Besler's Path to Break the Record Books

Back when news was first starting to really come out about Matt Besler and a potential move abroad, Besler's agent, Eddie Rock said that there were really only three options for Besler, a move to the EPL, a move to the German Bundesliga, or stay with Sporting KC.

Rock said in the article that “If Matt re-signs with the league now, his intentions would be to be a one-club player for the rest of his career. His goal would be to finish atop Sporting and the Wizards in all-time appearances and longest captaincy. He would try to build a dynasty there,”

With Besler having signed a new contract with the club making him a designated player and it rumored to keep him in KC through 2018, let's take a look at Besler's path to set the records for the club for appearances in league and all competitions and minutes played in both. I currently don't have a list of who the captain was for each game in KC (maybe I can bug Sporting for that), but if I do I will pass that information along too.

Currently Besler is 12th in team history for league appearances, with 138 and tied for 11th in all competitions with 165. Davy Arnaud is the team's leader in league appearances with 240, while Kerry Zavagnin is the leader in all competitions with 291. With 14 games left this year in league play I'd expect Besler to play in most. In all competitions I'd expect anywhere from 16 to 20 games this season. In league play that would put Besler at 152 league appearances. That would leave Besler less than 90 appearances away from Arnaud's team record for league appearances. Besler would basically need to average 22 appearances over the next four seasons to tie Arnaud.

In all competitions, Besler will have over 180 appearances, so he'll be somewhere around 100 appearances short of Zavagnin's clubs record in all competitions. So 25 appearances a season over the next four seasons would see him top Zavagnin's record.

When it comes to starts, Besler has 133 starts in league play and 158 in all competitions, both have him in 9th place. The club record for both of those is held by Zavagnin, 228 in league, 281 in all competitions. With 14 league games left this year, Besler could finish with 147 starts, leaving him only 81 starts short of Zavagnin's record. Just over 20 league starts a season over the next four and he'd reach it. In all competitions Besler is likely to have around 175 starts, just over 100 short of Zavagnin's record. Again a little over 25 starts over the next four years in all competitions and Besler will top Zavagnin's record there.

The other club records that this will put him in line for is the most minutes played in league and in all competitions.  Currently both are held by Zavagnin, 20,516 in league play 25,290 in all competitions. Besler sits at 12,051 in league play and 14,397 in all competitions. Good for 9th on each of those lists. So with 14 games and 1,260 minutes still available to play, Belser is 8,465 minutes short in league play. If Besler plays every league minute the rest of the way he'll be 7,205 away from Zavagnin's club record. In his prior five seasons before this one, Besler averaged just under 2,200 minutes a season, that would mean that it'd take about three and a half seasons to top Zavagnin if he follows his average.

In all competitions, Besler is 10,893 minutes behind Zavagnin. Besler's minutes the last three seasons have been quite a bit higher than his league averaging over 3,000 minutes a season in all competitions over the last three years. If he keeps a similar pace up it will take just over three years again for him to top Zavagnin for the club record.

All goals that are certainly well within reach of Besler in the next few years. I have little doubt that as long as he avoid serious injury, he will be re-writing the Sporting KC/KC Wizards record books before he retires.