Zoran Savic has left Sporting Kansas City after 16 seasons as an assistant coach, the club announced today.
Sporting won the 2013 MLS Cup, hoisted three Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup titles (2012, 2015, 2017) and made 11 appearances in the MLS Cup Playoffs during Savic’s successful tenure as assistant coach from 2009-2024. The club has begun its search for his replacement ahead of the 2025 campaign.
“Zoran has helped our club experience tremendous success as a loyal member of the technical staff,” Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes said. “We thank him for all of his contributions and for his continued role in growing the game of soccer in Kansas City. His competitive spirit and commitment will be missed.”
Savic has left an indelible impact on soccer in Kansas City over the last four decades. As a player, he starred for the Kansas City Comets of the Major Indoor Soccer League from 1982-1984, scoring 70 goals in over 100 appearances. He returned to Kansas City in 1991, bagging 26 goals in 21 indoor games for the Kansas City Attack in the National Professional Soccer League.
After retiring as a player, Savic began a four-year spell as the Attack’s head coach from 1992-1996. He guided Kansas City to the 1993 NPSL championship and earned NPSL Coach of the Year honors for the 1994-95 season, also serving as the club’s general manager. His second stint as Kansas City’s head coach spanned from 2000-2005—the first season with the Attack and the next four seasons with the renamed Kansas City Comets.
Savic transitioned to outdoor soccer in 2007, joining Chivas USA as an assistant to then-head coach Preki, who is now a Sporting Legend and remains Kansas City’s all-time leader in goals and assists. Under Preki and Savic, Chivas USA enjoyed its best MLS season in club history with a first-place finish in the Western Conference.
Savic moved into the commentary booth for Kansas City’s regionally televised MLS matches in 2008 and 2009. His commentating career ended when newly installed Manager Peter Vermes tabbed Savic to be part of his coaching staff in August 2009.
Since then, Savic and fellow assistant coach Kerry Zavagnin have helped Vermes lead Sporting as a perennial contender in Major League Soccer. The club began an eight-year playoff streak in 2011 before hoisting trophies at Children’s Mercy Park in each of the next two seasons—the 2012 U.S. Open Cup in a penalty shootout win over Seattle Sounders FC and the 2013 MLS Cup in a penalty shootout victory against Real Salt Lake. Savic and Sporting added a pair of Open Cup titles in 2015 and 2017, finished atop the Western Conference in 2018 and 2020, and claimed a famous playoff victory over top-seeded archrival St. Louis City SC with a two-game sweep in the first round of the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs.
A native of Gornji Milanovac, Serbia, Savic began his American soccer journey with the Buffalo Stallions of the MISL in 1980. A remarkably prolific goal scorer in indoor and outdoor leagues of the professional game, he was the American Indoor Soccer Association’s scoring leader in 1986 and a two-time AISA All-Star in 1986 and 1987.
