Sporting KC eyes return to full-team practice as soon as next week, per MLS guidelines

For the first time in almost three months, Sporting Kansas City’s players will be able to walk onto the practice field as a full team.

Less than a week after Major League Soccer permitted “small-group training” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, MLS has now also lifted the full-team training moratorium it implemented on March 12. Sporting KC plans to start practicing as a full team again next week.

Removal of the moratorium is the final hurdle in preparing players for a return to competitive league play following the official announcement Wednesday by commissioner Don Garber that a tournament featuring MLS teams will soon take place at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports in Orlando.

Sporting KC has been at the forefront of developing league-wide plans for both individual workouts and small-group training.

“We’ve got to get to the point of where we’re starting to compete against each other as well, because right now everything is pretty defined,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes said. “Whereas you play against somebody, now you have to react, you have to anticipate and do different things.”

Individual workouts and small-group training were optional for players, but full training will be mandatory as teams seek to prepare for the Orlando tournament. A start date for the tourney hasn’t yet been confirmed.

Teams must present a reviewed and approved full-training plan from the club’s medical staff and local infectious disease experts before MLS will grant final approval to practice. Players will be required to show negative results in two separate “Polymerase Chain Reaction” tests 24 hours apart and 72 hours before training commences.

The so-called PCR test is a cheap method of testing for bacteria and viruses in which a sample of DNA is taken from the test subject before being split and duplicated in order to detect anomalies. Results of a PCR test can be known in a few hours.

Players and staff must also undergo a serology test — which specifically tests for COVID-19 antibodies — and a basic physical examination by team doctors.

A player would be allowed to practice once the physical and serology tests are complete and he registers negative twice in the PCR test. Any players or staff members who test positive will be isolated and tested again 24 hours later to ensure the result wasn’t a false positive. If a player or staff member is confirmed to be positive for the coronavirus, all players and staff with whom he came into close contact will also be retested.

Sporting KC started small-group training Thursday after MLS and the MLS Players Association came to an agreement on a revised collective-bargaining agreement Wednesday. Players across the league had sat out of small-group training, which was supposed to start Monday, until the new CBA was ratified.

Under the league’s small-group training guidelines, no more than six players can practice together as a group, with social-distancing guidelines remaining in effect.

But once full team training begins next week, it’ll pretty much be business as usual.

“There’s only so much you can do individually with a soccer ball,” captain and defender Matt Besler said. “Soccer’s a team game and you need teammates to move off of and play with.

“One of the big parts about us is we’re a possession team, and that means we need to start passing the ball to each other. So to be able to start doing that and getting our rhythm and timing back with how we pass each other the ball is a big step.”

Through individual and small-group training, players and coaches are limited to using only their outdoor practice fields. Now, clubs will be able to access their training rooms, gyms and fitness areas with up to five people in a room at a time. Players will also be allowed to use their team dressing rooms but are encouraged to use multiple dressing rooms as players’ lockers must remain more than 10 feet apart.

Several other protocols from small-group training will remain in place next week. Players will still have to complete screening questionnaires before arriving at practice, park in designated spots and stagger their arrival. Also, all equipment will be disinfected between practice sessions.

This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Sporting KC eyes return to full-team practice as soon as next week, per MLS guidelines."