Blue Links: Reinforcements on the way, Opara & Busio weekly honors, silly season turns serious

The silly season is turning serious around Major League Soccer this Tuesday with the Secondary Transfer Window closing on Wednesday night. Sporting KC have found both attacking & defensive reinforcements and other teams around MLS are making moves to keep an eye on.

Celta de Vigo in Spain tweeted a goodbye to center back Andreu Fontas today. A few hours later The KC Star reported a deal has been reached and he will be in Kansas City after a holdup with his international paperwork has been resolved. (KCStar)

Take a look at all the numbers, play money, and math behind the Krisztian Nemeth move. Chad says “No Matter What, The Numbers Work for Nemeth” (TheBlueTestament)

Ike Opara made the MLS Team of the Week. Gianluca Busio was named to the bench as well. (MLSSoccer.com)

Speaking of Busio, he made the Top 10 Plays from Week 23. This is actually a pretty good list of plays worth the watch. (MLSSoccer.com)

The latest MLS Power Rankings are out. ATL stay on top followed by POR and NYRB. Apparently the Busio hype was enough to take Sporting Kansas City from #9 to #7. Right behind this weekend’s opponent, LAFC. (MLSSoccer.com)

Armchair Analyst: The rare win-win-win trade sees Nemeth back to SKC (MLSSoccer.com)

Loophole means ‘free agency’ could prove costly for highly-paid MLS players, like Matt Besler, Graham Zusi and Roger Espinoza. This is behind a paywall, but our very own Mike Kuhn will tell you it is worth the investment. (TheAthletic)

An entire episode of Instant Replay probably should have been devoted to the 1-0 win over the Houston Dynamo. But at least the guys supported the referee’s decisions. Still not sure if the red card to Elis was for the slight elbow to Melia, the shoulder ram or Gutierrez, or a combination of them both being the final straw, but at least he was sent off. Elis looked like a child in that match. (MLSSoccer.com)

Check out this crazy bus Sporting KC will be taking to events all over the KC metro. (SportingKC.com)

Christian Ramirez was linked with SKC several times in the search for a striker, but right as the Nemeth deal was announced he was sent to LAFC. (MLSSoccer.com)

New England Revolution’s Juan Agudelo is receiving interest from Spain, Turkey (MLSSoccer.com)