Sporting KC glad to have women’s soccer counterpart, KC NWSL, in Kansas City
Who would win in a one-on-one between Sporting Kansas City’s Johnny Russell and his daughter, Blake?
It’d be a close competition, but based on the most recent evidence, Blake might just have the edge.
The younger Russell was caught on camera tackling Sporting KC’s captain and running away from her dad with the ball following the club’s 1-1 tie with Orlando City last Friday.
“She’s getting more interested (in soccer),” Russell said Thursday. “The older she’s getting, she understands a bit more what it is that I do.”
Russell said that his family has started bringing a ball out with them wherever they go so Blake and her younger brother, Julius, can play soccer on the go. Blake is also starting to get excited about going to Children’s Mercy Park to watch her dad play.
She has the perfect soccer role model in her father, who has played in Kansas City since 2018 and was named the club’s new captain ahead of the 2021 season.
But as a young girl who’s just starting to get into the game, Johnny is excited that a whole team of role models for his daughter and other young girls around KC has recently arrived in KC:
Kansas City NWSL.
KC’s new National Women’s Soccer League squad was founded as an expansion team in December 2020 and played its inaugural game just four months later on April 9.
“It’s great, especially to bring women’s football back here — I think it’s a big thing,” Russell said, referencing FC Kansas City, the previous iteration of NWSL soccer in KC. “Especially for people like me, having a daughter myself and if that’s a path that she wants to go down, it’s great to have it here so she can see it. There’s a lot of other kids that will feel the same way, as well.”
KC NWSL played its inaugural home game Monday, falling 3-1 to the Houston Dash in front of a reduced-capacity sellout crowd at Children’s Mercy Park.
Russell was one of several Sporting KC players who attended the game, eager to show his support for Kansas City’s newest pro soccer team.
“It was a group of us that went to just show our support and it was a good game,” Russell said. “I thought they were really good. It’s a similar sort of style to the way we play, as well, so it’s nice to watch. The more games I can get to then I’ll definitely be there.”
Sporting KC head coach Peter Vermes is also pleased that an NWSL team has returned to Kansas City. The last women’s team to play in the league here won two championships in five seasons before moving to Utah.
“I always say that the more soccer, the better,” Vermes said.
The veteran coach, never one to mince words, also paid the women’s game a huge compliment in comparing it to the men’s game that he’s been part of since the 1980s.
“One of the things that I love about the girls’ game is that it seems like the girls are tougher than the guys, because they don’t get a foul and roll around for five minutes on the ground,” he said. “The girls get up and get on with the game quickly and I like the pace of the game and I like the competition.”
And who knows, maybe in 20 years Kansas City fans will be chanting “Blake Russell” from the stands as she runs down the wing.
If not? That’s OK, too.
“She does a lot of different things — she does gymnastics and tennis, as well,” Russell said. “It’s all about just giving her options and seeing what it is that she loves.
“If it’s this, I’m happy with that; if it’s something else, then I’m still happy.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2021 at 2:52 PM with the headline "Sporting KC glad to have women’s soccer counterpart, KC NWSL, in Kansas City."