Pascarella Leaves Sporting for Des Moines Menace

For the first time in a while, Sporting KC will have to replace a member of their coaching staff. Today it was announced that assistant coach, John Pascarella, was departing the club, taking the head coaching position with the Des Moines Menace of the PDL. Pascarella departs after spending eight years with the club under two different head coaches. Pascarella joined the club in 2009 after a stint as head coach of the Northern Virginia Royals of the PDL. After initially serving as the club's goalkeeping and fitness coach, he became an assistant coach in 2011.

Pascarella has worked with two of the better goalkeepers in the club's history, Kevin Hartman and Jimmy Nielsen and had spent time working with KC's current crop of goalkeepers. Replacing him will be interesting to see what direction KC goes. If they go with an internal hire, do they look at Swope Park Rangers goalkeeper coach, Alec Dufty, who also has academy coaching duties, or Andy Gruenebaum, who is also an academy goalkeeping coach and is no longer one of KC's on air personalities for game days. They could also look outside the organization if they wanted to, some fans have already thrown out another Sporting KC goalkeeping legend, Tony Meola. Meola had last been head coach of the Jacksonville Armada before being fired in early August, just nine months into his first stint as a head coach.