Blue Links: FIFA, MLS Expansion (St. Louis), SKC Podcasts, Peter Vermes Deep Dives

All the most fantastic links and stories you may have missed about Sporting Kansas City and around the soccer world.

Kansas City

• In honor of FIFA 19 coming out this week, let’s watch Wan Kuzain and Khiry Shelton take on Gianluca Busio and Daniel Salloi in a FIFA 18 sliders game. Busio and Salloi give up some garbage goals early and go down two men but still manage to make it a great game. (SKC Twitter)

• The Sporting KC Show has on Brian Dunseth, who is a former player, current RSL announcer and sometimes announcer on the National Networks, to preview #SKCvRSL (810 WHB)
• Daniel Sperry goes behind the usual MLSsoccer.com fluff and does a nice deep dive on Peter Vermes building a culture of success in KC. (MLS)
• This is over a year old but it’s a nice deep piece on Peter Vermes and his Barcelona/La Masia connection with some details I didn’t know. (Yahoo)
• Sporting KC just need to win and they are in the playoffs. Obviously, the goal is more than just getting in, which is all but confirmed at this point. SKC have done all the math to show the other ways Sporting can get into the playoffs this week. (SKC)
• Podcast: No Other Pod takes a look at the Philly loss. (NOP)
• This isn’t really a story, but a Tweet I thought was worth sharing. It’s from Jimmy Mack, the co-host of No Other Pod.

• Kevin Stott will control the center circle for the game against Real Salt Lake this weekend. (PRO)
• Sporting KC sign an 18-year-old cancer patient as a part of Sporting Wishes. (SKC)

Around the World

• St. Louis are back in the mix for MLS Expansion per city officials and MLS commissioner Don Garber. (St. Louis Post Dispatch)
• Incoming MLS Expansion side FC Cincinnati have just won the USL regular season title and had their best finish ever. Let’s see if they run through the playoffs for the first time in their final USL season. (USL Twitter)
• Speaking of Cincy, the only other recent MLS Expansion team to experience that level of success in their final season in the minors was Orlando City SC. Ominous sign? (MLS)
• Walker Zimmerman has turned down an extension from LAFC. (MLS)
• Sporting KC lost to the eventual US Open Cup Champion. Maybe that’s something. The Houston Dynamo defeat the Philadelphia Union to win their first ever Open Cup. (MLS)
• Could former (and the first) Swope Park Rangers coach Marc Dos Santos be the target of the Vancouver Whitecaps? He’s already been linked to the San Jose Earthquakes. (MLS)
• MLS Veteran Chad Barrett retired. (MLS)
• Another good piece form Paul Tenorio in The Athletic. This time about second and third contracts in MLS failing to climb fast enough which can cause talent to lead. (The Athletic)
• And another by Tenorio, this time on why the rumored elimination of the third DP slot is such a bad idea. (The Athletic)
• Jurgen Klinsmann is “not a candidate” for the LA Galaxy coach or GM job. (MLS)
• Manchester City is one of the European clubs linked to Atlanta United’s teenager George Bello. (MLS)