Running throughout the season on Sports Radio 810 WHB, the Sporting Kansas City Show is available on several podcast hubs including Spotify and iTunes as well as SportingKC.com/SportingKCShow. With Nate Bukaty, Carter Augustine and Aly Trost hosting the weekly program, Sporting fans have a place to go to catch up on club storylines, guest interviews and more.
A new episode of the Sporting Kansas City Show debuted Tuesday night as hosts Nate Bukaty, Carter Augustine and Aly Trost caught up with one of the club’s all-time greats.
Davy Arnaud starred for Kansas City from 2002-2011, forging a legacy in the heart of the midfield before finishing his playing career with stints at the Montreal Impact and D.C. United.
Over the course of 40 minutes, the longtime veteran reflected on his favorite moments during Kansas City’s stunning transformation from MLS afterthought to one of the league’s model franchises.
“If someone had told me, let’s say in 2006, that someone was going to buy the team, they were going to build a training facility at Swope Park, and they are going to build a brand-new stadium that’s going to sell out every single game, I would have thought you were crazy,” Arnaud said. “To see where the sport is now in Kansas City, it was rewarding to be a little piece of that and (experienced) part of that journey.”
Among the several compelling talking points was a retrospective look at the Kansas City Wizards’ epic friendly match against European giants Manchester United, which took place in July 2010 at Arrowhead Stadium and will stream on SportingKC.com at 7 p.m. CT Thursday.
The Man United match is still regarded as a definitive turning point in club history—a moment that jettisoned Sporting on an upward trajectory and helped Kansas City flourish into a soccer hotbed.
“I really think that game did so much—not only for our team, but for soccer as a whole in Kansas City,” Arnaud said. “It made people open their eyes. When you put that on top of us opening (Children’s Mercy Park) the next year, it was a perfect situation.”
After ending his playing career and serving as a D.C. United assistant in 2016, Arnaud began a three-year spell as an assistant with the Houston Dynamo. He took interim head coaching duties at the club during the last few months of the 2019 campaign. Coaching, he says, was always going to be his next step after his time as a player had ended.
“To be honest, I couldn’t’ see myself doing anything else,” Arnaud said. “I love this league, I love this team and I love the day-to-day. I love being in the locker room. When I was playing, the thing that scared me the most about (retiring) was not being able to compete and be under pressure at a high level every single week. I couldn’t see myself living a life where that didn’t exist. The only way to keep being a part of something like that was to go into coaching.”
