Emiliano Amor reportedly on his way out of Sporting KC

Against the Houston Dynamo in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup game that Sporting KC were eliminated in, Peter Vermes said that some of the players quit during the game. He went on to say they would “find themselves very, very, very, very, very far away from the team.” I’m not sure anyone thought it would be this far. The Kansas City Star is reporting that Sporting Kansas City and Emiliano Amor are about to part ways.

According to the Star, Amor hasn’t been at practice with the team since that game.

Amor joined the team before the start of the 2018 on a year-long loan with the option to buy from Velez Sarsfield, a first division team out of Argentina. He’s only five-months into that year-long loan and he will either return to Velez Sarsfield or be transferred on to another club. His 2018 guaranteed compensation is $274,375 and a move should potentially give some salary relief unless Sporting KC have to eat that to make the transfer.

Emiliano Amor was thought to be a potential future replacement for Matt Besler or Ike Opara as his future transfer fee was reported at north of $1 million. Obviously SKC have made their decision that they won’t be paying that.

It isn’t like Amor got a ton of chances but apparently Vermes had seen enough. Amor had just five appearances (three starts) in league play and another three starts in the Open Cup. To my untrained eye Amor appeared slow (he’s just 23-years-old), but maybe that was more lack of effort, than ability. Amor also played the full 90 twice for the Swope Park Rangers as well.

SKC’s CB Depth Chart

At the beginning of the year it looked like a really deep crop of center backs for Sporting KC. Obviously reigning Defensive Player of the Year Ike Opara and former DPotY Matt Besler are at the top of the chart. Amor appeared to be third, followed by a mix of Amer Didic, Graham Smith, Brad Evans and Matthew Lewis. Now Amor is out. Lewis was released and signed by Swope Park.

At this point, Didic and Evans have played zero minutes for SKC in league play (Didic has one shaky Open Cup start). Didic has played extensively for SPR but Evans is mostly absent due to injuries. He has some time with SPR at CB but hasn’t looked good and may be better used a holding midfielder or emergency right back.

Graham Smith is probably the surprise at CB. When he was drafted most thought he’d be lucky to get any minutes away from SPR but then he made a surprise start as Besler’s replacement and then started again in the game that appears to have cost Amor his job.

Despite Smith getting more MLS minutes than Didic, they are probably pretty even on the chart. Smith seems to play a lot more like Besler and Didic more like Opara. So it probably depends on who needs to be replaced. If forced to guess, here is the likely depth chart.

Starters - Besler & Opara

Backups - Smith & Didic

Oh No - Brad Evans

The MLS secondary transfer window is open until August 8th. Amor can be sold at any time but a replacement can only be added during the window.