Sporting Kansas City will be down one able-bodied player as they prepare for the second leg of the Eastern Conference semifinals. As international absences go, though, that's a light toll for the club in the current FIFA window.
Forward Soony Saad joined Lebanon earlier this week for a pair of 2015 Asian Cup qualifiers, a move that will cap-tie the young Michigan-born winger to his father's homeland. But U.S. coach Juergen Klinsmann did not call up midfielder Graham Zusi or center back Matt Besler – or any other MLS player still in postseason contention – for away friendlies against Scotland and Austria.
“I think he's been consistent with all the teams that are currently in right now, in that he's got 15 teams in MLS to pick from, so I think it was a pretty easy decision,” Sporting manager Peter Vermes told MLSsoccer.com on Tuesday. “I think those guys need their rest period in getting ready for that and not making themselves susceptible to injury, for sure.”
But had the call come, Besler said, he'd have been ready to go.
“If I would have been called in and been on the roster, I would have been preparing for those games and I'd have been fine,” he said on Tuesday. “But I'm not on the roster, so I'm going to use the time to rest up even more. But I would have been fine, physically.”
Zusi acknowledged some mixed feelings on missing the friendlies, but said Klinsmann made the right call.
“There's pluses and minuses,” he said. “You can look at it in two different ways. But I think it was probably the right decision not to take any of the guys who are still in the playoffs, just because of the timing and the scheduling. We've been playing a lot of games as it is, and with the travel and the two extra games, it would be tough on the body, to be honest. But of course you want to be playing any international game you can get your hands on, so it goes both ways.”
The 21-year-old Saad made his debut for Lebanon in May, scoring his first time out for Les Cedres in a 1-1 friendly draw with Oman. The paperwork for his one-time change has cleared FIFA, opening the way for him to become a full international.
Lebanon visits Kuwait on Nov. 15 and hosts Iran on Nov. 19, meaning Saad will be back for Sporting's winner-take-all second leg against Houston on Nov. 23.
