Zusi on "Full Trial"

Last Friday we'd heard that Sporting KC midfielder, Graham Zusi would be heading to England to train with West Ham United before joining the US national team for "Camp Cupcake."  At the time I stated that there is no "training session" that all the training session are also trials, that West Ham wouldn't have brought Zusi in unless they were interested at least a little bit.

Today according to Greg Seltzer, he confirms that Zusi's time in London is in fact a trial.  It's one thing with me saying that all training sessions are trials.  It's another thing when a well respected journalist like Seltzer calls it a "full trial."

That said, I'd ask Sporting KC fans to take a step back from the ledge.  While Zusi's time with West Ham may be a full trial, I don't see Zusi leaving.  The reason is that Zusi just signed a new contract with Kansas City before the beginning of last season.  That new contract gave Zusi a nice raise and also prolonged his stay in KC.  Now if a team like West Ham wants to come in and get Zusi, they're going to have to pay KC a transfer fee to get him.  And with KC already having lost Roger Espinoza this offseason, it's going to have to be an extremely good offer for KC to part with the US national teamer.

OnGoal has also shown a commitment to winning and selling Zusi would, on the surface, appear to be counter productive to that commitment.  On the other side of things though,while KC would suffer from the loss of Zusi, they do have a player that offers many of the same things that Zusi brings.  Benny Feilhaber could step in and offer many of the same things that Zusi brings.  Although I think at this point Zusi is the more polished player than Feilhaber, should Zusi leave, I think Peter Vermes could get some of the same things that Zusi brings.  Not all of them but some. 

Like I said though, I don't expect Zusi to leave, I expect he'll have a decent trial there, Sam Allardyce will say some nice words about him, talk him up, but he'll return to the States, head to Carson, CA, then Houston for the Canada friendly (and then hopefully to Honduras for the World Cup qualifier).  He'll then return to KC to prepare for the 2013 season with Sporting KC.