Claros Departing Kansas City for China?

Reports out of Honduras today by journalist, Julio César Núñez are that Jorge Claros' time in Kansas City is coming to an end. Núñez is reporting that Claros is headed to join Qingdao Jonoon, of the Chinese League One (the second division in China).

The move, while a little surprising considering that Claros was brought in just this past summer, isn't a huge surprise. Since the end of the 2014 MLS season, Sporting has brought in Servando Carrasco, Roger Espinoza, James Marcelin, and Soni Mustivar, all of whom are more defensive minded midfielders, and when you add in Paulo Nagamura and Mikey Lopez, it was becoming obvious that someone was likely going to be leaving from KC's midfield. Claros along with Lopez were two of only four players (Mustivar and Jon Kempin the other two) on KC's roster who did not play in Sporting's last preseason game against Colorado on Wednesday.

Of the group, Claros was probably on the least sure-footing, he'd had issues adjusting to Sporting's style of play, something that all of Peter Vermes' midseason signings seem to struggle with during their first half a season with the club. But what probably put Claros in the dog house a bit was his three game suspension at the end of the 2014 season for "inappropriate language." The suspension as a whole is still an odd one as there was never really an announcement by the disciplinary committee about it, was never mentioned as happening in a game, and really there was never much said about it. The length of the suspension though matched the length of suspensions for players that used gay slurs, so the assumption is that the suspension was for that.

Claros will depart Kansas City having played just 12 games in all competitions since joining the club, seven in league play, four in the CONCACAF Champions League, and KC's one playoff game this past year. At the end of the season the thought had been that with a full preseason under Vermes that Claros would be able to contribute more in 2015, but if this is true, Vermes seems prepared to move on from the Honduran.