KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Sporting Kansas City finally have Benny Feilhaber available for the first time this season. There's no rush to throw their playmaker and 2015 team MVP back into the lineup, though – not having already taken nine points from three outings going into Saturday night's home match against a depleted Real Salt Lake side (8:30pm ET, MLS LIVE).
Even though the match is against a team Feilhaber once described as the team "I hate the most," even with midfielder Roger Espinoza suspended following a red card and midfielder Soni Mustivar coming off international duty with Haiti, manager Peter Vermes told reporters on Wednesday that the Kansas City lineup for Saturday is still up in the air due to the effects of the abdominal strain on Feilhaber's fitness.
“The thing is: He doesn't have 90 minutes in him,” Vermes said. “That's the whole thing, determining what he has in him.”
Whenever he returns to the pitch – and for how long – Feilhaber does not anticipate any difficulties slotting right back into Sporting's high press.
“There are some little changes from the past three years that we want to try and take advantage of and kind of implement in our game,” he told MLSsoccer.com on Wednesday. “That kind of stuff, yeah, I think needs a little tinkering. But I've been with the team since the beginning of preseason, so I kind of know just as much as everybody else what's expected at each position. In that regard, I feel pretty comfortable.”
After recording career bests with 12 goals and 20 assists across all competitions in 2015, Feilhaber will give Sporting yet another creative threat out of the midfield upon his return,
“I think the team's played fantastically these first three games,” he said. “We've been very organized. We haven't given up too much on defense at all. We've created some opportunities. But having said that, I think with the way we're playing, I've been itching to get back out there, because the guys all around the field – I can see myself fitting in there and them making it easy for me.”
High on his to-do list: providing service to forward Dom Dwyer, who has two goals and an assist of his own so far this year.
“I just want to give Dom some more opportunities,” Feilhaber said. “He's dying to get some goals. His movement's been so good, and he deserves to get those chances, so I'm just going to try and get chances for him. Then, obviously, with [Graham] Zusi and Brad [Davis] and Connor [Hallisey], those guys on the wings, I want to find them balls. From my perspective, I want to continue the work that the other guys have already started, bring what I do differently and just add that to what we can create offensively.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
