KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Swope Park Rangers announced on Monday the club had named Nikola Popovic as the side’s new Head Coach. Popovic joined the Rangers prior to the team’s inaugural season in 2016, serving as an assistant coach in SPR’s inspirational run to the 2016 USL Cup Final having previously spent time as an assistant coach with Benfica B.

“I’m extremely thankful to the owners, Peter Vermes and Kerry Zavagnin for this opportunity,” Popovic said. “It’s a great honor to be selected as head coach for the Swope Park Rangers, and I’m very proud to be a part of this culture and organization. We had an excellent first season in 2016 and I’m looking forward to continuing our work to develop players for Sporting Kansas City.”

“As a club, one of our objectives is to be able to promote from within because we want people that understand our culture and model of play,” Sporting Kansas City manager Peter Vermes said. “We are very excited to be able to promote Nikola from his assistant coach role and think he will bring excellent qualities to the head coach position. Even though last year was the first year of the Swope Park Rangers, it was very successful in a lot of respects. We look forward to working more closely with Nikola to continue to integrate the Rangers into the Sporting KC system.”