Blue Links: Fernando Torres, Melia, Busio, Brad Evans, USWNT, ESPN+

Lots of Sporting Kansas City news to cover (shout out to SportingKC.com putting out more coverage than can be kept up with. Let’s get to it.

Sporting KC

(MLS) First, a member of our community threw out the idea of Atletico Madrid (La Liga) forward Fernando Torres coming to SKC (it’s actually a late add in the comments of that story), now MLSsoccer.com is saying the same thing. Could he really land in the Midwest?

(SKC Twitter) Tim Melia is MLS Player of the Week after a career high number of saves against the LA Galaxy (he was joined by Johnny Russell and Ike Opara). Oh and he’s also the Audi Player Index Performance of the Week.

(MLS) Speaking of Russell, he’s up for MLS Goal of the Week. Go Vote!

(Sporting KC) 15-year-old Gianluca Busio made the USL Team of the Week on the back of his pro debut and a follow-up game. 100% of his weeks as a professional have him on the team of the week. Not bad.

(810 WHB) The Sporting KC show is back with Taylor Twellman joining Nate Bukaty and Carter Augustine. Then Brad Evans dropped by and gave an update on his herniated disk. He said he hopes to get some minutes with the Swope Park Rangers before playing for SKC.

(YouTube) If you somehow missed it for the last several days, here are the highlights from Saturday’s win over the Galaxy.

(MLS Store) SKC released a special jersey made of recycled goods for Earth Day. Unless you wear a small, they are already sold out.

(Talkin’ Touches) A new Talkin’ Touches SKC podcast is out. Side note, the FS1 broadcast mentioned Zlatan 59 times. Far more times than minutes played.

(Soccer America) A brief little story about SKC that mostly has stuff you already know.

(eMLS) Sporting KC’s eMLS player made it to the semi finals. I tried to ignore it (and I love FIFA 18) but I guess we should mention it.

Around the World

(CONCACAF) Chivas and Toronto FC will be meeting in the CONCACAF Champions League final after both teams drew their second leg, eliminating the New York Red Bulls and Club America.

(Instant Replay) The instant replay crew is back with a look at the latest controversies from the week. Here is that Dom Dwyer dive in slow-mo. I hate diving (though I like Dwyer — and Latif for that matter), but the league should go back and suspend diving or it will never stop. Nothing for SKC in this edition.

(Bloomberg) Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong of Los Angeles is trying to buy a portion of D.C. United in a deal that would bring the team’s value to $500 million. That’s a team that was valued at $230 million last year by Forbes. Soon-Shiong is worth $8.2 billion and owns a piece of the Los Angeles Lakers and just bought the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union Tribune.

(Sports Illustrated) Grant Wahl is reporting D.C. United are also interested in adding one to three Designated Players, including potentially Mario Balotelli.

(US Soccer) The US Women’s National Team won twice in the past week, defeating Mexico 4-1 and then 6-2, including Carli Lloyd’s 100th goal for the Nats.

(ESPN+) ESPN+, the new way to watch USL games (at all) and out of market MLS games, launched on April 12th. If you sign up in the first seven days you’ll get a month free. Still no info on how to sign up.