Friday, May 29, 2015

The Future Is Now

In an ideal world, Connor Hallisey, Amadou Dia, and Saad Abdul-Salaam would not be playing significant minutes. They would be training with the team, maybe traveling to away matches, but mostly just soaking everything in and learning the system that manager Peter Vermes has instilled so deeply into the club that it's part of the DNA.

However, as everyone knows, this season has been anything but an ideal world. Injuries have been so numerous, Sporting KC has not been able to make a full bench, only having six subs available. Saad was even called back from his loan to San Antonio because of it.

The thing is, these kids are turning out to be all right. Dia's gotten the most playing time out of all of them so far, but Hallisey and Saad are starting to at least make the bench regularly and they're looking good when they're on the pitch.

Vermes agrees, calling these rookies (all first round draft picks) brilliant. The experience they get now can only help them (and the team) later on this season and beyond.

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I'm probably not the only one who was more than a little surprised when goalkeeper Luis Marin and the club announced they had mutually agreed to part ways. Acquired in December, Marin was seen by many as the successor to Jimmy Nielsen.

I can understand being upset about losing my starting job, but there's more to it than that. Vermes said that Marin came to him after the match in Seattle last weekend and said he needed to go home. Vermes asked him to sleep on it and Marin refused.

For what it's worth, I hope that Marin can get the situation handled and get back to playing wherever he chooses to go next.

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Since I was writing this during the game with Dallas, I thought I'd add a little bit about the rookies. Hallisey got his first MLS assist with a beautiful backheel on Graham Zusi's goal in a 4-0 win.