Thursday, December 18, 2014

Sporting Add Nemeth and Marin, Pass on Re-Entry Draft

After being mentioned that deals were close, today Sporting KC confirmed the signings of Krisztian Nemeth and Luis Marin. The 25 year old Hungarian last played with Roda JC Kerkrade in the Dutch league. Nemeth was starting to become a regular for Hungary during their 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign, appearing in five of their qualifiers, scoring one goal. His last appearance for his country though was back in October of 2013 when he played in Hungary's 2-0 win over Andorra, the game right after coach, Sandor Egervari, resigned. Since then he's been unable to get a call up from the next two coaches.

Coming into KC, Nemeth can play any of the three forward positions according to Vermes, which should give KC some options up top next season. Nemeth has experiencing playing in a 4-3-3 system, so that part of his transition should be okay, it'll depend on whether he can adjust to Vermes' high press usage of the formation. As I mentioned yesterday, he certainly has the pedigree to do well in MLS with the likes of Liverpool and Olympiacos on his resume. The question will be whether he is going to be able to stay healthy (an issue that's dogged him for much of his career).

Marin will come in and likely be Kansas City's starting goalkeeper in the 2015 season. The Chilean has mainly been a back up to Chile's number 2 goalkeeper at Club Universidad de Chile, but has been a starter much of the rest of his career. He's also played a role with his national team, appearing eight times for Chile and was on the country's roster for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

From watching some highlight videos, Marin seems to be a quick distributor of the ball. That's something that Kansas City really hasn't had, but with the way that KC likes to play, could be a useful tool for the club this year.

In other news, true to Robb Heineman's word in his Q&A on Twitter the other night, Sporting didn't have any interest in anyone in the second stage of the re-entry draft. The team passed on their pick in today's draft.

No comments: