FCKC Draw with Expansion Dash

FC Kansas City draws 2-2 with Houston Dash at Verizon Wireless Field in front of 1,483 fans.  The Blues credit two beautiful goals to Lauren Holiday and Erika Tymrak. Jordan Jackson and Tiffany McCarty scored Houston's goals for the night. Each team takes a point away from tonight's match bringing Kansas City to 11 points and Houston to 4.

The match started with a bang when Tymrak played a through ball to Holiday who easily found the back of the net in the second minute. Houston answered the early goal when Jackson netted one with an assist from Nina Burger. Erika Tymrak played a ball through her defender's legs to hit the upper 90 and score Kansas City's second goal. Houston would try to retaliate, but the first half would end.

Both teams played with even more intensity in the second half. Goalkeepers Nicole Barnhart and Erin McLeod were put to the test with shots fired from all angles. In the 78th minute, Tiffany McCarty netted the equalizer on a play from Ella Masar. Two Dash players received yellow cards in the match. Burger received her's the 65th minute for fouling Tymrak. Osinachi Ohale was shown the other in the 90th minute.  Kansas City's Nikki Phillips received a yellow card in the 79th for a rough foul.

FCKC Win Big on the Road

From FC Kansas City

FC Kansas City picked up their second victory of the season tonight at BBVA Compass Stadium. In their first matchup against the National Women’s Soccer League’s  (NWSL) newest team, four different players scored on the way to the 4-0 victory.

On a beautiful night for soccer, Kansas City had an attacking mindset from the opening kickoff. Within the first two minutes, they had already earned their first corner kick, which Lauren Holiday nearly curled into the goal. By the eleventh minute, Amy Rodriguez had already broken through the Houston backline twice. Only some excellent saves from Dash goalkeeper, Erin McLeod, kept the visitors off the board.

Fortunately for Kansas City, she couldn’t stop them all though. In the 12^th minute, Lauren Holiday slotted a pass between two Houston defenders where Liz Bogus was able to run onto it and tuck away a shot under the sliding goalkeeper for the first score of the night and a 1-0 lead that would last through the opening half.

FC Kansas City didn’t let up the pressure to begin the second half. After only two minutes of the period, Rodriguez was able to run onto a pass from rookie Jenna Richmond and outmuscle two Dash defenders for her fourth goal in five matches.

Kansas City didn’t relax after that. In the 58^th minute, Rodriguez again broke free for another one-on-one run to goal. Houston defender Osinachi Ohale caught up to Rodriguez and tackled her from behind, just outside of the penalty box. The move earned Ohale a red card and forced the Dash to play short-handed for the remainder of the match.

Erika Tymrak and Frances Silva entered the match shortly after the Ohale incident. The two helped Kansas City to control the midfield as they passed the ball all over the field throughout the rest of the match. In the 80^th minute, Tymrak received a pass from Richmond to bring her up to the top of the penalty box. As she looked for the inside pass, she saw a small window between Dash defenders and took a quick shot that beat McLeod near-post.

Silva, made the most of her playing time as well. In the 89^th minute she carried the ball through the midfield, then sent a long pass into the penalty box to Holiday. The 2013 NWSL MVP immediately returned the pass to Silva who placed her shot in the top corner of the far post where McLeod had no shot of touching it. The rookie’s first professional goal was the cap on FC Kansas City’s 4-0 victory.

FC Kansas City continues its road trip with a mid-week matchup against Western New York Flash on Wednesday, May 7 at 6:00p.m. CT. The game will be shown live on FCKansasCity.com

FC Kansas City Stock Piling Draft Picks

FC Kansas City added two more draft picks to their collection today ahead of Friday's NWSL draft. Through two trades, FCKC added a second and a third round pick giving them a grand total of six for Friday's draft.

First today, the Blues announced that they'd acquired the 19th overall pick in the draft, the first pick of the third round from the Houston Dash in exchange for goalkeeper, Bianca Henninger. Henninger's position on the team became expendable after KC was allocated Mexican international goalkeeper Cecilia Santiago. The 19 year old had been with the Boston Breakers last year. But her addition, and KC keeping Nicole Barnhart left KC with three keepers. Henninger seemed the likely candidate to depart and will not go to Houston where she'll be the back up for Canadian national team goalkeeper, Erin McLeod.

A little later in the day, the Blues announced another trade. This one saw FCKC acquire a second round pick, the 16th overall from the Portland Thorns in exchange for midfielder Sinead Farrelly. Farrelly appeared in 16 of the Blues' 22 games last season, starting 10 of them. She also scored one goal. She'll now join up with her former coach, Paul Riley in Portland.

FCKC Lose Sesselmann in Expansion Draft

The NWSL held their first expansion draft today for the Houston Dash. The 10 round draft saw Houston able to select 10 players from the existing eight teams.

In the third round of the draft, the Dash selected Canadian international, Lauren Sesselmann from Kansas City. The defender had formed a solid partnership with Becky Sauerbrunn last year as FCKC finished second in the overall standings.

On the other side of things though, the rumors are that Sesselmann will not be returning to the NWSL at all. That she will join former Blues' teammate, Desiree Scott in Europe with another team. I'm sure the Dash will make a play to keep Sesselmann here, but I don't see that as a likely outcome.

One of the surprises of the draft though was who the Blues protected when Sesselmann was selected. They protected the rights to one of their discovery players, Sarah Hagen. Hagen is a 24 year old forward that currently plays for Bayern Munich's women's team. She's scored 51 goals in 38 games for the German side. That's the same German team that two FCKC players, Erika Tymrak and Bianca Henninger, went on loan to this winter. It certainly seems like she could be a big help to FCKC's offense if they can get her to return to the US.  Hagen was also called up this past December to a two week camp with the US women's team.

For the expansion draft, here's the full list of players taken by Houston.

Brittany Bock (Sky Blue FC)
Tiffany McCarty (Washington)
Lauren Sesselmann (Kansas City)
Meleana Shim (Portland Thorns)
Ella Masar (Chicago)
Meghan Klingenberg (Boston)
Arianna Romero (Seattle Reign FC)
Becky Edwards (Portland Thorns)
Danesha Adams (Sky Blue FC)
Kika Toulouse (Washington)

NWSL Expansion Draft Friday

The NWSL will hold it's first expansion draft on Friday for the new Houston Dash franchise that will start play in the 2014 season. The team has already been allocated three players, but will able to pick up two more US internationals Friday. They can also pick up another Canadian and another Mexican international if they so choose.

For FC Kansas City, they will be able to protect nine players in the draft. All four playoff teams (Portland, Sky Blue, and Western NY) will be able to protect nine players. The four clubs that missed the playoffs (Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Washington) will be able to protect 10 players. Teams can lose up to two players in the draft.

All teams must leave at least one of their allocated US internationals available for the draft. What that means is one of Nicole Barnhart, Lauren Holiday, Amy Rodriguez, and Becky Sauerbrunn will be left exposed in the draft. The good news is that if KC does lose one of these players, it's the only one they'll lose. If a team loses a US international, that's the only player they'll lose in the draft.

Teams are also required to protect on loan players from another league, non-allocated internationals and contractual agreement limiting movement between teams.  I'm not sure if any of KC's players fall into those categories. The closest may be Nikki Krzysik who is an American citizen and has represented the US at the youth level, but now represents Poland.

As for who KC will protect, I'm sure on a few of the players, they'll protect three of their US internationals, most likely Holiday and Rodriguez. Not sure which of Barnhart and Sauerbrunn will be the third though. Whichever isn't picked I expect could be on their way to Houston as you have the goalkeeper of the year and the defender of the year in the 2013 season available.

I also expect KC to protect both of their Canadian players, even if neither one comes back in the 2014 season. Desiree Scott and Lauren Sesselmann are too good to leave exposed even if they are leaving.

Up to five of the nine now I think the team protects their two fringe national team players as well in Leigh Ann Robinson and Erika Tymrak. With the eighth spot and the potential of Scott leaving, I make sure I protect Jen Buczkowski as well to keep some of KC's midfield bit. For the final spot, you either protect Krzysik if the league requires it, or you protect someone like Melissa Henderson, Sinead Farrelly, or Merritt Mathias. The protected list will come out on Wednesday, at which time we'll get a better idea of who the Blues could lose.