Matt Doyle has been reading my posts on this thread regarding the real problem with SKC. The transition from the draft to the academy as the primary player acquisition method has been a failure.
I need some help with this one. After playing Seattle and noticing two former SKC players on the field, then watching LAFC and seeing the same, I started wondering about all the former SKC players out there and how it would be nice to still have some in KC. I am constraining this to former SKC players that have been released within the past 5 years (2017) and are still playing in MLS. No oversees or second division players. Here's what I have so far. Since they are former SKC, I will rigidly force them into a 4-3-3: X Rubio X Blessing Illie Rowe Medranda X X Lindsey Zendejas/Khan I need wings and center backs. So far, I have to say the CF is better, the 6 is better, and at least on outside back is better when compared to the current roster.
Weekly I track how former players (for all KC pro teams and KC locals) are doing abroad. https://www.thebluetestament.com/20...res-in-champions-league-qualifier-sporting-kc If you're looking ONLY for MLS players and in the last 5 years, you just have these players left to choose from: Hurtado - CF/maybe winger Martins - LB Pasher - Winger R Sanchez - GK Zelalem. - DM
Thank you. I will check that out. I am trying to keep this to just MLS players. Trying to see what players we lost that we are still competing against.
Yeah, there's really not a whole lot in the last 5 years that have left and stayed in MLS. CBs especially you're very limited. The only one you could even shoehorn in at CB would be Anibaba but he was gone after the 2015 season.
Looking backward is interesting but right now SKC need some clarity about how to finish this season and change a lot of things for next season. Will the new guys help change the trajectory of this season and recover some dignity for the club? Will they be able to field a team that can beat the #1 power ranked USL team for the USOC? SKC (PV) fu@ked up a lot of important personnel decisions to land them in this position. Yea, they just picked up a couple of guys that may be able to help. They didn’t get that really good 6 they desperately needed, but finding one is tougher than we think. Keeping Ilie was the obvious answer, but they blew that decision also. If Thommy can work into the lineup quickly, Walter will probably be the 6 for the rest of the season with Uri as backup. I really don’t care how ex-SKC players do as long as they are replaced with something better. The problem lately is that PV has let the quality slide backwards and hasn’t done anything to reverse that trend. This season is trash and I don’t expect SKC to get past SAC in the cup. So, its look forward time for the organization and for PV, its look in the mirror time.
The problem with hoping for help from the summer transfers is PVs record with transfers and player acquisitions. They don't even hit a 50% with foreign players somehow do even worse with internal MLS moves. I mean just look at Vujnovic and Tzionis. What has their impact been? Plenty of opportunity for one to start over Shelton and the other to be a rotational wing, but neither has made much of an impact. Why would we expect that the next round of transfers that no one has ever heard of will do any better? If the past is a good predictor of the future (it usually is) then one player might be decent and one will sit the bench in perpetuity, next to Vujnovic.
Yeah I broke down how well KC's summer signings have done over the years. It's not good. Only 1 player has played more than half the minutes available after they were acquired in that first season, Martins. https://www.thebluetestament.com/20...porting-kcs-summer-transfer-signings-done-skc
I do think it's a bit quick to judge on both Vujnovic and Tzionis. Young players, new country, new league, new system, it is quite reasonable for it to take a year to bed in, and not just in a PV team. You could make a pretty good world best 11 out of young players who failed to make an impact in their first year with a new club.
At the end of the RSL playoff game last year, I recall most were ready to move on from Ilie. Perhaps the writing had been on the wall that he would not return, but his play did not merit great concern that he didn't come back. Now, moving on from him was not supposed to mean bringing back someone who was good for us 10 full years ago. It could be that Mauri was supposed to work out and that caused the long-term implosion in our defense.
Definitely. Ilie struggled enough on defense that most were ready for a more defensively talented (as opposed to possession-oriented) 6. An upgrade at possibly the most crucial position in the 4-3-3. Of course, we are all annoyed that we got the opposite of that. In hindsight, releasing him was completely idiotic... But only because the team failed to capitalize on the resources his departure freed up. He looks really good in a more balanced midfield right now, so that makes it doubly frustrating.
I do not think there is any way to say that Ilie could play the PV single pivot 6 any more, at least not at a high level. Given that, we probably needed to move on from him. As has been noted on here many times, if we were going to move on from Ilie, and knew Mauri was one bad outing from the ax, we really needed a 6, and given our defensive weaknesses the last couple years, edging towards a destroyer over a maestro style would have seemed the smart move. PV wants both in one guy, and SKC didn't have the ability to pay for that, so we brought back a guy who was that a decade ago.
Rosell was never a destroyer. He had Nagamura in front of him doing that in his "big" season here, 2013.
not in the thudding, crunching definition, but in my memory, he disrupted passing lanes like one. I admit, I am going by only by memory, and when i go back to the stats from those years they're sketchy and i really don't know how to show if I'm right or wrong with them. My memory of peak Uri was, obviously, a metronomic player, good with the ball, but also a player who regained or forced errors that led to others regaining possession, a lot. He was, again in my memory, a similar player to peak Ilie. this is what I believe PV really seeks. Really good on both sides of the ball, but not elite in either. To get someone who has tools to be pretty effective both ways, in our price range, there also have to be flaws, however. Uri's are obivious right now (slow and fragile). Ilie was wonderful, but at his best slow. Still, both were offensive and defensive assets and the SKC single pivot worked very well because of them. As MLS overall quality improves, IMO, their defects are more obvious. Uri is a $475k dmid. which is probably about right. He's near the bottom of the 28 starters around the league. to be fair, Ilie isn't in the top 20 anymore.
I agree with this concept for Tzionis who has looked good when on the field. But Vujnovic is behind the worst starting No.9 in MLS and can't even get spot starts. He can't be good, otherwise he would have gotten at least some minutes.
It's hard to argue with this thinking on Vujnovic. I keep wanting to see a flash of brilliance that he just has to make into his normal play, but all we've seen is meh, or worse. Still, he's a kid. i give him a full year
I guess in my mind disrupting passing lanes isn't a "destroyer." The example I still fall back to is the 2000 Wizards, McKeon was the destroyer dmid, Zavagnin was the disruptor. They were 2 different types of defensive midfielders.
Yet another promising player leaving the academy before making an impact. It's not a good look when the children or siblings of former players either 1) chose not to attend or 2) chose to leave the academy. That's two. https://www.thebluetestament.com/20...rting-kansas-city-kc-mls-next-pro-skc-academy
During the RBNY game, it became very clear to me that a lot of the pain being suffered by SKC each game is caused by the midfield. Now, that doesn't mean that the rest of the team is OK, because we know the defense and the 9 are pretty bad. But everyone seems to think just because Hernandez and Duke are getting a lot better at their game that they are worthy of being considered starters. Really the only starting quality midfielder SKC has right now is Walter. Roger has been great in the past, but is past his expiration date and should be bench strength. Duke has show some real promise, but to be honest, on any other team, he is a bench guy with limited minutes. Hernandez is also doing well and has a lot of positives. Being a little guy who is young, he gets pushed off the ball and out muscled a lot of times. He too, like Duke, in a healthy organization, is a bench guy. The problem is that they are all SKC has. Their age is a plus because they can run all day and put out a lot of effort. However, that is not going to win many games for SKC because for the most part, SKC can't play anything through the middle of the field because they just don't have the horsepower to do it. They also don't have the power to stop teams from pushing straight up through the middle of the field with counter attacks. The fact that SKC signed a guy like Thommy shows that SKC need experienced and capable guys in the midfield
Thommy and Agada seem unlikely for this weekend. Was out at #SportingKC training today. Feels unlikely that any of the new signings (Thommy and Agada) will be available for the match on Saturday. Neither are in the country yet.— Daniel Sperry (@sperrydaniel94) July 5, 2022
With Thommy, I worry about the balance of the midfield. Walter, I believe, is a very solid mid, very much a legit MLS starter. but he's not a best 25 as a 6. He and Thommy would make a nice pairing on top of a single pivot, assuming thommy pans out. When Kinda returns (and i am a fan of his) we have three players to play 2 spots. I suppose Walter remains as a 6, but it's still, by comparison to the rest of the league, a weak position for us. as PV's system relies really heavily on the 6 being quite good, it's a bit worrying
I think I agree with every last word in this. And I have been saying it for a bit, when the team was sure our defense was terrible too. Not that our defense wasn't terrible, but they were put in much worse positions because of our midfield. This is not a new problem. To me, the 4-3-3 requires a very particular, connected, and efficient midfield. You see some of the best teams in the world using it these days, like Liverpool or Real Madrid. Or (boo Tuchel) my favorite recent midfield three of Jorginho, Kante, and Mount, which I felt to be the archetypical Vermes midfield. But a reason you don't see it as often, particularly these days, is because it ends up being wildly dependent on the quality of the wingers and fullbacks to maintain a healthy balance in the middle of the park. And I think that's where Sporting is stuck. The midfield itself is insufficient, and couple that with a few varieties of weaknesses along our flanks... and you end up with a lot of attacks running full tilt at the ever-so-pacey Fontas. For our personnel, a 4-3-3 is functionally sport suicide, which is bearing out in the table this year. That's my perspective and opinion on it. Not that I have any real ideas on how to fix it.