Some questions remain for Sporting Kansas City as 2024 MLS season inches closer

A little more than eight weeks ago, Sporting KC’s 2023 postseason run came to an end in Houston. Now it’s on to the 2024 season, as Sporting KC began preseason preparation last week in Coral Gables, Florida.

While the focus in the Sunshine State was on soccer, the backdrop involved plenty of decisions still being made some 1,500 miles away — some on the pitch and some away from it.

On Saturday, manager Peter Vermes was asked three separate questions about Sporting KC’s decision to mutually part ways with Gavin Wilkinson as sporting director just eight days after hiring him. On all three occasions, Vermes declined to comment further, pointing back to the statement owner Mike Illig released on Friday morning.

The decision to move on from Wilkinson may also affect how Sporting KC builds its roster, considering the role of sporting director falls back to Vermes for the time being.

Vermes said the club is continuing to try to bring in more players while the ultimate decision about filling the sporting director role will be left up to ownership.

“We’ve been trying for a while,” Vermes said. “And we’ll just keep working toward improving the roster as the preseason goes on.”

Sporting has brought in two new players so far, Zorhan Bassong and Alenis Vargas, both on the supplemental roster. No additions have been made to the senior roster yet, leaving Sporting somewhat thin in the midfield and on the back line, especially after the departures of Gadi Kinda and former mainstays Graham Zusi and Roger Espinoza.

Former FC Dallas and Minnesota United midfielder Jacori Hayes has joined the preseason camp on a trial-basis after having a successful season in the United Soccer League (USL) with San Antonio FC. The Athletic’s Tom Bogert also reported on Monday that Sporting KC remains in the mix for MLS veteran midfielder Kellyn Acosta.

There is good news, though, while Sporting awaits more player additions.

The club is much healthier than it was in its injury-plagued 2023 preseason, when Kortne Ford tore his Achilles and Johnny Russell tweaked his hamstring. At that point, there were still questions about the health of Kinda and Alan Pulido, too.

But this year, everyone joined camp healthy and ready to play. A short offseason may have actually helped with the latter part of that, as the 13-week period between the 2022 season and 2023 offseason gave the players a longer break, compared to the seven-week span this time around.

Goalkeeper Tim Melia noted that the longer breaks can affect a team’s sharpness in the preseason, especially when players aren’t in a professional environment every day. Russell, the team’s captain, also noted the importance of having time to heal from the end of the season, which he felt like the team has used well.

“It gives you long enough to rest those (ailments), but not too long where you are on the other side of it, where you start losing a lot of fitness,” Russell said. “Last offseason, we’d done a lot of fitness stuff on our own. But that doesn’t replicate what you do on the field and when you’re working with the guys and that sort of competitive edge comes in and you push each other.”

Vermes said the club’s performance staff conducts a series of tests upon the players’ arrival. When they put all the data together, players fall into one of three categories: green, yellow or red.

“The good thing is ... maybe other than one player, everybody’s in green or on the bottom of green,” Vermes said. “In all the years that I’ve been doing this, I don’t think I’ve had that many players all in a really good place.”

Sporting wrapped up its first preseason game on Saturday, defeating FIU 4-1 over two 30-minute halves with goals from Daniel Salloi, Willy Agada, Stephen Afrifa and Russell. Pulido did not play due to an illness.

Sporting’s next preseason match is on Friday at 10 a.m. against Charlotte FC.