Graham Zusi, Roger Espinoza and Andreu Fontas have signed contracts again with Sporting Kansas City, according to an announcement Friday from the club.
One-year contracts went to Zusi and Espinoza, while Fontas received a two-year contract, according to a Sporting KC spokesman.
Sporting KC now has a roster of 26 players heading into 2023 competition, which begins the last weekend of February, a spokesman stated.
Zusi has spent his 14-year career at Sporting and won four major championships for Kansas City, including the 2013 MLS Cup and three U.S. Open Cup titles. He is Sporting’s all-time appearance leader with 395 matches played in all competitions, including 341 in the MLS regular season and 20 in the MLS Cup Playoffs.
He was the first MLS player in history to play all 14 seasons with one club.
A 13-season veteran at Sporting, Espinoza is one of the league’s longest-serving midfielders. He helped lead the club to three U.S. Open Cup championships and nine playoff appearances.
A 2012 MLS All-Star, Espinoza has logged 316 regular season appearances since joining KC in 2008, the third most all-time among one club MLS players behind Zusi and Portland midfielder Diego Chara.
Espinoza leads Sporting with 24 appearances in the U.S. Open Cup. Espinoza began his professional career in Kansas City as a 2008 MLS SuperDraft selection out of Ohio State University.
Fontas, who arrived in Kansas City in 2018, has been a backline staple for Sporting over the last two seasons. The Spanish center back has started in 62 of the club’s 70 MLS matches since 2021, flourishing as one of the league’s best ball-playing defenders.
In the previous two seasons combined, Fontas leads MLS in total passes, successful passes and touches while also leading the team in interceptions and clearances. He has finished back-to-back campaigns ranking in the top 10 of MLS in goals added, an advanced metric that measures a player’s total on-ball contribution in attack and defense.
Fontas earned Sporting’s Defender of the Year award for the second straight season in 2022, finishing the campaign with starts in 31 of 32 appearances across all competitions.
He helped the club reach the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup semifinals, starting in all four matches of the tournament run, and bagged goals in consecutive matches for the first time in his professional career by scoring at Austin FC on Aug. 13 and against the Portland Timbers on Aug. 21.
A native of Banyoles, Spain, Fontas developed in FC Barcelona’s famed La Masia youth academy.