Sporting Kansas City Lets Go of Birahim Diop

Sporting Kansas City announced today that they had waived 33 year old Birahim Diop. The Senegalese midfielder had been one of Kansas City's key players in 2010 and scored 5 goals for Sporting KC while playing at both midfield and forward. In 2011 Diop was also a ever present fixture in Sporting KC's lineup but failed to score any goals and made just 8 starts. In all Diop made 32 appearances for Sporting in league play.

At the beginning of the 2012 season however is where the real problems started to arise. Diop didn't even show up to Sporting KC's entrance physicals in January or even the rest of the preseason thereafter. The wide-grinned 6'3 midfielder was said to be on personal leave as per the club heading into the 2012 campaign. So technically there is a possibility that Diop hasn't even been in KC since November of 2011.

The now departed Octavio Zambrano was a key factor in bringing Diop to Kansas City in 2010 after coaching Diop at numerous clubs in South America, Europe, and the US. With Zambrano now head of Ecuadorian side Deportivo Pereira I would assume that is where Diop will probably have a chance to play professionally next.

As one final note on Birahim Diop I think we all need to take a moment and look at his hat-trick against San Jose Earthquakes that will forever be remembered in Kansas City as The Diop Game:

Wizards Top 'Quakes (via kcwizards96)