Blue Notes: No Stream for Sporting KC v Toronto, KC Current Trade, SKC II Signings, More Kit Pics!

With Sporting Kansas City’s season just a week a way, there is so much happening it’s hard to keep up with. Let’s hit some stories that are just breaking and some others you may have missed.

No Stream for Sporting KC’s Final Preseason Game

The preseason will go out with a whimper. It was always in the cards when a stream wasn’t announced early in the week but the KC Star’s Daniel Sperry put out that official confirmation this morning.

There is no word yet on if the SKC Matchday Twitter account will have play-by-play or even lineups, but I’ll be holding my breath to see. The game is at 3:00 PM CST.

SKC Preseason Roster Update

As we reported earlier in the week, a few players still haven’t made it to camp. New striker Nikola Vujnovic and winger Marinos Tzionis are still waiting to enter the country. However, there is a preseason roster update. With the releases of Grayson Barber and Tyler Freeman, Sporting KC added two Sporting KC Academy forwards Braxton Arpachinda and Mataeo Bunbury to the preseason roster. They are both just 16-years-old and we’ve seen Bunbury play for SKC II last year and show flashes of real promise. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone gets a Homegrown deal with only six healthy forwards on the main roster, one of which is previously listed midfielder, Ozzie Cisneros.

The team also sent home several other academy players as goalkeeper Matthew Hudson, defender Michael Lenis and midfielder Jayvin Van Deventer. They are all back in Kansas City. Some of these guys are set to join SKC II for preseason. Sporting KC II play their first game today against Indy Eleven of the USL Championship. I imagine we’ll get an update on social media and a recap at least.

The Kansas City Current Make a Trade

The Current have a need at goalkeeper no longer after they made a move to acquire Cassie Miller from the Chicago Red Stars in exchange for $75,000 in allocation money. Miller played a significant 18 games for the NWSL Cup runners up in 2021 after USWNT starter Alyssa Naeher missed time at the Olympics and ultimately to injury.

Cassie, who is from Arizona, played collegiately for Florida State University and played in the Netherlands for PSV before coming to Chicago. She’ll be needed as starting keeper Adrianna Franch is very likely to see time with the United States Women’s National Team and the only other rostered GK is Carly Nelson who is currently out on loan.

“I’m super excited to come in and put some work in. So grateful for this opportunity and the next chapter in my career,” said Miller. “I’m looking forward to seeing everyone on the pitch and getting involved in the Kansas City community.”

She is set to join the team at preseason in Florida next week.

Unmissable Video Series on KCC

Speaking of the Current, have you seen their new video series, “Below the Surface?” It’s must-watch stuff. The Current are a good follow on social media too. They are putting out stuff daily that you should be checking out.

Here are the first two episodes of “Below the Surface.”

And as a bonus, get to know new forward Lynn Williams.

SKC II Add Two More

Call this club Sporting Ghana as they’ve added their third Ghanaian of the offseason. The team announced Friday they signed 19-year-old forward Paul Atta Agyei. He’s the third player from Ghana, joining Rauf Salifu and Joseph Addo Tetteh. All three players are on loan with Salifu and Tetteh coming from the same club, Accra Lions FC and Agyei coming from Ghanaian Premier League side Berekum Chelsea FC.

They have an option to buy at the end of the season. He plays on both wings and has seven goals in the last year and a half. His highlights (on some pretty rough looking fields) seem to show him centrally a fair amount, so it’ll be interesting to see where he lines up.

The other addition of the day is 23-year-old goalkeeper Ethan Bandre. He was born and raised in Salina, Kansas and played collegiately at the University of the Pacific (where former SKC II player Camden Riley came from) and Northwestern University (Michael Wilbon will be proud). He’ll likely fill the role as squad keeper when players like John Pulskamp and Kendall McIntosh aren’t on loan from the first team.

SKC II now have 11 players under contract, though with only three defenders and two midfielders, it’d be a funky lineup. With Academy players and first team loans, we could be getting close to seeing a “full” roster which can balloon to 35 with those sets of loans.

More Looks at Sporting KC’s New Kit

While we haven’t seen the full uniform (possibly because of production delays) some cell phone wallpaper art gives us our first full look. I never update my wallpaper, but I did today.

Plus, here are the remaining marketing photos provided to us by Sporting Kansas City that we didn’t include in yesterday’s kit drop. The rest can be found over there.

Sporting Kansas City

Sporting Kansas City