Sporting KC 2019 Year in Review: Andreu Fontas

The 2019 MLS season is one Sporting Kansas City fans will be looking to forget. But with a very long offseason ahead that may not have soccer until March (assuming no MLSPA strike), we feel compelled to look back at the good and the bad from 2019. For the full list of players reviewed, head to our dedicated Year in Review page.

The Blue Testament continues our look back with the player with perhaps the roughest year of anyone on the team — Andreu Fontas.

2019 Stats*

Games Played (Started): 13 (10)

Minutes Played: 964

Games Suspended: None

Goals: 0

Assists: 0

xG (expected goals): 0.15

Positions Played: Both CB spots

2019 Salary: $1,050,000.00

Contract Through (Option Years): 2022 (None)

*All stats from 2019 MLS regular season unless otherwise noted.

Best Moment of 2019

Can I say none? That’s too harsh. Fontas started and played all 90 minutes against the Montreal Impact in their 7-1 shellacking. That was the fourth game of the season (and Fontas’ second start). The team would only win two more times with Fontas in the lineup. Ouch. The Montreal game, along with the games against Toluca FC in Champions League, were what this team was supposed to be with Fontas in instead of Ike Opara.

Maybe I should change his best moment to only giving up two goals to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the LA Galaxy. When Graham Smith was in that spot, the number hit seven.

Worst Moment of 2019

They are almost too numerous to count. He was consistently too slow yet, either by his or Peter Vermes’ mistake he was too high up the field almost always. Despite being the team’s highest paid defender he only played in 13 games and he only contributed to three victories. It’s clearly not all his fault, but with his contract being the reason Opara asked for a raise (that Minnesota United still haven’t given him, BTW) and then ultimately a trade, he receives the lion share of the blame by many fans and pundits for 2019.

Interesting Stat

Of his 10 appearances in league play, Fontas was a part of only two wins (Montreal Impact on March 30th and Seattle Sounders on August 4th). He came on as a sub against the Columbus Crew and the team did win, but he didn’t start.

Fan Vote: Keep, Banish or Wait

Keep: 5.8%

Banish: 88.3%

Wait: 5.8%

A month ago we asked, with a few games to go in the season, should Sporting KC keep, banish or wait until the end of the year to decide on the fate of all their players. Fontas scored the absolute worst on the team (barely edging out Rodney Wallace for worst). Despite the fans wanting him gone, he’ll be hard to move on from unless the team buys him out. On top of that, he’s out 4-5 months with an Achilles injury.