The night started with the Wizards trying to win their first game at home since June 12th (yes, a 3 month drought, including Superliga). They came on to the field playing 4 in the back, 2 in the holding midfield, 2 in the attacking mid at the wings and 2 up top. By the 10th minute KC seemed to be controlling the game and was already up with a Santiago Hirsig goal off a Lopez corner. Dallas quickly figured out that their attacks through the middle would run into the double team of Hirsig and Morsink, so they decided to go after KC’s more vulnerable wings, where Lopez and Gomez, although primed for the attack, bring little if any, defensive help.

Still, as the half came to a close, the game had gotten pretty even, with KC giving up some of its attacking control by relying too much on the Hartman and Conrad long ball. In the 44th minute Jimmy Conrad decided that it was the right time to play one of his first passes up the middle to Santiago Hirsig, but left his try short, giving Dax McCarthy a running start to come in unmarked and shoot from outside the box, beating Hartman and ending the half with a tie.

The second half brought Kei Kamara to the field for Gomez and dropped a very ineffective Arnaud to his midfield position. On the 54th minute, as KC started to put more pressure on Dallas, a long ball that should have been cleared turned into an adventure for Conrad again as he tried to dribble it out and got dispossessed by David Ferreira who ran into the box and set up an easy finish for Jeff Cunningham’s fifth goal against KC this year.

Peter Vermes at that point decided to sacrifice defense for attack by bringing in Graham Zusi for Kurt Morsink and a few minutes later Zoltan for Arnaud. Zoltan paid dividends right away as he volleyed a Lopez corner back on goal, where Josh Wolff back healed it in for the tie. With the score tied it seemed that both teams gave up marking and defense for attacking soccer. During this back and forth across the field, a Claudio Lopez low cross was re-directed by George John onto his own goal forcing a great save by Dario Sala to keep the ball out, but leaving it close enough for Jimmy Conrad to dive in and put KC ahead.

The last 10 minutes where a bit stressful for the KC faithful since the very offensive team on the field now had to hold off the brunt of the Dallas attack, with players like Lopez and Zusi, great for the offense, became little help when it came to stopping the Dallas attack. At the end, the KC defense and a couple of nice stops by Kevin Hartman kept the score 3-2 and gave the KC faithful another weekend where they can waive the “We Believe” banner out in the stands.

Player of the Game: Lopez. He was involved in every goal; granted 50% of his passes it seems are made with his eyes closed, the other 50% are on the money.

Ratings:

Kansas City Wizards — Kevin Hartman (7) Jonathan Leathers (6), Matt Besler (6), Jimmy Conrad (5), Michael Harrington (5), Herculez Gomez (5) (Kei Kamara (6)), Santiago Hirsig (7), Kurt Morsink (6) (Graham Zusi (6)), Claudio Lopez (7), Davy Arnaud (4), (Zoltan Hercegfalvi (6)), Josh Wolff (6).

On the ref: Nice work by the second year man for this game. I will say that the McCarthy yellow for lifting his shirt was a bit harsh since he really didn’t take it off, but oh well.

Next Up: The Rapids. I would like to see a similar lineup for the next game but with Kamara up top with Wolff and someone else taking Arnaud’s spot. He is not himself and hasn’t been at all good for the last 3 months. He either needs some time off or a stint on the bench. I know that Vermes (and Onalfo during his stint) rarely pull out the fan favorites Jewsbury and Arnaud, but they have not been playing their best soccer, and maybe a Zoltan sighting on the right wing could be a nice change.

Here are the highlights:

A new midfield and a defense with a returning Jimmy Conrad looked initially like a positive step for KC early in the game since the passing and the hustle seemed to be showing up and the ball was being moved forward, especially on the right side where Hirsig (in a new position) moved freely up and down the line; the downside of course was that neither he nor Lance Watson could come up with a cross that was met by the KC forwards.

Still, the Fire played the system they needed to play to exploit the weaknesses in the KC defense and used the long ball to overcome the absence of their playmaker Blanco. Although Chicago did have some early opportunities it seemed that the effort by the Wizards of trying to move forward by passing the ball (instead of cracking a long pass every time) might lead to something, but the KC defense again let one slip by. A long ball was not cleared but let go out of bonds near the KC left side corner flag; Chicago brought pressure in on the KC throw in which forced a mistake by Matt Bessler and left the door open for a quick give and go that found Chris Rolfe with the ball in the box and firing it past Kevin Hartman who seemed to have been outguessed.

After that KC continued to try and move the ball with short accurate passes while the Fire kept using the long crosses which were almost successful twice, once on the left side finding Bessler out of position, and then a long high ball exploiting the size of Watson who could not reach it. Honestly, both should have been put in but were horribly missed by the Chicago forwards. On the other side a couple of plays brought the Wizards close, especially a through pass by Kurt Morsink to Josh Wolff where the KC attacker turned and shot but was denied by Jon Busch and a shot by Hirsig who seemed to slow down just a bit and let the Fire defense close down on him just getting a corner off the play. All in all, less long aimless balls by KC and more moving and passing by the midfielders had me in OK spirits for the second half.

The 2nd half started and KC pressured the Fire a bit more trying to get close to the area. The team started to move the ball more, especially when the Hungarian born striker Zoltan made his debut. He brought energy and a desire to impress the new coach. On one of his first plays he was able to slip by the left side of the Chicago defense and send a nice cross to a charging Roger Espinoza, who although shadowed by a Fire defender, could have knocked it in, but instead saw the ball go by him. While the Wizards kept pressuring, Chicago was playing the counter attack hoping for a KC mistake, which came in the 79th minute when a corner clearance allowed for Mike Banner to break free and move towards Wizards’ territory. As he ran he was tackled from behind by Zoltan who earned a straight red and brought his KC debut to an end.

At that point short handed and a goal down KC again got sloppy on another throw in and the Fire countered for their second goal of the game.

Player Ratings:
Kevin Hartman (4), Lance Watson (6), Jimmy Conrad (5), Aaron Hohlbein (5), Matt Besler (3) (Michael Harrington (5)), Santiago Hirsig (6) (Herculez Gomez (5)), Jack Jewsbury (5), Kurt Morsink (6), Roger Espinoza (5), Josh Wolff (5), Adam Cristman (5)(Zoltan Hercegfalvi (5) He deserved a 6 but that tackle was an automatic -1).

Comment: Like I said before, I liked this team more than the one that had been playing for Onalfo recently (not only the Dallas debacle one). The passing seem better, the effort and teamwork seemed better and the chances to score were there. Granted, against Dallas we hit rock bottom and anything else looks better, I think I’ll give the Vermes experiment a few more weeks to pass final juddgement. I think the defense let the team down yesterday, and the left side of the team (Bessler/Harrington and Espinoza) had an overall bad day. Our forwards need to put the clear chances in the net, the 2 Josh Wolff had, and the Espinoza and Hirsig chances should have at least landed us one goal. At least our total shots and the ones on goal did increase which I guess could be considered a step in the right direction.

On the Ref: I like Jorge Gonzalez but it did seem that he let some Fire players get away with a few things, especially the Justin Mapp “delaying a restart play” which he did by clipping Hirsig from behind when he was going to take a free kick (granted the math isn’t always clear cut but according to FIFA it’s a yellow for delaying a restart and as far as I know it’s also a yellow for a tackle from behind; how he only gets a yellow escapes me). Also, while I do agree on the Zoltan red card, Michael Harrington took a stud slide to knee 5 minutes later (which is far more dangerous) and it got the Fire player only a yellow. Still my biggest gripe with Gonzalez was allowing the Fire players to just waste time, especially Jon Busch who took as long as he wanted every time there was a goal kick. After all that I will say that I don’t blame him for the loss, if we don’t score we are not going to win.

Now it’s out to California to meet the Earthquakes. Here are the highlights:

KC will be missing defensive leader and captain Jimmy Conrad, as well as midfielders Davy Arnaud and Roger Espinoza due to Gold Cup call ups, while Kevin Souter will not be available due to injury. The Dynamo also has its share of vacancies in the starting lineup, missing Brian Ching, Stuart Holden and Andrew Hainault because of the Gold Cup, while Wade Barret, Eddie Robinson, and Craig Waibel are out injured; Ricardo Clark missed his US Cup game due to personal reasons and I am unsure of his availability.

It will be a scrappy battle for tired teams who just got off playing US Cup games and, who after Saturday’s match will again continue to play for the Cup midweek. I do wonder how much offense will be generated from teams that regardless of their mid week results have struggled to score recently and are missing key offensive players such as Ching and Arnaud.

I really can’t predict what the KC lineup might look like with the defense having been exposed against Santos last Sunday and with a midfield that could not contain the fast passing Mexican team. Some posters and bloggers have suggested moving Matt Besler to his more natural center back position instead of struggling Rauwshan McKenzie and slotting Michael Harrington to his natural left back position instead of continuing to place him in the right side of the midfield where he has produced some terrible performances. Also the attacking midfield could see either Kurt Morsink or Graham Zusi there if Harrington does move back to defense. The Morsink/Hirsig midfield does have the interesting option of having them rotate the d-mid position so that Hirsig can move forward and do some more vertical passing like he did in his first game vs. Toronto where he got an assist.

Coach Onalfo might consider Houston’s weakened attack and leave Hohlbein with McKenzie in the middle hoping that they can control the dangerous and speedy Kamara but if Vuoso from Santos gave us fits a faster Kamara could spell trouble. I expect this to be a low scoring affair with either a tie or KC winning by one.

I’m going to throw out 2 possible lineups today:

Hartman
Watson—Hohlbein—McKenzie—Besler
Jewsbury—Hirsig—Morsink/Zusi—Gomez
Wolff—Lopez

OR

Hartman
Watson—Hohlbein—Besler—Harrington
Jewsbury—Hirsig—Morsink/Zusi—Gomez
Wolff—Lopez

KC-2 (Lopez, Wolff)
HOU- 1 (Kamara)

On a side note: Not much going on this holiday weekend and looking to watch a classic movie? Here’s the trailer to one of my favorites; the one and only original Die Hard. If you haven’t seen it (where have you been?) you have to watch it; if you have, watch it again, you can’t get tired of watching John McClaine kill terrorists.

Have a great 4th of July weekend and always keep our guys in gals in the military serving throughout the world in your prayers this Independence Day and every day.

Add to these games a June 30 US Cup game vs. the Minnesota Thunder up in Minnesota (will we ever play a US Cup game at home?) and a 4th of July MLS game vs. the Houston Dynamo. All in all a busy schedule for KC who, according to Mike Kuhn from Down by the line will be missing Davy Arnaud and Roger Espinoza who have been called up for US and Honduras National Team duties for the Gold Cup and Scotsman Kevin Souter due to injury.

I’m on the fence with the Superliga since we are getting the Mexican teams just starting preseason (Atlas started on June 3rd) and they don’t seem to be taking this too seriously (A few days back Mike also reported that Atlas is bringing a B-Team for the match to give their younger players, hungry for a position with the first team, a shot with this game.), but at the same time I think that it gives our team some national/international exposure and some of the Reserve might get a chance to shine (that is why I hate seeing Espinoza leave since he would have surely played SL and US Cup, while I think he most likely will be on the bench during the Gold Cup; hopefully I’m wrong). Still, like I said before, if we do make it to the SL finals, there is some good money involved so that’s always a plus.

On a side note, I really hope KC takes the US Cup seriously and that Portland beats Seattle so that we can finally host another US CUP down (it’s been a while since the Colorado game in Shawnee Mission). Winning the US Cup would give us an automatic berth in the Concacaf Champions League which is clearly more important than the Superliga.

Back to the Atlas game, with Arnaud and Espinoza out I expect to see either Kurt Morsink or Graham Zusi (not impressed by him yet) on the field and maybe Abe Thompson in for Lopez so that the man can get some rest. Still, because of the 5 games in 2 weeks and having 3 players less, Onalfo will have to carefully manage the lineups. Saddly if there is one game that will have a majority of the Reserves on the field it probably will be the US Cup game due to its proximity to the Houston game.

Sunday’s game is going to be tricky. Atlas coach Ricardo Lavolpe is a sly fox with many years of coaching (including stints with the Mexico NT) and young players sometimes are not phased by the fact that it’s a preseason game and will actually care since they are fighting for a roster spot. This will be a tough game for KC.

I see this as the starting 11 against Atlas:

————–Hartman——————
Watson—Hohlbein—Conrad/McKenzie—Besler

Jewsbury—Hirsig—Morsink(Zusi)—Gomez

Wolff—Lopez(Thompson)

Final score: KC 2- ATL 0

P.S. At least one red card per team.

By the way, those of you, who like me cannot go to STL, you can either watch the game online on www.SuperLiga2009.com or on Telefutura which is on some of the cable and satellite Spanish packages. US Cup games will also be available online at their site, but more on that next week.

Also, thanks to Alan, blogger for the offside.com’s Atlas page for providing the list of players that are going to Saint Louis. You can find the list here:

http://atlas.theoffside.com/team-news/superliga-2009-player-list.html#comment-366

Best of luck to those of you going to STL.

There are just a long list of decisions and statistics coming from Onalfo that lead me to believe that he is not the right coach for the Wizards. I’ve come up with a summarized, not all inclusive list, which details some of my gripes:

1. In his third year Onalfo still has not been able to come up with a “stable”, constant group of players. His lineup changes (at time drastic) are result driven and are very predictable. If he wins he will play the same team, again; same tactic again until he loses, regardless of if it’s at home or on the road. In other words Onalfo plays the result and forgets about the tactics that his team uses vs. a certain rival; or if the team actually looked good (i.e: the same team that “earned” a 1-0 win vs. a ten man Red Bulls team on a 2nd minute penalty where the team was horrible, got to start the next game against DC United in what was another bad game). On the flip side he will make 2 or more changes when he loses, regardless of how the team played and who or what lead the team to the loss. Granted, Onalfo isn’t Pep Guardiola, but I can’t remember Barcelona taking about a 1/3 of the team off after a loss. I’ve always believed in continuity and that is never achieved when players, especially young ones are afraid of losing their spot for making mistakes when taking risks. I would not be surprised that next Saturday rookie Matt Besler loses his job as left back for giving up a penalty. Similar situations occurred with Aaron Holhbein, Tyson Wahl and Kurt Morsink last year after “mistakes” lead to goals.

2. Too many “fan favorites” get a pass. In 2007 it was Eddie Johnson who could do no wrong. In 2008 and 2009 Davy Arnaud and Jack Jewsbury will not lose their starting spot for anything they do. All these players have been crowd favorites and front office money makers and are penciled in week in and week out. After a torrid start in 2007 Johnson cooled off significantly and showed what some thought to be a poor effort, too the point where some people thought he was a lazy player; regardless of that he played every game and Onalfo did not sit him on the bench. This year Davy Arnaud had a great start, but has been less than mediocre in the last 10 games; games where he started and completed where all he showed was effort but little quality. Jewsbury, like Arnaud had a good start but has steadily declined in productivity, to the point where he was responsible for the game tying goal for LA 2 weeks ago; he made a mistake that has cost other players their starting role. To his credit Onalfo did sit Claudio Lopez down last year for a few games, but I actually believe that it was done to rest him at the end of last year more than because he went through a spell of bad games.

3. The Wizards rely too much on their international players and will play them until they either are proven to be complete failures, or until the fans expect so little that even mediocre play from one of them now draws applause. Marinelli, Trujillo, Colombano, Lopez, Hirsig; of these 5 players in the Onalfo era only Lopez has proven that he belongs in the field over some of our other “local” talent. Hirsig has had his good games but he has not proven to be the superstar we were promised; he surprised the MLS in his first couple of games, but now MLS players and coaches have figured out that he rarely plays a one touch ball so they now collapse on him and close his passing lanes. Those great passes we saw in the first 2 games have been missing for a while and he has actually lost balls that have led to 2 opponent’s goals this year; add to that the fact that lately he will drop at the slightest touch from the opponent; this has him as one of the MLS leaders of fouls received, but at the same time refs are catching up and call a foul only about half the time (last Saturday he lost 5 balls where he hit the ground trying to draw the foul and the ref just let the game go on). Regardless of their individual play the Onalfo/Vermes camp seems to want to play these players as much as possible hoping that they either come out of their slump, produce something positive, or at least log enough minutes with them so that they can justify sending them home after an unsuccessful season where “they could not adapt to MLS style of football”, i.e. Marinelli, Colombano and Trujillo. I will mention that once these international players lose favor with Onalfo they will rarely see the field, regardless of how well they do with the Reserve team of how bad the guy in their position is (Trujillo).

4. Onalfo the decision maker makes me scratch my head a lot during games and makes me wonder what he was thinking. Let me illustrate this with a few examples. Last year in the playoffs at home vs. the Crew the Wizards were up 1-0 and had Gomez ejected; with 15 minutes left and clinging to this slim lead that would be important to keep for the 2nd leg of the playoffs, Onalfo never flinched and never though about pulling a forward to reinforce a weekened midfield; the result C-bus tied, took a 1-1 game home for the 2nd leg and eliminated the Wizards. That second game brought on another Onalfo decision that made scratch my head; in a playoff game, down 1-0 Onalfo goes with Michael Kraus as a substitute for Abe Thompson; Kraus who had not played 1 MLS minute was thrown into a playoff game (vs. big man Ivan Trujillo); less than 20 minutes later he pulled Roger Espinoza out for Matt Marquess, a left back that started 4 games during the season. Things that make you go HMMM. Add to these last Saturday’s decision, when losing by one goal he pulled an attacking midfielder for a forward when he was a man up and the Crew only had Barros up top. Oh boy! Like these decisions there are many others that go against what one could consider as logical and that sadly have not really panned out.

5. Let me throw this stat out there. Onalfo predicates fast “exciting football” but the Wizards have only 1 win with a 3 goal difference over their opponent. Opening day vs. Toronto in 2007. Curt, nail biting and exciting are not the same in soccer.

(To be continued, yes there are more things I have to say)

That was in the 59th minute. Prior to that it was all LA with the exception of a Davy Arnaud shot that was stopped by Donovan Ricketts’ chin/chest. The Galaxy took the game to KC, that was missing regular starters Santiago Hirsig and Josh Wolff. Curt Onalfo countered by making a mess of his starting lineup moving Jack Jewsbury from the A-Mid position, where he was doing a good job in the past few games, back to the D-mid position; bringing in Kevin Souter on the left for Roger Espinoza, Michael Harrington moved to right of the midfield and Hercules Gomez was in for suspended Josh Wolff up front

From the beginning it was clear that KC was being outmatched in all lines and had Alan Gordon not done his best impression of Toronto’s Chad Barrett, missing chance after chance, LA would have finished the first half with a comfortable lead. The LA midfield suffocated a KC line that had not punch moving forward, since Jewsbury had been moved back, Arnaud was being collapsed on by the Galaxy midfielders when he tried to run with the ball, Souter, although penciled in the lineup was absent, and Michael Harrington proved once and for all that he is in a serious slump, rarely being able to make a pass to someone on the KC team. Thanks again to man of the match Kevin Hartman, the crossbar and Alan Gordon, the game was still tied at half time. KC was outplayed at all lines, and again both the right and left side defenders were abused by the LA attack; clear example of this was the shot on the post where a long ball from the midfield caught Lance Watson in with the central defenders, allowing Eddie Lewis a clean unobstructed cross to Gordon who missed a sitter. Coach Onalfo, Watson is not a defender so please keep him off the field.

The Second half started as the first had ended. With KC on the ropes while LA ran up and down the field but with little to show for it. But again, poor Bruce Arena, when his team was playing at its best Mr. Berhalter was slow to react and was forced to pull Lopez by his shorts and/or shirt to stop him from going in against Ricketts. Red card and gone. LA had to play the last half an hour with 10 men.

Right after the ejection Onalfo saw an opportunity to move forward and try to win the game so he brought in Espinoza and rookie Graham Zusi to bolster the offense for the Harrington and Souter (yes he was playing). First of all, Zusi? Really? I understand the Espinoza change but Zusi has shown very little and true to form brought nothing to the game. Instead of bringing in a midfielder like Kurt Morsink that can pass the ball and allow Jewsbury to move forward and be effective and moving either Arnaud or Gomez to the right, Onalfo brought in a rookie who had not played since week 2. Still, his other sub, Roger Espinoza was able to track down a long pass on the left side of the LA box and get a nice cross to Hercules Gomez who made a mess of his header towards goal that ended up as a wide shot and was redirected by a trailing Davy Arnaud to open the scoring.

Before that Kevin Hartman, Alan Gordon and the post continued to keep the game scoreless, even with one less player. The goal in the 84th minute looked to give KC a nice, yet undeserved, away win to make up for the 9 player Chivas game the week before, but that was not the case. A silly Jewsbury turnover on the KC side of midfield let Landon Donovan place a nice cross for sub Edson Buddle (who came in for Gordon), who unmarked, due to Watson’s absence on the right side, slid the ball past Hartman from the right side of the KC box. A tie and the end of the game.

Player Ratings - Hartman 7, Watson 3, Conrad 5, Hohlbein 5, Besler 5, Arnaud 6, Jewsbury 4, Harrington 2, Souter 3, Gomez 4, Lopez 5. Subs Espinoza 6, Zusi 4, Thompson N/A

Man of the Match: Kevin Hartman again. The save he made off a Chris Klein shot in the second half has to be one of the best saves this year. Thanks to him and the inability of LA to score let KC leave LA with one point.

Commentary: I still fail to understand the “tactical” planning and way of thinking that Curt Onalfo uses for some of his games. So you lose a forward and a holding mid. I believe you have a forward, and a physical one at that, on the bench (Abe Thompson) and you have an experienced holding midfielder (Kurt Morsink) that can take Hirsig’s spot without sacrificing your best midfielder (Jewsbury) to a position where is less effective. Did Espinoza play that badly against Chivas that he deserved to be benched for a player who has not seen the field all year and has not been that impressive since coming to KC anyway? I don’t think so.

I am still trying to figure out what our system is week by week but whatever it may be the constant experiments need to end. Also, am I the only one starting to worry about how bad Michael Harrington is playing (granted he’s not starting, lost his spot due to injury and is slotted into different places in the midfield each game); it seems to me that his shine coming out of college is starting to show the wear and tear of the Onalfo system of player development.

KC was lucky to leave with one point; we deserved none but should have done better a man up and gotten 3.

By the way, I am quick to criticize refs when they screw up, I will give kudos to Terry Vaughn (Terriblon for those in Costa Rica) who had a good game and was quick to keep the game under control when it got a bit chippy.

Next up: Columbus.

Here are the highlights of the game. You have to love the Hartman save on the Klein shot.

On to the game. This is the third meeting between the two sides, with Columbus winning both, 2-1 at Crew Stadium and then 3-0 at the CAB a few weeks ago. I can’t see a good reason why the Wizards would be able to get something out of this game, although I’d like to be a bit more optimistic than that. They have the defense to hold back the Schelotto-led attack, but it comes down to who is going to score? Someone like Davy Arnaud or perhaps even Kurt Morsink, who connected on Davy’s game winner last week needs to step up and score. Conrad as the leading scorer reflects poorly on the attack.

Who would start up front? I expect to see Wolff and Trujillo up front, with Lopez keeping his spot on the left side of the midfield. Or perhaps the return of the Lopez-Trujillo combination. Whatever the combination, goals are needed. I don’t think I can emphasize that any more than I already have. I’m boring myself by saying it so much. Regardless, it’ll hopefully be an entertaining match and the first time the Wizards appear on ESPN2 (I think).

Other previews:
+Down the Byline
+Official MLS
+KC Soccer Review
+Yahoo! Sports
+ESPN Soccernet

A few interesting tidbits to follow coming into this weekend’s match:

• Claudio Lopez has played in all but one minute of every game this season. So much for him being old. Although as the season progresses, will he wear himself down?
• Two months away from the CAB will be a challenge. How will the team respond?

Carlos Marinelli will probably miss today’s game, with Kurt Morsink replacing him as the attacking midfielder. Not sure if the Wizards will have the legs for this one, but I think they can steal a point.

Chicago 1-1 Kansas City

Part Two: Midfield

Kerry Zavagnin: One of the rocks of the midfield, has played his entire MLS career with the Wizards. Usually taking on the defensive midfield role, he is usually called upon to help shut down the opposing team’s best player. Also chips in a few goals here and there, as he had three last season.

Kurt Morsink: A second year player out of James Madison (my alma mater), Morsink played regularly last season after joining the squad. He even cracked the starting lineup 10 times. I remember watching him in college and recognizing that while he was the best player out there, I had no idea he was MLS material. Shows what I know, right?

Ryan Pore: Another one of those versatile players. Saw time in the preseason at attacking midfield and forward, the positions where he sees the most playing time. Looking to build on last season where he started four games and played in 17.

Michael Harrington: A potential starter on the left side who can also fill in at defense. Brings in a great deal experience from last season where he saw action in 29 games. One of three players to start every preseason game up to this point, so expect to see him a lot this season, most likely on the left side of midfield.

Carlos Marinelli: Attacking midfielder in his second year. Has failed to live up to the great hype he saw as a child, as he once was labeled the ‘next Maradona’. Bounced around different clubs, going from Boca Juniors, to Middlesborough, Torino, and Racing Club just to name a few. Hopefully he has found a home here in KC and will continue to lead the attack out of midfield.

Roger Espinoza: The second pick in the 2008 draft out of Ohio State, Espinoza was injured during preseason and missed the team’s trip down to Argentina. He broke a metatarsel in his foot and was diagnosed to miss 3-4 weeks. That was made a few weeks ago, so he should be back and in playing shape as the season starts.

Lance Watson: A developmental player trying to increase his role with the team. Injured his foot during preseason and will miss 6 weeks, maybe more with a broken foot.

Ryan McMahen: Holding midfielder still trying to break through with the team. Yet to feature for the first team and only saw limited action in the preseason. Will end up getting most of his time with the reserves.

Sasha Victorine: Established veteran that sticks in the midfield. Played in 29 games the previous season and looks to make an impact upon return. Has yet to play in a preseason match due to injury and the birth of his child. His future is kind of up in the air right now, but I’d expect him to come back soon.

Davy Arnaud: Attacking midfielder who also spends time at forward. Appeared in 28 games last season, netting four goals. Is currently injured and will miss the beginning of the 2008 season. A key player who will be missed during the beginning of the season, but the new signings will ease the pain of his early loss. Expect him back by the end of April.

Amir Lowery: 24 year-old from Washington, DC trying to carve out a career in pro soccer. Has bounced around a bit, but is listed on the roster, and has appeared 10 times during the preseason. Chalk him up to the reserve squad, I would have to say. Also can fall back into a defensive role.

Bottom Line: The midfield features a blend of youth and experience. The foundation for the forwards will be found right here, as the likes of Marinelli and Zavagnin will work to create space and play the right passes to open things up in the front of the pitch. This is one outfit that has been hit by injuries already, as Espinoza, Watson, and Arnaud already face time out with injury. But there is no question that the midfield is deep enough to handle these setbacks.