Practice
Although the Sporting Kansas City players were off from MLS action over the weekend, six of the players made sure to spend time with Special Olympics Kansas athletes. SOKS is a non-profit organization that provides year-round sports competitions for those with intellectual disabilities.
Chance Myers, Oriol Rosell, Seth Sinovic, Eric Kronberg, Michael Thomas and C.J. Sapong had a blast playing a variety of games with the athletes. First, the Sporting KC players participated in basic dribbling and shooting drills with the SOKS athletes. Then the real fun began when they played games such as beat the crab (athletes try to dribble the ball past players that are in a crab position) and treasure hunt (athletes dribble the ball to a pile of treasure, pick up a piece and take it back to a Sporting player).
To finish up, Sporting KC players signed autographs, took pictures, and gave out mini scarves to the fun, spirited group of athletes and families. This fun-filled day was made possible soon after Special Olympics of Kansas became the most recent Sporting Club Network member. For more information on the Sporting Club Network and the benefits of being a member, please visit the SCN website, Twitter, and Facebook.
Back in the day Jake Dancy was a defender for Kansas City, but more than a decade later he’s enjoying watching the team train from the sideline. Though he now resides in Florida, he still calls Kansas City home. We caught up with Dancy when he stopped by a Sporting training session earlier today.
You played for the club from 1997-1999 and a lot has changed here since then. What do you think of the evolution of the club?
I wish we had it! It was great being a part of it in the early days, but I certainly wish we had this. We had the Hunts as the owners and they were great. The current ownership now for Sporting seems phenomenal. The facilities are wonderful. The league and everything has just gotten better as a whole. It’s kind of neat to look back and feel kind of like a pioneer back in the day. Any success for soccer in this country is great. I think that Sporting and the Wizards have impacted the community tremendously. I think they’ve helped grow it, but soccer in the US has also grown. I can’t help but think that Sporting has had a huge impact here locally. They’re selling out games. The stadium is packed. There are people out to watch practice. It’s all great.
Does watching them train make you want to jump on the pitch and join?
Oh yeah! Mentally sometimes you think you can still do it, but physically it’s a little different. The passion for the game never goes away so watching the guys practice makes me want to get out there and play.
Sporting Kansas City's 2013 pre-season schedule came to a close on Saturday with a 1-0 victory over Toronto FC in the Disney Pro Soccer Classic. Claudio Bieler opened his account with the club, scoring in the 23rd minute, and became the seventh different player to score for Sporting KC in nine pre-season matches. Other stats of note...
- Most games played: Soony Saad and Peterson Joseph (8)
- Most games started: Oriol Rosell and Paulo Nagamura (7)
- Most minutes played: Oriol Rosell (469)
- Most goals scored: Soony Saad (4)
- Most assists: Soony Saad (3)
Check out the full stat sheet below...
| # | Name | Pos | GP | GS | MINS | G | A |
| 2 | Yann Songo'o | D | 7 | 3 | 345 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | Ike Opara | D | 6 | 3 | 343 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | Kevin Ellis | D | 2 | 0 | 75 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Matt Besler | D | 4 | 4 | 317 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | Paulo Nagamura | M | 7 | 7 | 422 | 0 | 2 |
| 7 | Chance Myers | D | 4 | 4 | 163 | 0 | 2 |
| 8 | Graham Zusi | M | 3 | 3 | 149 | 2 | 0 |
| 9 | Teal Bunbury | F | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Benny Feilhaber | M | 4 | 4 | 291 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Bobby Convey | F | 6 | 5 | 307 | 1 | 0 |
| 12 | Mikey Lopez | M | 3 | 0 | 135 | 0 | 0 |
| 13 | Lawrence Olum | D | 7 | 2 | 295 | 0 | 0 |
| 14 | Dom Dwyer | F | 4 | 2 | 226 | 2 | 0 |
| 15 | Seth Sinovic | D | 6 | 6 | 361 | 0 | 0 |
| 16 | Claudio Bieler | F | 5 | 5 | 316 | 1 | 0 |
| 17 | C.J. Sapong | F | 7 | 6 | 435 | 0 | 1 |
| 19 | Peterson Joseph | M | 8 | 4 | 399 | 0 | 1 |
| 20 | Oriol Rosell | M | 7 | 7 | 469 | 0 | 0 |
| 22 | Soony Saad | F | 8 | 4 | 428 | 4 | 3 |
| 24 | Mechack Jerome | D | 7 | 3 | 395 | 1 | 0 |
| 27 | Kyle Miller | D | 6 | 2 | 326 | 0 | 1 |
| 29 | Mitchell Cardenas | M | 2 | 0 | 88 | 0 | 0 |
| 31 | Josh Gardner | D | 6 | 3 | 343 | 0 | 0 |
| 35 | David Leichty | M | 1 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| 36 | Mike Reidy | M | 4 | 0 | 149 | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | Jacob Peterson | F | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 38 | Brian Fekete | D | 3 | 0 | 74 | 0 | 0 |
| 55 | Christian Duke | D | 8 | 3 | 366 | 0 | 0 |
| 78 | Aurelien Collin | D | 6 | 6 | 377 | 0 | 0 |
| 88 | Michael Thomas | M | 7 | 2 | 291 | 0 | 0 |
| 23 | Adama Mbengue | F | 5 | 2 | 202 | 1 | 0 |
| # | Name | Pos | GP | GS | MINS | GA | GAA |
| 1 | Jimmy Nielsen | GK | 6 | 6 | 344 | 3 | 0.78 |
| 18 | Erik Kronberg | GK | 5 | 1 | 228 | 0 | 0.00 |
| 21 | Jon Kempin | GK | 3 | 1 | 103 | 1 | 0.87 |
| 33 | Steve Spangler | GK | 1 | 0 | 45 | 2 | 4.00 |
| Brian Sylvestre | GK | 1 | 1 | 90 | 5 | 5.00 |
Major League Soccer generated considerable buzz throughout the global soccer scene in July 2012 with the announcement that MLS would become the first "smart league" in the world with the integration of the adidas micoach Elite System for all 19 clubs during the 2013 season. Now on the cusp of opening day, SportingKC.com sat down with the team's fitness coach Mateus Manoel to discuss the data-tracking technology and the benefits it offers by providing coaches, trainers and players with real-time performance metrics such as heart rate, speed, acceleration, distance, field position and power.