“For the Glory KC” is back with the show's 92nd episode!
Sporting Kansas City has had a busy week both on and off the field. This week's episode focuses primarily on off-field topics due to recording schedules. I may take a short break from the podcast as I will be traveling out of the country earlier this week. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast when the next episode is released.
This week, Sporting KC announced Mike Burns as their new sporting director, and he and Peter Vermes covered a lot of interesting topics in their introductory press conference, talking about the budget (the biggest ever), personnel renewals, player signing plans and more.
Then KC Star Sam McDowell met with Managing Owners Mike Illig and Peter Vermes to dig into the details and that's where things got really interesting. He wrote a must-read article outlining the complete lack of a budget since 2020. It sheds new light on who is to blame for the way Sporting KC has been run the past few years. No fault of Vermes, but Sheena and I weighed in on the way things have been handled in a way that was out of Peter's control.
I personally appreciate how this ownership group saved the Kansas City Wizards, did a great job rebranding them, built a soccer specific stadium and brought them years of success, but when I hear Vermes talk about how the owners didn't sell their DP striker because they were already in first place in 2018, it makes me think that if things had been handled differently, there would have been a third star on the crest.
It's quite a story for Vermes, who was in the lead a few years ago and tried to sign a player but the owners backed out.
“Why would we do this? We're number one.” #SportingKC Apparently it's the owner.
According to PV, they learned from that mistake. pic.twitter.com/LIy7vq0P0j
— Chad Smith (@PlayFor90) July 3, 2024
Going forward, the expectation is that ownership will give them a budget, get out of the way, let the football intellectuals do what they want, and then be given a fair chance to improve some of the issues that they haven't been given a fair chance to before, and if they don't fix it, then ownership can step in and make changes.
Hear all the details and quotes.
We briefly touched on Sporting KC's loss to the Colorado Rapids, but we'll soon move over to the Missouri side and talk about the Kansas City Current. Unfortunately, the loss rippled through the Kansas side, and the KC Current's unbeaten streak came to a lackluster end against the Orlando Pride. Fans in the stadium were blaming the referee, but was it really the referee's fault?
Plus, there's a fun Temwa Chawinga/Vlatko Andonovski story that will inspire you for the future of KC.
The Digital Crawl will go into a lot more depth than usual on several topics, including:
- USA suffers crushing defeat at Copa America
- Is the USMNT good enough?
- Will Gregg Berhalter lose his job?
- Logan Ndembe injury update!
- SKC II results and All-Star call-up
- CPKC Stadium, home of the NWSL Championship
- Lots of little stories from KC Current
- And in St. Louis, Bradley Carnell was fired.
Here's a summary of the topics covered (and approximate start times):
- KC Current Media Games – 2:18
- Does Sporting KC have ownership problems? – 8:29
- SKC loses to Rapids in Colorado – 46:33
- KC Current's winning streak ends against Orlando – 55:58
- Digital Crawl – 1:17:48
Future schedule:
- Sporting KC vs. FC Dallas – Sunday, July 7, 7:30 p.m.
- SKC II Tacoma Defiance – Sunday, July 7, 9:00 p.m.
- Sporting KC vs. FC Dallas (US Open Cup) – Wednesday, July 10, 8 p.m.
- Sporting KC vs. San Jose Earthquakes – Saturday, July 13, 9:30 p.m.
- SKC II at The Town – Sunday, July 14, 7pm
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Special thanks to Splitter Conspiracy for creating the theme music, with permission from KC Cauldron, which you can listen to here.
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