Jimmy Conrad saw soccer in KC at its nadir. Now he’s thrilled the World Cup is coming

Defender Jimmy Conrad couldn’t be blamed for feeling unsettled during his first few years in Kansas City following a 2003 trade with the San Jose Earthquakes.

The Wizards, who would later rebrand as Sporting Kansas City, seemed to be on the cusp of relocation to New York, Philadelphia or maybe even San Antonio.

Lamar Hunt, who owned the Wizards, once gathered the team and said a move to Texas might be happening.

“For us, me and Lindsey at the time had no kids, but we were like, man, we just moved to Kansas City,” Conrad said. “We’re just getting settled here. Is this going to be real? He just didn’t have any answers other than they just had to look at it from a business perspective.”

Instead of moving the franchise, Hunt sold the team in 2006 to a new ownership group.

The Wizards became Sporting Kansas City, built a new training facility and moved into their own stadium. After that, the National Performance Center was built in Kansas City, Kansas.

Women’s soccer also has taken root. The Current’s new training facility opened last month, and the team will move into its own stadium in 2024.

Soccer, once on life-support in Kansas City, now has roots as deep as a Cedar tree.

The crowning achievement will be coming in four years when Kansas City is a host city for the World Cup, and Conrad could not be happier.

“I’m absolutely buzzing for everybody that helped grow the game in that city,” Conrad said, “because I feel like this is the culmination of a lot of hard work and a lot of thankless work for some people that maybe don’t get the same type of attention, adoration and notoriety as some of the ones that are the face of the movement.”

A watershed moment for soccer

Those World Cup games in Kansas City will be played at Arrowhead Stadium, the same place where the Wizards struggled to attract fans in the first decade of its existence.

After Hunt’s flirtation with relocation, he eventually sold the franchise to a group of local investors in the late summer of 2006. The new owners, known then as OnGoal LLC and now called Sporting Club, realized a new stadium would help spur interest in the team.

As it searched for a place to build a home, the Wizards left Arrowhead Stadium and played at Legends Field from 2008-’10. But the Wizards returned to Arrowhead for an exhibition game against English powerhouse, Manchester United, in 2010.

“I thought that we were just gonna get a lot of the bandwagon Manchester United fans within a couple hundred miles who wanted to come see them, and rightfully so. It’s not often you get Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes and those types, Sir Alex Ferguson, in the middle of the country here in the U.S.,” Conrad recalled.

Instead, a record 52,342 were on hand that day to see the Wizards win 2-1 in a pulsating game that included Conrad getting a red card.

That victory on July 25, 2010 turned out to be a big moment in Sporting KC’s history and for soccer in Kansas City.

“There was still that undercurrent of support for us to maybe go get a result and obviously when Davy (Arnaud) scores first, you start to get a little bit more of that belief that maybe we can take these guys over 90 minutes,” Conrad said. ”I don’t care if it was a friendly or not, it was really important for Kansas City and for our team to showcase what we were capable of and it doesn’t always have to turn into victories.

“It’s just going out there and saying, ‘We can run with these guys and we can play and we can hold our own against them.’ And I thought we did that in that game and obviously being the man down because I got the old red card. We still found a way to get a result and I think that was a another big moment for us.”

An ever bigger one would come 11 months later when Children’s Mercy Park opened. The Wizards had rebranded as Sporting Kansas City, and they finally had a home of their own.

The team no longer had to play at a football or baseball stadium. Sporting KC was in a place built for soccer, and fans soon flocked to check out soccer. They liked what they were seeing.

“You’re part of something now. You’re part of this community and culture that’s been built around the game that’s ours and we can put our stamp and identity on it,” Conrad said of the stadium’s importance. “We can make the supporter section so important to being a part of the action and almost the 12th man on the field. When you have that type of kind of intimacy with the team and with the people that come, and you’re starting to build your own traditions and not necessarily borrowing from any other sports that you were sharing a stadium with, that’s so important. I really feel like that was a watershed moment for the game and the city.

“You knew that it was there, but you just felt like we weren’t being treated as first class (at Arrowhead Stadium). They handed out thousands of tickets, I’m sure to get the people there. Everything was devalued.

“And then when you finally make something that’s your own, then the buy-in is different and I think that was pretty evident once the new stadium was built. And again it’s a testament to the owners for having the vision and (manager) Peter Vermes for getting them there. And I know they didn’t need convincing on all the things, but I’m sure there was some convincing he had to do behind the scenes to make sure that was considered a first-class organization in every facet.”

‘The city deserves to be a World Cup city’

Unfortunately for Conrad, he wasn’t with the franchise when it moved into Children’s Mercy Park.

Sporting Kansas City let Conrad go after the 2010 season, and he played just two games with Chivas USA before his career came to an end.

But Conrad still has deep ties to Kansas City and is a member of Sporting KC’s hall of honor, the Sporting Legends.

Conrad, who once worried Kansas City would lose its MLS team, now is thrilled the city has been selected by FIFA to host games in the 2026 World Cup.

“With how far the game has grown in Kansas City, and the new ownership group taking the rightful plunge of really investing in the infrastructure, building the stadium and making sure there were facilities for a proper Youth Academy and the second team and all that, the city deserves to be a World Cup city,” Conrad said. “So I’m very excited that this all transpired the way it did. And the fact that they outlasted a couple of the other ones that were thinking they had in the bag.

“I’m still surprised Denver didn’t get one or Baltimore/DC. Orlando hosted in 94 can’t get a game this time around. I think it just really speaks to the growth, and KC, for me, it’s on top of the list.”