Sassano, Thomas, Nielsen, and Bravo News

Some quick bits of news on four Kansas City players from this past season. First, with regards to the re-entry draft (more on the draft as a whole later). Kansas City has two players that have been played into the draft, Luke Sassano and Shavar Thomas. Neither one is incredibly surprising. Thomas was 100% expected after he wasn't waived, the Jamaican international made only 3 substitute appearances in MLS play this past season. Thomas, who made $160,000 last year, came to KC last year from Philadelphia via trade and helped KC to stop some of the bleeding in the middle of defense, but fell so far down the depth chart KC wasn't even dressing a back up center back, instead if Matt Besler or Aurelien Collin weren't able to go, Julio Cesar would drop from midfield to defense. Sassano, who started off on a 3 month contract, earning a contract for the rest of the season after impressing enough, finished the season making $51,600. He played in 9 games, starting 5 after coming to KC last year via trade LA in a trade of re-entry draft participants as KC sent Frankie Hejduk the other direction. Sassano scored his first goal in the team's 4-1 win over Dallas.

Last week it was announced that Jimmy Nielsen has signed a contract extension with Sporting KC. Word out of Denmark is that Nielsen will see a pay raise of about $76,000 over his $200,000 last year (1,530,000 Danish Krone equals $276,000 US). A decent pay raise for the Dane, one that he has probably earned over the past two years with his play. (H/T to The Front Men)

Finally, some Omar Bravo news, also courtesy of The Front Men originally. Bravo's agent, Ruben Perez told ESPN Deportes that Bravo is not going to be going to Mexico on loan during the offseason. There had been rumors of Tecos and Atlas both being interested in bringing in the former Mexican international on loan. But all that talk all died down a few weeks ago when Tecos said that they were going to be unable to do a deal because of KC's demands. With KC wanting Bravo back for the beginning of the 2012 season, Bravo would have only been able to play 7 games in Mexico, which wasn't worth it to Tecos. At that point you expected that Bravo wouldn't be going anywhere, but this confirms it.