It's been rumored and speculated on since he pulled out of the re-entry draft, but today, Sporting KC finally made it official. Luke Sassano has signed a new contract with Sporting KC. Sassano had played in 9 league games last year in a season that was cut short by some injuries. Sassano had not had his contract picked up and had gone into the re-entry draft.

Yesterday while looking around MLS' website I went back to the list of players that were put into the re-entry draft. The list of Sporting KC players had been reduced by one. Luke Sassano was no longer listed as being available in the draft. Today on Twitter, I got a response from @agenterob, who it would seem is Sassano's agent.

MLS released the list of players that are available for the Re-Entry Draft next week. Up until Friday team's can still negotiate with their players and potentially reach a deal that would see the player stay with their current club. So fans of Luke Sassano (sorry I'm not sure Shavar Thomas has many fans in KC at this point) don't have to get worried quite yet that the midfielder will not be back.

Some quick bits of news on four Kansas City players from this past season. First, with regards to the re-entry draft (more on the draft as a whole later). Kansas City has two players that have been played into the draft, Luke Sassano and Shavar Thomas. Neither one is incredibly surprising. Thomas was 100% expected after he wasn't waived, the Jamaican international made only 3 substitute appearances in MLS play this past season.

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.

I have to say that I was probably a little more optimistic about this game after seeing the pounding SKC gave FC Dallas. But, I was also a little worried that Vermes was going to go back to his beloved 4-3-3 formation that hasn't worked well. But, when I saw that Omar Bravo was going to replace Stojcev (who was suspended) I was again excited.

Here are your stats for Monday.
Luke Sassano scored his first ever MLS goal.
Aurelien Collin's goal was his first MLS league goal.
Milos Stojcev's red card was KC's 5th of the season, they had only 4 all of last year.
Matt Besler made his 50th league appearance for KC, he's the 38th player to hit that mark for KC.

When the lineup for tonight's game against FC Dallas was announced, I don't know if there were many fans, if any, predicting a point, let alone all three as Sporting KC took it to FC Dallas, winning 4-1, even though they played the last 30 plus minutes down a man. With virtually only 18 players healthy, or not with their national team, KC looked set to continue their long winless run, while Dallas looked set to extend their own unbeaten run to 10 games.

Craig Rocastle talks about preseason and the new faces in camp...Luke Sassano talk about the upcoming game and something we did not know about him...Sassano during a shooting drill

No, not them. As the offseason winds down, the Red Bulls have undergone quite a facelift. New York has added plenty of new faces and parted with some old ones as well. With all these changes, the question on many fan's minds is, "How will Hans Backe make it all work?"

First things first, the Red Bulls have officially signed long sought after striker, Luke Rodgers from Notts County in England.

We've seen in a few interviews with Peter Vermes lately that have been saying that the signing of Luke Sassano was just a formality. Today we learn that the formality is gone and the signing is official, today KC announced the signing for the former New York Red Bulls defender/midfielder. KC acquired the rights to Sassano in a trade with LA.

Today while speaking with Andrew Wiebe from MLSsoccer.com, Peter Vermes gave us a bit of insight into what is currently going on with the roster for Sporting KC next year. Some of it we've heard previously from Thad's interviews with the SKC coach, but we did get some new news as well.
First for the news we've kind of already heard and been told.

So earlier this week I posted some random questions that I had about SKC as we were at a slow point in the offseason. Well today, Thad over at The Back Post in an interview with Peter Vermes answered some of those questions at least in part for me.
First in regards to Luke Sassano, Vermes said that the team is very close to signing Sassano, saying it's "more just a formality of sending something to the league.

There's not been a whole lot of real interesting news lately involving KC and with that news there's a few questions that have been in my mind, so here's some random questions.
Is KC going to sign Luke Sassano?
The Wizards traded for his rights from LA, but there's been next to no word about what's going on with him.