Football Season Guide

After a pretty dismal 2024, it seemed like it couldn’t get much worse for Sporting Kansas City, but last season saw them hit rock bottom. Peter Vermes was the longest tenured coach in MLS and had survived previous shouts from Sporting KC fans for his dismissal, but finally saw his 16-year reign at the helm end after picking up just a point from the opening six league games (D1 L5). Vermes’ assistant Kerry Zavagnin was promoted to interim-manager for the remainder of the season. After initially steadying the ship and looking like a potential candidate for the permanent head coach role, the honeymoon period came to a brutal end with 10 losses from the last 13 games. SKC finished at the foot of the Western Conference and Zavagnin was let go. Raphaël Wicky makes his return to MLS as the new head coach, having previously being sacked by Chicago Fire back in 2021 after losing half of his 52 games in charge. The Swiss manager has since won a league and cup double in his homeland with Young Boys, so the hope is that his second stint in American soccer will be a lot more fruitful. Wicky hasn’t exactly been given the best tools to work with up to this point. The off-season transfer business has been underwhelming to say the least, despite the club undergoing an ownership change and David Lee being appointed the new General Manager. Several players from last season have been let go and there haven’t been many incomings. A recipe for disaster with a squad that already finished bottom of the table. Sporting KC’s main strength is their attack. Dejan Joveljić scored 18 goals in his debut season with the club after arriving from a championship-winning LA Galaxy side. A proven elite striker at this level now. Manu Garcia was another new arrival who showed flashes of brilliance as a Number 10. Daniel Salloi is a stalwart of the club now and can be a match-winner on his day. The defence is the biggest weakness by some distance and conceded a whopping 70 goals last season. Robert Voloder was arguably their most consistent performer back there, but he has now gone and it’s an area of the pitch where SKC look very light. Failure to address that in the transfer window could be fatal.