Know Thy Enemy: Revs at SKC Hello and Goodbye to Old Friends Edition
The Revs say hello to their former player and general manager while SKC says a mournful goodbye to a former player.
Tonight’s New England Revolution-Sporting Kansas City match will have a somber start at Children’s Mercy Park (830 pm, MLS Season Pass).
SKC fans will at some point remember former player Gadi Kinda who passed away earlier this week at age 31. The news was announced by his current club Maccabi Haifa FC of Israel.
TBM joins the MLS community in offering our condolences to the Kinda family and the SKC community and hope that a fan favorite will be remembered fondly for years to come.
It is however gameday, and our match preview must commence in somewhat regular fashion. Like the Revs, SKC started very, very slowly…with just a single point through their first six league games that eventually saw the dismissal of longtime head coach Peter Vermes on March 31 after that winless start.
Interim Kerry Zavagnin has turned things around fairly well, claiming three wins and 11 total points in SKC’s last eight league games including two shutouts in their last four games. Yes, the infamous win over LA Galaxy without recording a single shot is among that streak mentioned above.
So while SKC might not have risen to the levels of the Revs’ current six game unbeaten streak, this is a much improved team that is still notoriously difficult to beat at home and they might have a little extra motivation today. After two monster games in April, Dejan Joveljic was back on the scoresheet last week for the first time in a month and now has six goals in his first season with SKC.
New England will be without star striker Leo Campana after he was forced off as a first half substitute last week against San Jose. The Revs rested the bulk of their first team players during their Open Cup contest vs Chicago midweek so we’ll see who gets the start up top for Caleb Porter with Tomas Chancalay and Maxi Urruti both listed as questionable.
Here to update us on all things blue and sporting is our good friend Mike Kuhn of Kansas City Soccer Journal. Naturally we both predicted a 1-0 scoreline so the Orlando corollary is going strike hard in this one which is sure to be a goalfest now.
Be sure to head on over to their site for my answers to Mike’s questions and their side of the SKC-NE game coverage. As much as I don’t want to lose to Mike Burns, I don’t think I’d be that upset to see the Revs unbeaten run end today against a spirited SKC team and crowd.
1) We have to start with our condolences for Gadi Kinda and the SKC community, is there a story or memory you have of him?
It's just felt weird this week, it's just tragically sad to lose someone so young. I know the club and the fans have stuff planned for the game to honor Kinda's memory. For me I didn't have any personal interactions with him, but those that did never had anything but glowing praise for Kinda as a person. And as a player it was the exact same. For me, my favorite memory is probably his goal against St. Louis in the 2023 playoffs. He'd been instrumental in KC being up 2-1 at the time on the road and then scored a beautiful goal from outside the box that more or less put the game to rest. He'll be greatly missed.
2) The Peter Vermes era is over, what has changed (if anything) tactically for the team under interim Kerry Zavagnin and what does Mike Burns and the front office have planned over the next year or so to bring SKC back towards the top of the West?
Tactically the overall shape is the same for the team as it was under Vermes, but Zavagnin has put plenty of his own spin on things. One of the big things that Kansas City has done more of under Zavagnin is attacking more through the middle of the field, involving DP midfielder, Manu Garcia more in the buildup. Under Vermes KC had still been doing a lot of building down the wing that they've done in previous years. That earlier involvement with Garcia in the buildup has helped lead to less KC passing the ball around the perimeter of the opposing box from one side to the other and back again looking to pull defenses out of position. It's also helped lead to quicker movement into the box which has led to opportunities for Kansas City going forward.
The other thing he's done is switch up some of the team's building out of the back. Under Vermes he rarely wanted his goalkeeper to play the ball long off of goal kicks, instead looking to play one of his two center backs and build out of the back. That's something that, while improving, isn't one of the strong points of goalkeeper John Pulskamp's game. He can hit a decent long ball and pick out attackers from a longer distance, as seen in his assist to Daniel Salloi in San Jose earlier this year.
As for what Mike Burns and the front office have to do to get KC back to the top of the West is to continue their rebuild of the roster. Last winter was the attack as KC brought in Dejan Joveljic, Manu Garcia, and Shapi Suleymanov who have all become major contributors to KC in 2025. This coming winter they get the chance to remake the defense. Of all the defenders on KC's roster, the only one with a guaranteed contract heading into 2026 is 16 year-old Homegrown player, Ian James. All the others: Andrew Brody, Joaquin Fernandez, Tim Leibold, Jansen Miller, Logan Ndenbe, Dany Rosero, Khiry Shelton, and Robert Voloder are all either out of contract or on options. Add in Nemanja Radoja being on an option and KC has not only a lot of cap space, but a lot of senior roster spots that they can work with this coming winter to make over the roster. Not that all those guys will be gone after the season, but KC has a lot of flexibility with their roster to make additions. More changes could even come this summer though because KC has a decent chunk of expiring GAM that they have to use in 2025 or they lose, so an impact signing this summer wouldn't be out of the question either.
3) Former Galaxy striker Dejan Joveljic seems to have settled in nicely, with 6 goals already this year what's been the key for him in front of goal?
The big key to Joveljic's involvement is in part due to the fact that KC is playing quicker, and getting forward faster, allowing Joveljic to stay forward. One thing that KC really struggled with last year with Alan Pulido is that he'd regularly drop into the midfield, sometimes even close to whoever was playing the 6 for KC to get the ball. Then by the time KC would get forward, Pulido wouldn't be in the key positions for a cross or pass because he'd dropped so deep to begin with. This is certainly helped by the addition of Garcia who can be the one to receive the ball deeper and get it forward. It allows him to actually stay up top where you want your striker. You don't want your DP striker 30 plus yards from goal while your wingers are trying to play balls into the box. The addition of a truer number 10 for KC has helped him to be successful in KC's system.
4) 24 goals allowed by SKC this year, second to last in the West behind the otherworldly bad Galaxy...but only three goals allowed in four games in May so far...the beginnings of a turnaround or soft spot in the schedule? Talk about the last few games for SKC.
I'm not going to say it's KC's soft schedule in the last four games, yes they had the LA Galaxy who KC beat 1-0 without a single shot period, but after that KC played three games on the road in eight days going from the West Coast (Portland), to the Midwest (St. Louis), back to the West Coast (San Diego) in that four game stretch. Portland currently sits fourth in the West, St. Louis is a rivalry game so you can throw form and table position out the window in those games, and then you have San Diego who's been one of the highest scoring teams in the league this season. And it's hard to fault anyone on KC's last four goals, you have the bicycle kick from Kevin Denkey in Cincinnati, the bike by Santiago Moreno in Portland, Celio Pompeu's curler and then a shot with a wicked deflection of Marcel Hartel.
Overall, the biggest thing for KC over the recent stretch has been consistency, specifically at the center back position for Kansas City. Jansen Miller and Robert Voloder have been KC's starting center backs over the last five games for KC, where they've allowed 5 goals. The prior nine games, where KC allowed nineteen goals, KC had used five different center back pairings in those games. There's a thing to be said for consistency, especially in defense when you have a young goalkeeper (in goalkeeper terms) behind them. The trio can form an understanding of where they're going to be and what they're going to do in different game situations and overall, it allows them to perform better. Whether it's a long-term turnaround for Kansas City or a short blimp will remain to be seen, but going from averaging over 2 goals allowed per game to just 1 goal allowed per game the consistency can't be ignored.
Lineup/prediction
I expect Kansas City to run their standard 4-3-3, with a standard week for them without a midweek game and their game that was supposed to be against Los Angeles FC on the 28th moved for their Club World Cup playoff game against Club America, I'd expect KC to put out their "Best XI" available. Pulskamp; Ndenbe, Voloder, Miller, Brody; Bartlett, Bassong, Garcia; Suleymanov, Joveljic, Salloi.
KC will be missing Jake Davis with an ankle injury, or else he'd probably be starting in the midfield over Bassong. KC will also be without Nemanja Radoja who picked up a quad injury against St. Louis and is still out. Otherwise, KC's injury report is clear.
As for the game, the thing I feel confident about is that it'll be 1-0, whether that's KC winning or KC conceding another Puskas contender or another fluke deflection I'm not sure, but it'll be 1-0. The hope from my side and based on the comments from Daniel Salloi and Erik Thommy in this week's media availability about wanting to play for Gadi Kinda's memory is that they come out with an extra fire and it's Kansas City taking all three points.