Wizards news for the week.

Well the Wizards have moved down to FL to continue their preseason preparing for the 2007 season, and here is some news about the boys in Blue. Before I start though I wanna make a note for everyone to know as I have seen mentioned quite often around bigsoccer and other forums.

Yes the Wizards have a new logo this season, it is their old secondary logo. That said, the team's uniforms will still have the rainbow logo on them for this season. Below you can see both logos.


new primary logo






old primary logo, now secondary, but will appear on uniforms




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Some bad news to start with unfortunately. It looks as though Wizards defender Matt Groenwald is gonna be out of action for a while due to blood clots that were first found in his knee and now apparently found in his lung. This is sad and terrible news for Groenwald who was looking to get more minutes this season after being pushed to the bench after Bliss took over.

Continuing with some player news, apparently Alex Zotinca is no longer on the Wizards team. While there has been no official announcement from the team about this, a person that works for the Wizards posted on bigsoccer today that "He's no longer with the team." He was out of contract so it would seem the team decided against renegotiating.

Also missing from camp right now are Will John and first round draft pick, Michael Harrington, have been called into the US U-23(Olympic team) camp out at the Home Depot Center.

Speaking of Harrington, an interesting article on Yanks Abroad.com about the 23 players on the roster for South Africa 2010. Basically a break down of who they believe will make the 23 man roster, I assume this will be a regular column that they'll update. 4 Wizards made the list in some form. Jimmy Conrad and Eddie Johnson are both currently in their 23 man roster. On the outside, both Harrington and Jose Burciaga are listed as potential players that could move into the picture.

And back to John for a moment, there is a nice little video about him on the Wizards front page. He also had an article about him in the Star as well.

Connected with that article was a note about the other Wizards players who are from KC.

The Wizards fell in their first preseason match against Red Bull, down in FL on Tuesday, 3-1. Apparently the Wizards went with a rather makeshift lineup, especially with multiple players being away on national team duty or with injury. Red Bull apparently started the game with what looked to be their starting 11 for the regular season.

Definitly stay tuned to KC Wizards.com over the course of their preseason, as they've been doing a good job of giving training reports. Monday. Second Monday update. Wednesday. Thursday. These are great, it's enjoyable to know what the boys are up to and how they are doing.

Today the Wizards played the Crew in their second preseason match. According to a poster on bigsoccer who posted pictures in the Wizards forum, the Wizards lost 1-0. Here are the pictures as well as those for the match against Red Bull for those interested. (Credit to wembley on bigsoccer)

For those interested, early this Sunday morning on Fox Soccer Channel you can watch former Wizard Diego Walsh play for Adelaide United in the A-League Grand Final. Just remember you can't spell "I'm freaking crap" without Diego "I'm freaking crap" Walsh. Even if he did score in the PKs to help United get to the finals.

Finally, get to know the Wizards new number 1 goalie, Kevin Hartman. First through the KC Star article from earlier this week. Then through the interview on KC Wizards.com. And speaking of Kevin, a bit of a humorous look at the lack of female compaionship for the team on Valentine's Day thanks to Sasha, Kerry, and Kevin.