KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Sporting Kansas City's parting with Aurelien Collin was an amicable one – and potentially profitable as well, with the club getting allocation cash and “future considerations” for a player they weren't going to be able to re-sign anyway.
“We've tried I don't know how many times to get a deal done,” manager and technical director Peter Vermes told reporters on Monday after the three-time MLS All-Star and 2013 MLS Cup MVP was dealt to expansion side Orlando City SC during the half-day window ahead of Wednesday's Expansion Draft. “It just wasn't getting to where it needed to get to.”
Still, Vermes said the parting was amicable and that he considered the big French center back a cap casualty.
“It wasn't easy,” he said. “He's obviously a player that we found and brought here. But I think all of you know that in the cap world of all sports, there's always going to be challenges with trying to keep your team together. It happened in this situation where he became a cap casualty, in regards to not being able to get a contract done.
“I think he understands where we were, and I understand where he is.”
Sporting also looked to the future in trading forward C.J. Sapong – who was the MLS Rookie of the Year in 2011 but never became a consistent scoring threat – to Philadelphia for the Union's highest pick in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft.
Otherwise, Vermes said, they risked losing him for nothing in the Expansion Draft.
“You can only protect 11 guys, and we had to protect three foreign players as well,” he said. “So it really lessened the number of players that we could protect, and we just felt that he had so much value that it was going to protect him, so it was better for us to try to move before somebody else came and took him.
“Look, both guys have been great, solid citizens with this club,” Vermes added. “They've been excellent in helping us build the ethos and the culture of the club and helped us find success in the field. So they're two players who surely will be missed, and I'm sure they're going to have successful careers as they go on. Unfortunately, it's just not going to be here.”
Kansas City also did some spending on Monday, sending allocation cash to Columbus for Venezuelan midfielder Bernardo Anor – who, Vermes said, could play in a variety of roles in the middle of the park in 2015.
- Get the latest SKC news at SportingKC.com
“He's very versatile in that he can play on the right or on the left,” Vermes said. “He can play defense. He can play as a forward. He can play in the middle of the midfield. So he's got a lot of places that he can play. I've never seen him play central defender, but basically I've seen him play everywhere else.”
Absent from Monday's moves: Anything having to do with bringing in another goalkeeper after the club declined options on Eric Kronberg and Andy Gruenebaum last month. But there are still plenty of acquisition options available, Vermes said – whether through a trade, the Re-Entry Draft process or an international transfer.
“I think we have some good targets, and we're moving closer and closer to securing that position,” he said. “But we want to make sure that it's somebody we think is going to be able to play the style and level that we want to play at.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
