A week and a half into the 2011 season, Seth Sinovic found himself out of a job, wondering where his next opportunity would come from.
Sinovic started 18 games for New England as a rookie left back in 2010 after being drafted in the second round out of Creighton, but that didn’t keep Revolution manager Steve Nicol from deciding he was surplus to requirements just days after the season kicked off.
On May 31, the Revs waived Sinovic, a 160-word press release officially announcing the end of his short tenure in Boston.
“It was really stressful,” Sinovic said. “You don’t really know what’s going to happen. You leave a lot of good friends, a lot of good teammates. At the same time, you just have to stay positive. That’s what I tried to do.”
A little more than four months later, that approach has paid off handsomely.
Sinovic eventually found a place in Kansas City, his hometown no less, a little more than a month after New England jettisoned him and was deployed at left back just weeks after his arrival by manager Peter Vermes.
When Roger Espinoza left for the Gold Cup, Sinovic moved into the lineup for good and hasn’t looked back. He’s started nine games in league play, facilitating Espinoza’s move into a midfield role, and helped Sporting to a 5-1-3 record in those matches despite fighting through a hamstring strain that kept him out for four games in July.
For both Sinovic and Kansas City, the match was simply a matter of timing and circumstance.
“We liked him coming out of college,” Vermes said. “We were actually interested in picking him up at the time, but he got taken by New England. There was nothing we could do at that point. I was kind of surprised when they released him, but it was great for us.”
And as well as the move has worked out for Sporting, it suited the 24-year-old defender even better. His return to Kansas City reunited him with a sizable contingent of family and friends – Sinovic grew up in Leawood, Kan. – as well as center back Matt Besler, who he played club soccer with since second grade.
“Off the field, it made it a lot easier,” Sinovic said about the transition. “I remember before I was coming on trial here, I was calling (Besler) to get some advice; how training sessions were and how to prepare. On the field, I’ve been playing with him since I was six or seven years old so there is still that familiarity with him. It’s kind of like a sixth sense between us.”
Their play together has been a testament to that.
Kansas City has allowed just eight goals when the duo suits up next to each other on the left side of the back line and didn’t lose a game until Seattle’s late comeback last Saturday broke the team’s 14-game unbeaten streak.
“He makes it pretty easy,” Besler said. “I think he just reads the game really well. You look him, and he’s not going to blow you away with his athletic ability. But he very rarely gets beaten. He’s always in a good spot.”
That positioning allows Sinovic to make the simple play when others might be forced to resort to the spectacular.
He specializes in anticipating and intercepting balls played into wide areas and has become adept at pushing high up the field to dispossess and harry the opposing team in dangerous areas. Maybe more importantly, Sinovic is rarely forced to boot the ball aimlessly when a simple pass will allow Kansas City to reset the formation or embark on the counterattack.
“The best way to describe him for me is as a ‘steady Eddy,’” Vermes said. “He’s never really unbelievable, not to say he isn’t a good player. He’s never going to kill it, but he’s never going to have a bad game. He’s a guy that comes out and gives you a very solid performance week after week. You can count on it.”
But with all the focus on Sinovic’s reliability as a defender, it can be easy to forget how well he’s combined with Omar Bravo on the left flank in an attacking role. The first taste of that relationship came during a 5-0 shellacking of New England in a U.S. Open qualifier in which the duo absolutely tore the Revs right side to shreds.
The most recent reminder that Sinovic was a talented attacking player in both high school and college came against Seattle a week ago when he pulled off a textbook Maradona on Mauro Rosales in confined space along the sideline.
But no matter if it’s applying defensive pressure high up the field or showing off his ability in the final third, Sinovic said he was just happy to be in a situation where his strengths are being put to good use.
“In New England, (going forward) wasn’t something that was encouraged,” he said. “It was more sit in and find your spots. With this team, it’s all about going forward and putting the pressure on. It gives me the opportunity to show my ability as far as being able to get up and down the line. It’s been a good fit.”
To have that fit come along in the city he grew up? That’s just surplus to requirements.
“It’s something a lot of guys want to do; play in front of their hometown crowd,” Sinovic said. “I couldn’t be happier to be here.”
