More bad news for Sporting KC: midfielder Gadi Kinda will miss remainder of MLS season
Sporting Kansas City midfielder Gadi Kinda will be out for the remainder of the 2022 season and needs a cartilage-restoration procedure in his right knee, the team announced on Friday.
Kinda, a talented 28-year-old Israeli national, has been placed on Major League Soccer’s season-ending injury list and is expected to miss the next 7-9 months for the surgery and subsequent recovery and rehabilitation.
In January, when he announced that striker and Mexican national team star Alan Pulido would be forced to sit out the season with his own injury, Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes told reporters that Kinda would miss only the start of the current MLS campaign — bad news, but not catastrophic.
Problem was, Kinda’s original timeline for recovery would’ve probably brought him back by now. That never happened, and on Friday, Vermes said Kinda’s current rehab timeline will stretch much longer than that.
“He should’ve been playing by now,” said Vermes, who described Kinda’s injury as a bone-related issue. ”As time has gone on, he’s gotten some pain in a part of his knee that needs attention.”
The bottom line here is that Sporting KC (2-6-1) will be missing its two designated players all year, and that sort of development will be extremely difficult for an already struggling team to overcome.
In Kinda’s case, MLS roster constraints are a key factor. Because he was placed on the season-ending injury list, Sporting KC will receive a small amount of salary cap relief and get back his senior roster spot and international slot.
All of that is helpful, but Kinda remains a designated player, and DP spots cannot be replaced with new designated players midseason. MLS teams are limited to three DP spots apiece on their rosters, and captain Johnny Russell and Pulido currently occupy Sporting’s other two.
Sporting KC will nevertheless seek to make some sort of roster move. They’re mired in 12th place in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference, with just six goals scored through nine games, so they know they must.
But their options will be limited.
“I believe that we’ve always been financially responsible on the (salary) cap,” Vermes. “You try to prepare for a rainy day, and it’s a rainy day.”
With the primary transfer window set to close next week, Sporting KC won’t be able to get something done by then, Vermes said. So Sporting will have to wait until July 7 — the opening date of the secondary transfer window — to bolster the roster. The secondary transfer window remains open through Aug. 4.
As for what type of player the team might look to add, that’s uncertain. He’ll have to be the right fit in Vermes’ system.
“It’ll be a player than can help us, a player that can fit in financially to the cap, and that’s how we’re going to have to deal with it,” Vermes said.
For now, they have what they have. Every healthy midfielder on Sporting’s current roster has played some minutes in 2022, and that’s going to continue.
“Unfortunately guys get hurt,” veteran midfielder Roger Espinoza said. “That’s the nature of our sport. As a team, we’re united and trying to take the team forward and win games.”
Their next chance for a victory and three points arrives on Saturday, when Sporting KC plays host to red-hot FC Dallas at 7:30 p.m. Central Time at Children’s Mercy Park.
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 3:58 PM with the headline "More bad news for Sporting KC: midfielder Gadi Kinda will miss remainder of MLS season."