The best year of Busio’s professional life (so far) continues. KC’s along for the ride
Gianluca Busio will soon be gone, somewhere else, across the Atlantic Ocean. Italy makes the most sense, but teams in Spain and England and everywhere else would be happy to have him. He’s all grown up now.
This is the path that Busio and Sporting Kansas City have always envisioned. This is the best-case scenario, one that would take Busio away from here and onto a bigger soccer stage where he can see just how high he can reach in this sport.
This week, Busio, just 19, realized a career high and major mile-marker — his first call-up to the United States Men’s National Team. There is a lot of Busio in this column, but also a little Kansas City, and however this story goes from here we know that Busio could be one of our most important and influential soccer players ever.
Coming to KC
Busio was born and raised in North Carolina, but he moved here at age 15 on a homegrown-player contract — which means you could say Kansas City is where he made his career.
He is a brilliant talent, and his career is something like a rocket ship nearing the countdown’s end. He is the second-youngest player ever selected to a USMNT Gold Cup roster, but also a 60-appearance veteran who is the best and most important player on Sporting KC’s most entertaining team in years.
Now, he’ll make his international debut in his home stadium, with the USMNT playing all three of its group-stage games at Children’s Mercy Park beginning on July 11.
“It’s special,” he told The Star’s soccer correspondent, Shaun Goodwin. “I started my career here and I did everything to get to the national team. I started my career in Kansas, so it’ll be really special to make a home debut (there) for my country.”
Busio will never be as intrinsically connected to Kansas City as Matt Besler, who grew up in Overland Park and played 12 seasons for Sporting and 47 games for the USMNT. He will not have the length of career here as Besler or Graham Zusi, who has appeared in more games than anyone in Sporting history.
But he does have the chance to contribute to Kansas City soccer in similar ways, to effectively stand on the shoulders of those soon-to-be-ex teammates and lift an already thriving culture even higher.
The successes and failures of the national team have always been more important here than in other countries with more established bases of talent and interest. The United States is building some real international momentum, and Busio’s Gold Cup inclusion is the first step in him being part of that rise.
To be sure, the Gold Cup roster is not the World Cup roster. Stars like Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie — important parts of top-shelf European clubs, and critical in the USMNT’s win over Mexico last month — will not participate in the games at Children’s Mercy Park.
But this is the beginning of Busio’s opportunity to work his way into the most important matches. This is the beginning of casual soccer fans in Kansas City having a little more reason to watch the USMNT’s games, and for people here to see a game and think, Hey, I know that guy.
Not a token player
Busio is not a fringe inclusion.
He was not a borderline call, or called up as a favor. The truth is he is one of the top players in America, with FotMob’s highest overall match rating of any MLS player on the Gold Cup preliminary roster. He is expected to play center and defensive midfield, his primary positions with Sporting KC.
“His time has come,” USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter said.
So this is a big moment for Busio, and that’s obvious.
It’s also a big moment for Sporting, because with offers from European clubs already in hand, this is a bet that Busio can drive his asking price even higher with strong performances not just in MLS, but now, potentially, the Gold Cup.
But it should not be missed that this is important for Kansas City, no matter whether Busio’s last game here comes in the Gold Cup or the end of this MLS season or (less likely) sometime further in the future.
We can be a parochial people. It’s sometimes said that Kansas City can be skeptical of outsiders, but once you cross an imaginary threshold we grab on and won’t let go. Busio’s family remains in North Carolina, but by now he has family here, too — not just the hosts with whom he’s lived, but a network of teammates and coaches and fans and others around town he can call friends.
We might be a little too sensitive to some insecurities — please talk barbecue, and don’t you dare say the f-word* here. But if you clear those reasonable hurdles, we’ll love you forever. Vlatko Andonovski had never heard of Kansas City before coming here to play for the Comets, but by now you can bet your locally prideful hind parts that he’s one of us.
*Flyover, of course.
The point here is that 2021 was always going to be an important and exciting time in Busio’s career. This is a graduation of sorts, from prospect to USMNT, and soon from MLS to Europe.
But with each day that goes by we also know something else, that this isn’t Busio saying goodbye to Kansas City, but him taking us along for the ride.