To trial or not to trial: Stoke City and Sporting Kansas City have different takes on Teal Bunbury By Charles Posted on December 15, 2010 Comments Off on To trial or not to trial: Stoke City and Sporting Kansas City have different takes on Teal Bunbury 0 743 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Is Teal Bunbury switching sides again? The Hamilton, Ont.-born son of Canadian national-teamer Alex Bunbury, recently alienated most soccer fans on this side of the border when he decided to play for the United States rather than the country of his birth. Now, is he also hoping to leave Sporting Kansas City? Stoke City has officially stated that this might be the case. Bunbury appeared with Stoke’s reserve side Tuesday and, paired with former Chelsea and Barcelona forward Eidur Gudjohnsen, was reportedly very impressive. Bunbury scored against Wigan’s reserve side. “American trialist Teal Bunbury made an immediate impact for Stoke City’s reserve side in their behind-closed-doors friendly against Wigan Athletic on Tuesday afternoon…” read the opening of the official press release from Stoke City. Read. Official. BBC also reported that Bunbury is on a “one-week trial” with Stoke. But Sporting Kansas City is denying it all publicly. Both on Twitter and through its own press release, the MLS side is stating that Bunbury is a big part of its future plans, and isn’t going to be moving to Stoke. Sporting Kansas City stated that Bunbury, who was touring Europe with a group of Generation Adidas MLS players, was “incorrectly labeled as ‘on trial’ by Stoke…” Stoke hasn’t made any attempt to correct what SKC is claiming to be a mistake, even a day later. This is what we know. Stoke hardly played any of the reserves the full 90 against Wigan, choosing to give a lot of the squad members some bits of game time, instead. But Bunbury played both halves. Isn’t that a sign that someone at Stoke wanted to see Bunbury play as much as possible?
