That’s Rad, man: Sporting Kansas City signs Academy product as newest Homegrown Player
Peter Vermes has a very specific set of criteria for what he wants to see from his center-backs at Sporting Kansas City.
New homegrown signing Kaveh Rad fits the mold.
SKC announced the signing of 19-year-old Rad Monday as a Homegrown Player, making him the 11th academy product on KC’s current roster.
Rad has made 38 appearances for Sporting Kansas City II over the past two seasons and was awarded a professional contract following an impressive preseason showing.
A North Carolina native, Rad has signed a two-year deal with the club through 2022 with options for 2023 and 2024.
“I was incredibly impressed with the way that he performed during preseason and I just like his mentality in the position,” Vermes said. “I also like his instincts as well, he’s well-deserving of the opportunity, for sure.”
Rad’s mentality and instincts have played a major part in Vermes offering him a first-team contract, but they’re not the only factors.
At Sporting KC, from the first team all the way down to the youth academy, every player has something called an Individual Development Plan (IDP). Assigned by the coaching staff, each IDP is unique to the player, with general goals based on a player’s required positional characteristics, as well as areas in which he can improve individually.
For a center-back, that includes having good instincts and spatial awareness, braveness, decision-making, the ability to be vocal, and as Vermes put it, “sometimes you’ve got to be nasty.”
For Rad specifically, Vermes has been impressed with his prowess in the air and ability to play with the ball at his feet.
The latter point is most important for Vermes.
“(Defenders) wind up being on the ball a lot as we build up out of the back,” Vermes said. “We’re not just a team that lumps the ball forward.”
And although Rad ticks the boxes for all of those characteristics, Vermes noted that he can also be “nasty.” The coach doesn’t mean to say Rad’s a dirty player by any means, but rather that he’s tough and strong in the challenge.
“He has a level of courage and braveness in his play which I really admire a lot and hope continues to grow and then he stays very confident in that regard,” Vermes said.
Rad said he got that mentality from his father, who got him into soccer as a child and was the first person Rad called upon learning he had been offered a contract.
“He’s always said you’ve got to work for everything, so if you have to do it nasty, then you just do it nasty, and that’s the way I look at it,” Rad said. “If it’s not pretty, then you have to do it a different way.”
Rad becomes the fifth center-back on Sporting KC’s roster and will be available for the first game of the season April 17 at the New York Red Bulls.
This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 6:19 PM with the headline "That’s Rad, man: Sporting Kansas City signs Academy product as newest Homegrown Player."