The U-17s shaking hands with the Wizards prior to today's match.
Scoring Summary:
KC – Roger Espinoza (unassisted) 32'
KC – Herculez Gomez (unassisted) 47'
KC – Kevin Souter (unassisted) 88'
(October 13, 2009) – The Kansas City Wizards topped the United States Under-17 Men's National Team 3-0 Tuesday night in rainy weather at Kansas City's Swope Park Training Center. Click to continue reading...

The Swope Park Rangers (the Wizards reserves) defeated the US Under 17 national team tonight out at the Swope Park training complex 3-0 on goals by Roger Espinoza, Herculez Gomez, and Kevin Souter. The Rangers dominated their younger opponents for much of the game, but the 17's still did well throughout, having their moments. 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...

Wanted to share some shots from Thursday. They played a full squad, full field scrimmage in the second half of practice. Boris Pardo stopping Davy's breakaway on goal...Kevin Souter has started scrimmaging. He played a little while in the game with Creighton and played the whole scrimmage today. He looked a little tentative the other day but looked much more comfortable today. Click to continue reading...

I talked with Kevin on Tuesday. We talked about his recovery, the team and of course we had to discuss the book everyone is talking about: The Beckham Experiment: How the World's Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America Click to continue reading...

The Wizards have a busy schedule coming up next in the next few weeks: they play Sunday in St. Louis (still mad about that) vs. Atlas; Wednesday in New England; and Sunday vs. Santos Laguna at the CAB. If all goes well and the Wizards were to win this tournament, they could be looking at a nice purse (close to $ 1 Million or so they say) and with the added bonus of giving some Reserve players some playing time while allowing some of the older starters a few days off.

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Today was the weekly press conference for the Wizards at their Swope Park training facility. During the press conference, Coach Onalfo talked about the game against New England and the up coming SuperLiga games as well. Coach is planning to use his entire depth in the tournament and the team is definitely taking it seriously. Click to continue reading...

The Swope Park Rangers won again today, defeating the KC Brass 6-0 today. The lineup today was made up of all the players that didn't start yesterday against the Crew along with a few guest players. Here's the way the Rangers lined up to start the game:
Pardo
Leathers - Josh White - McKenzie - Marquess
Morsink
Harrington - Zusi - Souter
Thompson - Kraus
Both teams started off the game fairly even, with the game going back and forth. Click to continue reading...

Columbus and KC battle it out this weekend at the CAB. KC is coming from giving up a tie vs. a 10 man Galaxy team while the Crew tied its away game vs. a 10 man Seattle team.

The big story this weekend, as the Crew try to sweep the season series, is if the Crew will be able to overcome the international absences of Alejandro Moreno (Venezuela), Duncan Oughton (New Zealand) and Frankie Hejduk (USNT) for this game at Community America Ballpark.

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Kevin Souter was this week's winner of the poll for who should be interviewed this week. Wednesday after practice Thad was able to talk to Souter. Souter talks about getting back onto the field and the injury that hampered him from getting a chance to get onto the field sooner this year. He talked about his connection to LA in that his first appearance ever was against LA as was his first start this year. Click to continue reading...

Kevin was the top vote getter both here and over at Down the Byline. Stopped by practice Wednesday to talk to Kevin for a few minutes. While Kevin is very easy to talk to and always willing to do interviews he can also be the hardest player to get.Kevin stays on the field after the rest of the team has been interviewed and are inside. Click to continue reading...

Midfielder Kevin Souter is in, are you? When Souter came to the U.S., he started off at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa. Graceland is an NAIA school, and the NAIA national headquarters are here in KC. Needless to say, when Souter joined the Wizards last year, NAIA was pleased to have one of its own products playing professionally here in town. 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...

It was fun out at practice today, the scrimmages are always fun but after practice was the most entertaining. I will put that up in another post later on...Practice observations: There was another warm body in camp today that I did not recognize, probably a player to fill out the practice but I could not find out any info for sure. Click to continue reading...

div style="text-align: justify;"Lots of people are talking about the Wizards at the moment. Check out some of the stories below and see the interview schedule after that. As expected, we're getting a little less love this week with the team on the road. Look for this to pick up again next week when we play at home. Click to continue reading...

Nice interview with Kevin Souter of the KC Wizards on Advantage Played, a KC area blog that focuses on MLS and international play. Kevin is the Scottish native who made the leap from playing at Graceland to the Wizards at last year's tryouts.

Graceland University is in the Heart of America Conference with Evangel University, the only HAAC program that doesn't have soccer

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Nice interview with Kevin Souter of the KC Wizards on Advantage Played, a KC area blog that focuses on MLS and international play. Kevin is the Scottish native who made the leap from playing at Graceland to the Wizards at last year's tryouts.

Graceland University is in the Heart of America Conference with Evangel University, the only HAAC program that doesn't have soccer

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Souter.
Wizards midfielder and former Open Tryout star Kevin Souter took time last week to do a nice long interview with Graham Fox of the soccer blog Advantage Played. Take a look at what Kevin said about all kinds of stuff, including his early years over the pond, his time at Graceland, the NAIA in general and his time with the Wizards. Click to continue reading...

Music Kevin Likes
On Friday of last week I talked with Kevin Souter and tried to understand a little about him and where he is going on this crazy ball of dust. It was a great talk; Souter is a friendly guy. It is imperative that you read his words in a Scottish accent.
Kevin Souter in the Beginning
What is your first soccer memory? Click to continue reading...

Hillcrest Road has posted a quick recap of this past weekend's open tryouts. They have a good link to the list of players that made Day 2 of the tryouts. Some of the local players were able to advance to day two and some of the guys that I'd looked up elsewhere also made it. According to the Hillcrest Road link, about 10 of the players that participated in day 2 will be invited back to train with the first team at some time. Click to continue reading...

Some participants at last year's open tryout.
Open tryouts start tomorrow at 9 a.m. at our Swope Park Training Center and conclude Sunday with 60 players competing to potentially make the Wizards roster. As you know, Kevin Souter and Nelson Pizarro eventually signed with the club last year after initially impressing at an open tryout held in February. Click to continue reading...

Just for the fun of it, I am going back through images from games and practices last year. As part of the countdown to opening day I am going to post a shot or two each day. Might be related to recent news, might not be.So first up today is David from Los Angeles, no Milan, uhh...maybe LA, maybe Milan, wherever. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards won their first game of the Mexican leg of their preseason. Playing a team made up of Atlas reserves, the Wizards took care of business against their sister club 3-0. Santiago Hirsig made his first appearance with the Wizards playing the first 45 minutes as the right midfielder. The rest of what could very well be the opening day lineup played at least the first 45 minutes. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards won their first game of the preseason today, as they beat the US U-17 team 7-0 today down in Florida. Hillcrest Road has write ups on each of the goals and the lineups for each half. In goal for the U-17's was Wizards' Juniors' player, Jon Kempin. Players getting goals today were Kevin Souter and Aaron Hohlbein in the first half, with Nelson Pizarro, Chance Myers, trailist Ferenc Béres (more on him later) getting two, and Michael Kraus. Click to continue reading...

Jon Kempin started in goal for the U.S. U-17s and made excellent saves off of efforts from Davy Arnaud in the 20th and 27th minutes, but we were able to score two past him in his 45 minutes of action.
Goals
24th-Morsink put Souter through behind defense near top of the 18. Click to continue reading...

Souter celebrates winning the beep test by trying to stay warm.
Adam Cristman does some individual ballwork today.
Training started this morning, with midfielder Kevin Souter and defender Matt Marquess winning their heats of the infamous "beep test" fitness test. Michael Kraus came in second during the first heat, while Kurt Morsink was second in the second heat. Click to continue reading...

I was hoping the Wizards would practice indoors today, but no such luck. It was cold, windy and snow flurries kept up most of the practice. The team started with more or less normal warm up activities although it did make them look like a chorus line for awhile. After the warm ups were complete, half of the team did some drills while the other half did the Beep test. Click to continue reading...

The Kansas City Wizards have announced that they are going to be having open tryouts again this year. The Wizards are hoping to duplicate the success that they had last year with their open tryouts, when the team signed two players from the open tryouts, Kevin Souter and Nelson Pizarro. Both Souter and Pizarro got time in MLS games this year, with Souter being the most successful, scoring a goal in 7 league games this past year. Click to continue reading...

Kevin Souter at last year's open tryout.
Souter just a few weeks later at a pre-season practice.
Souter on the field against Guillermo Barros Schelotto and the Crew in the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Just ask Kevin Souter and Nelson Pizarro, open tryouts work. Last season, each player showed enough while competing against over 200 other hopefuls that the Wizards eventually signed them to contracts. Click to continue reading...

Last week I wrote about a rumor on the FC Dallas blog, 3rd Degree, about a potential change to the MLS roster. Steven Goff with Soccer Insider has picked up on it now and even has more information on it as well. According to Goff, the Board of Governors will meet today, and one of the things on the agenda is roster size. Click to continue reading...

Thad over at The Back Post attended the end of the season press day at the Wizards training complex. Thad was able to get multiple interviews with different players that are posted up on his blog.
He first got an interview with first year professional Chance Myers.
Thad also talked with forward, Michael Kraus, who made his first MLS appearance in the team's final game against Columbus. Click to continue reading...

Kevin 'Soapy' Souter being interviewed... Kevin is asked how he sees his and the team's future, his goal setting, and makes predictions on a few championships... A shot back from April when hardly anyone knew who Soapy was. Kevin beating Kevin... Click to continue reading...

This one was little long so I broke it into two parts... Kevin talks a bit about his first year, being a little starstruck, playing at the higher level and being a pro... A little joking about Kevin and Beckham at begining, so in case anyone forgot. Kevin got into his first MLS game when the Wizards played LA. Click to continue reading...

Souter during last season's open tryout.
Our open tryout star Kevin Souter checked in with the Aberdeen Evening Express last week before Saturday's Leg 2 in Columbus. The paper printed a nice lead-up (that features a picture of Souter with the Aberdeen first team) and the entire interview in question/answer form. Click to continue reading...

Once again one of our soccer-volleyball fundraisers was a HUGE hit for Westminster Christian Academy. Take a look at the blogs of the pastor and a church-member for some pictures they took. I stole the shots above from the second blog linked. Hopefully Chance's teammates don't see him doing the Blanco pose. Click to continue reading...