Sporting KC talking with van der Vaart

When Sporting KC CEO Robb Heineman tweets, it can be a gold mine of info. It can also be a complete troll (Sporting Blue turf at Sporting Park). Sometimes it is hard to know if he is 100% serious or might just be throwing a head fake as in the case of recent tweets regarding Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart.

Gonna go watch rvdv Saturday. Hopefully it's nice weather.

— Robb Heineman (@RobbHeineman) February 26, 2015

There have been a few reports that Sporting Kansas City is interested in him but it was unknown if those reports were based on the tweets by Heineman or not. Robb and Sporting Club representative Mike Illig were in Germany yesterday and they were at the Hamburg SV match in Frankfurt.

The rumors are real

After some digging, a team official who wants to remain very anonymous confirmed that yes, Rafael van der Vaart is a target of Sporting Kansas City and Heineman and Illig were there to see him.

RVDV as he is known is out of favor at Hamburg and is not playing a lot lately. He is under contract until summer but perhaps Hamburg SV could be persuaded to let him go a little early and beat the MLS Transfer window closing in early May.

Lots of questions

Does Sporting KC need an attacking mid like RVDV? With Benny Feilhaber's performance it would have seemed like the answer is no but he does seem to be playing much further back in preseason. Interestingly, both Feilhaber and RVDV were at Hamburg SC together in 2006-7 but Benny only played a few matches with the senior team.

If they can land van der Vaart, will SKC manager Peter Vermes require him to be Sporting Fit before seeing the field?

Can RVDV unlock the bus that so many teams park in front of goal at Sporting Park?

Mike Illig's instagram of the stadium atmosphere:

My first Euro match experience was amazing! Didn't get to see who we came to see, but good times.

A video posted by Mike Illig (@mikeillig) on Feb 28, 2015 at 11:37am PST