Seeing a lot of tweets tonight about the first round of the NFL draft, it got me thinking about the
draft history for Kansas City when it comes to the Wizards/Sporting KC.
First, some honorable mentions, 1998, specifically for the drafting of Chris Klein, who appeared
200 times for the club.
The Wizards have made themselves compliant with the MLS roster regulations today as they made their
last cut from their roster. The unfortunate player is forward, Michael Kraus. In the past few
preseason games that I had seen, Kraus was not playing up top or in the midfield where he'd been
playing lately, but in defense as a wingback.
Another update on former Wizards. Nothing big player news wise, but an interesting quote from
Aberdeen's coach in response to rumors of Eddie Johnson moving to the club. Basically he said that
he'd heard of the player but he hadn't scored a goal in years. Makes you want to say ouch for the
former Wizard.
Here is this week's former Wizards update. It's one player short this week, as the Portland-Chivas
game with Jack Jewsbury is on going at the time of this post.
Still looking for:
Doug DeMartin
AJ Godbolt
Willy Guadarrama
Santiago Hirsig
Michael Kraus
Ryan McMahen
Ivan Trujillo
MLS
Stephane Auvray - New York - Came off the bench and played 18 minutes in New York's 2-2 draw with
New England.
Another former SKC Wizards update a day late due to the game last night. Some big news involving
former Wizards this week. First, the big announcement that one of the greatest Wizards of all time,
Jimmy Conrad is hanging them up and taking a job with the Chivas USA staff. A smart move for Conrad
who hasn't played since early this season due to a concussion.
This week's former SKC Wizards update is here. Nick Cardenas is back on the radar, having played
for Sporting KC in their reserve game on Monday, and is apparently still in training now. May have
a shot at at least a short term contract with Daneil Cyrus now out. Here's the rest of this week's
update.
Back again with another week of former Wizards updates. First off, congratulations to Stephen
Armstrong and John Wilson, two former Wizards who are on the Charleston Battery team that won the
USL-2 title this past weekend, beating former Wizards Edson Elcock and Yomby William 2-1 in the
final. Elcock got Richmond's goal in the losing effort.
Thad at The Back Post and myself have posted on this, but today the team has posted an official
preseason camp roster. Missing from the list are the Wizards 3 remaining out of contract players,
Kevin Hartman, Eric Kronberg, and Claudio Lopez. And the further along we get the less likely I
feel that any of these 3 players will be back with the Wizards for the 2010 season.
With a camp full of old faces and tons of new ones, the Wizards left Monday for Arizona to
continue their preseason.
The latest team news came yesterday when KC announced they re-signed forward Kei Kamara and
added even more depth to what looks to be a very packed forward line.
Also, Thad at the Backpost reported that Englishman Ryan Smith, a left side attacking player who
has played about 6 years at different club levels in England has also joined the team in camp as a
trialist along with 2 midfielders from Moldova.
Sorry folks for the late post, it's been a long day here at Gillette--in a great way. Though we
only earned a single road point against the Revs, the U.S. came from behind to tie Haiti and win
the group with Davy Arnaud scoring his first international goal. Then, Honduras won 4-0 over
Grenada to advance to face Canada with Roger Espinoza scoring the 2nd goal and winning the Miller
Lite Man of the Match award by media vote.
This news came out yesterday, but I wanted to just touch on it real quick because I like the ideas
being brought forth, especially one in particular. Earlier this week, MLS executive VP, Todd Durbin
talked about some potential rule changes that could be coming to MLS soon. The biggest one to me
was the potential return of the reserve league.
I meant to post this sooner than the end of the season, but it slipped my mind. Anyway, this season
without a reserve league, the Swope Park Rangers played games against local colleges (UMKC,
Creighton, and Missouri State), regional PDL teams (Brass, Meance, Demize), and other teams
(Thunder, US U-17 team) throughout the season to get games.
Though it's a little blurry, here is a picture of Michael Kraus scoring the game-winning goal
against his former club.
Our Swope Park Rangers topped the Creighton University Bluejays 4-2 this morning on the strength of
goals from Adam Cristman (2), former Creighton standout Michael Kraus and Aaron Hohlbein.
The Swope Park Rangers take on Michael Kraus' Creighton University this morning at 11 a.m. at our
Swope Park Training Center. We first told you of the game a few weeks back but wanted to make sure
everyone knew this morning. If you're off of work this morning or know of a way to sneak out of the
office early, we'll see you at Swope.
Foreign leagues are winding down for the summer, while the PDL is bringing in a few other former
Wizards players. Also included now are some reports on former Wizards trying to qualify for the US
Open Cup. Edson Elcock was named the USL-2 player of the week this past week and Lance Watson
scored his first professional goal.
With the new roster compliance deadline approaching the Wizards have released Michael Kraus. I am
told that brings Kansas City's roster into compliance for now.Good luck Michael...
We are 9 days from when the Wizards are supposed to kickoff the 2010 MLS season at CAB against DC
United. That is if there is a new collective bargaining agreement bargaining agreement in place.
The Players Union and the MLS management are meeting in DC to try and work out a deal. With the
season so close, it's time to take a look at the Wizards roster again and see exactly how things
look.
The Wizards returned to preseason play out in Arizona today with 2-60 minute games against Chivas
USA. The first team was made up more of the Wizards likely first team as the Wizards fielded; Louis
Crayton, Chance Myers, Pablo Escobar, Jimmy Conrad, Roger Espinoza, Birahim Diop, Stephane Auvray,
Davy Arnaud, Ryan Smith, Josh Wolff, Kei Kamara.
For those that missed the tweets earlier today, the Wizards have re-signed forward, Kei Kamara. Of
the four players that were still out of contract when preseason had started, Kamara was the guy
that I thought the least likely to re-sign as he seemed set on going abroad. As preseason started,
though, I changed my mind, not because of Kamara specifically, but because of things involving the
Wizards other 3 unsigned players (Kevin Hartman, Eric Kronberg, and Claudio Lopez).
The Wizards have released their list of protected players for this week's expansion draft for the
Philadelphia Union. Most of the players on the list are not that surprising, but there are a few
minor ones, and a big one in my opinion. Here is the list:
Arnaud, Davy
Conrad, Jimmy
Harrington, Michael
Hercegfalvi, Zoltan
Jewsbury, Jack
Kamara, Kei
Leathers, Jonathan
Lopez, Claudio
Souter, Kevin
Wolff, Josh
Zusi, Graham
There are a few deviations from my list earlier in the week, namely, Kevin Souter being protected
over Santiago Hirsig, and Jonathan Leathers and Josh Wolff being protected over Matt Besler and
Kevin Hartman.
Jimmy Conrad and Josh Wolff will certainly be protected in the upcoming expansion draft. (WVH
Photo Correspondent Brian Stevens)
Staying with the two-a-day structure for the expansion draft lists, earlier in the day we looked
at the Houston Dynamo now we turn our focus to the Kansas City Wizards.
A few of the Wizards players had career years this year. Here's a list of the players that are in
at least their second year in the league and the career highs they hit this year.
Josh Wolff reached a career high in goals (11), games started (27), and minutes played in league
play (2,348).
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.
The Swope Park Rangers started the fall portion of their "season" with a 4-2 win over the
University of Creighton today out at the Swope Park training facility. You can follow the twitter
updates of the game over at the Wizards twitter page. Here's the lineup that started the game.
Pardo
Leathers - Hohlbein - McKenzie - Marquess
Morsink
Myers - Zusi - Espinoza
Cristman - Thompson
From what I was told by people at the game, the Rangers had a few early chances, beating the
keeper, but unable to beat the post.
The Wizards once again defeated Kansas City's PDL team, the Brass today at the Swope Park training
complex 7-1. KC started their first game under Peter Vermes with what could potentially be a
starting lineup against Chicago a week from Sunday.
Hartman
Watson - Conrad - Hohlbein - Besler
Hirsig
Harrington - Jewsbury - Gomez
Zoltan - Wolff
Adam Cristman apparently missed the game due to being sick, while Davy Arnaud, Claudio Lopez, and
Roger Espinoza are recovering from minor injuries.
I'm a little late on getting this out, but with the month of June over, it's time to look at who
won the man of the month award for the month of June. June was not a great month for the Wizards,
as they only technically won one game (US Open Cup game officially goes down as a draw). Kansas
City scored 8 goals in the month, while conceding 10 goals.
It's been almost a month now since the Wizards won a game (the game against Minnesota technically
goes down as a draw), and against opponents not from USL-1 they've managed to score a grand total
of 2 goals in that time period. Last night's performance against Houston was just the latest in
this current trouble for the Wizards.
It took more than it probably should have, but the KC Wizards advanced to the quarterfinals of the
US Open Cup after their penalty kick win over the Minnesota Thunder last night. Coach Onalfo made 9
changes to the lineup that started on Sunday against Santos Laguna. The only hold overs were Lance
Watson and Roger Espinoza.
Today, the losing team in the shooting competition had to serve the winning team lunch after
training. The final two shooters were Michael Kraus and Matt Besler. See how the last round played
out:
The first post of July comes quite late/early. Hopefully everything below makes sense, as Hillcrest
is getting pretty tired. Feel free to ridicule the late-night post if errors abound.
· Kansas City advances to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals for the 2nd consecutive
season.
· Kansas City will play the winner of tomorrow night's match between Seattle Sounders FC and the
Portland Timbers.
