong Park, and the star was a player KC will need to shine if they plan on staying in first place.

Teal Bunbury's sophomore season has been disappointing given the expectations of his second season as a pro, but he showed again on Saturday why he's considered one of the best young players in MLS.

Sporting Kansas City has a chance to create some space between themselves and having to play a play in game for the playoffs. With teams 4 through 6 (Philadelphia, New York, and DC) all being off this weekend now due to Hurricane Irene (hope all my East Coast friends are OK) it's a chance for KC to get themselves further away from the chasing pack trying to get into one of the three automatic playoff spots.

Tomorrow's game against DC United is an incredibly big game for both KC and DC. Both teams are fighting to work their way into one of the 3 automatic playoff spots for the Eastern Conference as we head into the weekend. KC currently (as of this moment) holds the 3rd spot, but is only 2 points ahead of 6th place DC.

Today MLS announced a change to the designated player rule for the next season. The new rule is designed to try to get MLS teams to go after younger designated players. To do this, the league has made the cap hit for younger designated players lower. Players that are 20 or younger will now only take a cap hit of $150,000.

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.

photo courtesy of Jarred Donalson
Kansas City continues another busy week tomorrow when they'll take on Real Salt Lake in another home game at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. The game is between weekend games against New England and Seattle. Real Salt Lake comes into town on the back of a disappointing 2-0 loss at home to Columbus, giving up two early goals, a disease that KC has suffered from as well.

With tomorrow being the first game on August, it's time to take a look at the July player of the month. The Wizards went 2-0-4 in league play in the month of July. There was also the disappointing 2-0 loss to Richmond in the US Open Cup, as well as the 0-0 draw with Newcastle. KC scored 10 goals in July while allowing 7 in league play.

Welcome to the New England Revolution vs. Kansas City Wizards live game thread! I would like to open with a personal apology for the lack of activity in the last few weeks, including the absence of a "Know Thy Enemy" segment for this match. The truth is that I've been busy with my day job but I'm also struggling with writer's block and sheer laziness.

I know I haven't been around much but the new job is keeping me way busier than expected. But, I am hoping that I have things in place to at least get back here once a week. Here is some highlights from things that have happened recently in the world of SKC.

• SKC hit the transfer market and picked up a couple of foreign players to make an impact on the team this season and potentially in the future.

Well last night's game wasn't the exciting, 2-1 win last year over Manchester United, but the Wizards stayed undefeated against teams from the EPL, with a 0-0 draw against Newcastle United in what proved to be a bit of a boring game overall. There was no shot on goal until after Soony Saad's effort close to halfway through the second half.

The rumors last week out of Brazil have turned out to be true, as Sporting KC's "major player announcement" was the announcement of the signing of midfielder, Jeferson as a designated player. Jeferson has been signed on loan from his current club, Vasco da Gama. Jeferson will be called upon to pull the strings in the midfield for Sporting KC, to help the team get back into more of their early season goal scoring form.

The rumors last week out of Brazil have turned out to be true, as Sporting KC's "major player announcement" was the announcement of the signing of midfielder, Jeferson as a designated player. Jeferson has been signed on loan from his current club, Vasco da Gama. Jeferson will be called upon to pull the strings in the midfield for Sporting KC, to help the team get back into more of their early season goal scoring form.

Sporting Kansas City recently opened a new stadium, and has now added another big-money player to help please the fans at Livestrong Sporting Park.

Sporting KC announced the signing of Brazilian playmaker Jeferson from Brazilian club Vasco de Gama. Jeferson joins Omar Bravo as one of two Designated Players on Sporting KC's roster, along with Omar Bravo.

Earlier today, Sporting KC confirmed the signing of Trinidad and Tobago international Daneil Cyrus on loan from 1st Santa Rosa FC in Trindad. Cyrus had trialed with the team all through pre-season after impressing at a combine down in the islands over the winter. The teams though had not been able to reach a deal for the player and Sporting had moved in another direction.

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.

Sounds like one of the two players coming in on trial, mentioned by Robb Heineman has been made known. Word out of Brazil is that Vasco da Gama midfielder, Jeferson is on his way to Kansas City. The article out of Brazil loosely says that Jeferson would be on loan to Kansas City with the team and league having the option to buy the midfielder if he impresses.