There was a blink-and-you-missed-it little nugget that Oriol Rosell dropped into his interview with Barcelona daily Sport earlier this week:
Sporting Kansas City will supposedly face Manchester City at some point in 2014.
“We're at the level [of the English Premier League], we have good players,” the holding midfielder said. “For example, two are in the US national team that will play in the World Cup. We are a tough team. Two years ago, Kansas beat Manchester United in a friendly and this year, we will play [Manchester] City."
That was it. No details of when or where, if it's part of some midsummer competition or what. But certainly the first we've heard of this.
MLSsoccer.com reached out to Sporting KC on Friday and was supplied with the following statement:
"After a busy 2013, we're certainly eager to bring a big-named opponent to Sporting Park next year, but we are in the early stages of that process," said a club spokesman. "We've gotten interest from a few teams that want to come play us at Sporting Park, but we are far from the point of signing any contracts."
Such a friendly would certainly play into what Sporting CEO Robb Heineman routinely teases on Twitter about a big-name visitor to the City of Fountains. SB Nation's The Daily Wiz blog did some background digging and came up with some good evidence to suggest that a visit from Sergio Agüero & Co. wouldn't be out of the question.
