It appears that out-of-contract midfielder Mikey Lopez is indeed parting ways with Sporting Kansas City for good. As Mike Kuhn from Down the Byline pointed out on Twitter, Lopez’s official Facebook page is now bearing a very classy farewell message to the Sporting KC club and fanbase.

In truth, this simply makes official a move that looked increasingly likely over the course of the offseason for a variety of reasons. Despite his pedigree as a repeatedly capped member of the USA U-20’s, Lopez failed to consistently crack the first team with Sporting and had to instead be sent out on multiple loan spells in order to develop. With his likely graduation from the Generation Adidas program, his $100,000 base salary (along with any raise he could have negotiated) would have counted against the salary cap for the first time. After Soni Mustivar and especially Paulo Nagamura (as a stylistically like-for-like player for Lopez) re-upped with Sporting, the writing of Lopez’s eventual departure was on the proverbial wall.

Lopez leaves Kansas City after having made 13 appearances for the senior club across all competitions over three seasons. He also made 9 appearances each for Orlando City SC and the Oklahoma City Energy across three separate loan spells: one with Orlando City in 2014, and two with Oklahoma City in 2014 and again in 2015.

Lopez’s Facebook message did not reveal where he might be playing soccer next. Wherever he lands, though, we wish him the best of luck.

Be sure to follow us here at Reporting KC for all the latest news and analysis regarding Kansas City soccer.