KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Give or take a couple seconds, Sporting Kansas City's Roger Espinoza got five solid minutes on the training field at center back before starting alongside Matt Besler last weekend against Chicago.
It wasn’t the kind of position that manager Peter Vermes wanted to put the 24-year-old left back into so hastily but, as the week progressed and the injuries and international call-ups piled up, he was left with little choice.
“I was still mulling it over on Thursday and finally in Friday’s training we tried some things,” Vermes said. “I was looking at a couple different things. On the plane, I made my decision on which way we would go.”
In the end, Espinoza found himself playing centrally with barely any preparation to speak of while Scott Lorenz filled in at left back and Chance Myers made his first appearance of the season at right back. Unsurprisingly, Sporting gave up three goals and lost after going down a man in the first half.
Luckily, Kansas City won’t have quite the same selection headaches this weekend in Vancouver when the club faces the Whitecaps at Empire Field on Saturday (7 pm ET, Direct Kick, MatchDay Live in US, TSN in Canada), though Vermes still likely won’t have a full complement of players to choose from.
[inline_node:330657]Júlio César, who is still recovering from a cut to his foot that required 18 stitches and kept him out of last week’s game, is questionable, but Shavar Thomas, away on international duty with Jamaica last weekend, will be back in the fold.
For the first time this season, Michael Harrington is also in the running to make his 2011 debut, though the team’s de facto right back and most consistent performer from a year ago still isn’t game fit or a guarantee to play any significant minutes north of the border.
“He’ll look to travel,” Vermes said. “Now the question is where [Michael] is [physically]. Every day we are trying to monitor how he recovers from the day before.”
Myers and Luke Sassano, who have each started one game so far in place of Harrington, are also question marks. Vermes said Sassano should be ready to travel after missing out on last week’s game, while Myers left practice on Wednesday with a groin issue.
About the only guarantee in the back is that Besler will occupy one of the center back spots and Espinoza will move back over to his usual place at left back.
But lineup roulette or not, Vermes is satisfied with the job his back line has done so far. Kansas City have given up five goals, but one was a debatable penalty, two were down a man and the others were preventable with a little instruction and fine-tuning on the practice field.
“You never want to give up goals,” Vermes said. “But in both games, they are things that can be solved very easily. The more and more guys that come back either from injury or international duty are going to be a big help. We can get more and more consistency within the team. All that helps in our favor.”
