Besler, Zusi on US Roster. New Assistant for SKC?

Two bits of news today regarding Sporting Kansas City. The first is that Sporting KC's Matt Besler and Graham Zusi have both been named to the US national team provisional roster ahead of the USA's CONCACAF Cup match up against Mexico at the Rose Bowl on October 10th. The match will decide which country will represent CONCACAF in Russia at the 2017 Confederations Cup. The team will be cut down to 23 later. The good news for KC is that they are off from MLS play that weekend which means Besler and Zusi wouldn't miss any league games for Kansas City while away if they make the final roster for the game.

The other news today is that it appears that KC will have a new assistant coach next season. Today the head coach of the Ottawa Fury, Marc dos Santos announced that he would be stepping down at the end of the season to pursue a coaching position within MLS. Immediately speculation turned to Montreal, where dos Santos had been an assistant and head coach back when the club had been in the lower divisions. It appears though that dos Santos is instead heading to Kansas City to join Sporting KC's technical staff as an assistant coach.

If nothing else changes, it'd be the first time that KC has four assistant coaches since Octavio Zambrano left after the 2011 season. Since then, Peter Vermes' assistants have been Kerry Zavagnin, Zoran Savic, and John Pas. The other option is that KC could do something similar to what the LA Galaxy did when they set up "Los Dos." Rumors have been around for a while that KC will be fielding a "two" team in the USL next season instead of having an affiliation with the Oklahoma City Energy. When LA added their USL team last year, assistant coach Curt Onalfo moved from being an assistant under Bruce Arena to being the head coach of "Los Dos." It wouldn't surprise me if KC does something similar with Zavagnin and he gets his first head coaching job with the USL team. With Zavagnin's tenure under Vermes it would probably create an easier transition between the second and first team as Zavagnin would likely be instituting the same style as Vermes uses with the first team.

Dos Santos on the surface appears to be a solid hire for Kansas City. I don't follow the NASL a whole lot, but from reading people that do, this is a good move for Kansas City.