Category: Sporting KC

Sporting KC won a come-from-behind game 3-1 over San Jose on the road Saturday.

Defender Jaylin Lindsey scored his first professional goal and forwards Alan Pulido and Daniel Salloi scored for the second straight game for Sporting KC.

After Eduardo Lopez lifted San Jose into an early lead, Lindsey provided a first-half equalizer and Pulido fired Sporting ahead with a stunning effort in the 60th minute.

Salloi sealed the game with 15 minutes to play as Sporting collected its second straight victory and moved into second place in the Western Conference.

Saturday’s game saw Sporting improve to 7-1-3 in its last 11 competitive meetings against San Jose and claim its league-leading third win from a losing position this season.

Injuries in the Sporting Kansas City backline prompted manager Peter Vermes to make two changes to the starting 11 from last weekend’s 3-0 home win over Vancouver Whitecaps FC. Lindsey stepped in for right back Graham Zusi, who was sidelined with a quad ailment, while center back Andreu Fontas missed out with an adductor strain and was replaced by 19-year-old Kaveh Rad.

San Jose scored first inside four minutes on a strike from Lopez. The 26-year-old settled Cristian Espinoza’s corner kick at the top of the box and curled a 20-yard effort into the top left corner for his second tally of the season and the earliest goal Sporting has conceded in 2021.

An unlikely goal scorer pulled Sporting level in the 15th minute. Pulido drew a pair of San Jose defenders and flicked a diagonal ball to the Lindsey, who took a touch on the right side of the box and slotted low across Earthquakes goalkeeper J.T. Marcinkowski and into the far corner to open his MLS scoring account.

Pulido notched his sixth career MLS assist on the play and continues to lead the league with 0.99 goals and primary assists per 90 minutes since the start of 2020 (regular season and playoffs, minimum 750 minutes).

In the remainder of the half, both sides exchanged attacking punches. In the 23rd minute, 18-year-old Gianluca Busio made a foray into the final third before spreading it right to Pulido, who lashed his shot wide of the near post.

Sporting goalkeeper Tim Melia produced a save less than a minute later, diving left to cast aside 17-year-old Cade Cowell’s bending attempt.

Shortly thereafter, an intricate passing combination from Sporting culminated with Pulido cutting the ball to an unmarked Gadi Kinda, who forced Marcinkowski into a save of his own.

Melia remained busy at the opposite end, sprawling to thwart Lopez in the 31st minute, before Marcinkowski denied Pulido from close range in the 39th minute after Salloi won possession off a San Jose giveaway.

The second stanza belonged to Sporting, although the Earthquakes threatened twice within 15 minutes of the restart. Espinoza’s long-range turf trimmer was palmed away by Melia and although Cowell was well positioned for the rebound, his shot was blocked by the sliding Lindsey in the 52nd minute. A few moments later, Andy Rios fluffed an open header after running onto a pass lobbed across the face of goal from San Jose captain Jackson Yueill.

Pulido struck in emphatic fashion on the hour mark, breaking the tie with a goal that ultimately stood as the match winner. The 30-year-old received a diagonal pass from Salloi and uncorked a sledgehammer that took a slight deflection and caromed into the net off the underside of the crossbar. Pulido has three goals in his last two games and his four strikes on the season are tied for third most in MLS.

The in-form striker thought he had bagged his second goal of the night in the 63rd minute, but Pulido’s blast into the roof of the net from a tight angle was nullified for Kinda’s offside infraction in the buildup. Kinda had a chance himself in the 71st minute, and although he was unable to make clean contact on the breakaway, Sporting retained possession and Luis Martins’ cross was headed marginally wide by Salloi.

In the 75th minute, Salloi made no mistake by curling a jaw-dropping shot inside the far post from the edge of the penalty area. The 24-year-old Sporting KC Academy product has three goals and two assists this year after recording one goal and one assist in the previous two seasons combined.

The game was stretched in the dying embers, with Yueill seeing his shot smothered by Melia at close range and Marcinkowski tipping Kinda’s audacious 35-yard belter over the crossbar. Sporting preserved its 3-1 advantage until the full-time whistle, handing San Jose its third consecutive home loss at PayPal Park.

With momentum firmly on its side, Sporting will return home next Saturday to play host to rivals Houston Dynamo FC (3-2-2, 11 points) in the first full-capacity match at Children’s Mercy Park since March 7, 2020. Tickets for the match are available at SeatGeek.com.

• Story from Sporting KC

Two founding members of Major League Soccer will lock horns Saturday night at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, California, when third-place Sporting Kansas City (3-2-1, 10 points) visits the fifth-place San Jose Earthquakes (3-3-0, 9 points) in a Western Conference clash at 9 p.m.

Bally Sports Kansas City and Bally Sports Midwest will air three hours of live television coverage on Saturday beginning at 8:30 p.m. Viewers within the Bally Sports Midwest viewing area can also stream the action on BallySports.com and the Bally Sports app, while Sports Radio 810 WHB (English) and La Grande 1340 AM (Spanish) will transmit local radio broadcasts. Supporters can access the Sporting KC app for additional in-game updates.

Sporting KC is one week removed from its best performance of the season, having swept aside Vancouver Whitecaps FC by a 3-0 scoreline on Sunday afternoon at Children’s Mercy Park.

Winger Daniel Salloi scored early, striker Alan Pulido bagged a brace en route to MLS Team of the Week honors, and goalkeeper Tim Melia earned a shutout in his 2021 debut after a return from injury.

Manager Peter Vermes’ side finished the game with an astounding 91.6% passing accuracy, the second-highest clip in team history since Opta began tracking the statistic in 2010. The clean sheet also extended Melia’s regular season shutout streak to 360 minutes dating back to October 2020.

Under the guidance of third-year head coach Matias Almeyda — who won the 2018 Concacaf Champions League with Pulido as the manager of Chivas de Guadalajara — San Jose opened the 2021 campaign brightly by winning three of its first four games, including two comfortable home victories over FC Dallas (3-1) and D.C. United (4-1).

However, its last two matches at Avaya Stadium have ended with shutout defeats, as Seattle Sounders FC prevailed 1-0 on May 12 and the Portland Timbers won 2-0 three days later.

San Jose’s unique man-marking, high-pressure system has often translated into high-scoring matches: since Almeyda took over in 2019, Earthquakes matches have averaged 3.39 goals per game, the second-most in MLS.

Saturday’s showdown will feature two of the brightest rising stars in MLS as 18-year-old Sporting midfifelder Gianluca Busio and 17-year-old San Jose forward Cade Cowell go head-to-head.

Busio has started all six matches this season as one of the most important contributors on the team, capable of playing multiple midfield and attacking positions. The Sporting KC Academy product has scored once, created six chances and won a team-best seven tackles.

San Jose, meanwhile, has seen Cowell blossom into a game-changing player since making his debut last summer. The U.S. youth international already has two goals and three assists to his name this season, wielding speed and physicality beyond his years.

Although he has yet to start a match for San Jose this season, 38-year-old Chris Wondolowski remains one of the most clinical attackers in MLS. The league’s all-time leading goal scorer made two late goals in San Jose’s 2-1 road win over Real Salt Lake on May 7 and has 11 goals in 20 career MLS appearances against Sporting.

Sporting is 6-1-3 against the Earthquakes in the last 10 competitive meetings since September 2016, with the lone San Jose victory coming in a 4-1 result on April 20, 2019. Kansas City is 2-1-1 in its last four visits to Avaya Stadium after going winless in 18 straight away games at San Jose from 2000-2016.

The last time these clubs met on Nov. 22, 2020, Children’s Mercy Park was the setting for one of the wildest MLS postseason matches in recent memory.

Melia saved all three penalty kicks in a decisive shootout as top-seeded Sporting defeated eighth-seeded San Jose 3-0 on penalties following a 3-3 draw in round one of the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.

With the score tied at 2-2 in the late stages, Busio became the youngest MLS player to record a goal and an assist in a playoff game by firing the hosts into a 3-2 lead in second-half stoppage time. Not to be outdone, Wondolowski salvaged a 97th-minute equalizer to force extra time.

After a goalless extra-time session, Melia delivered the heroics by saving spot kicks from San Jose’s Osvaldo Alanis, Jackson Yueill and Cristian Espinoza to improve to 6-0 in penalty shootouts throughout his career. Johnny Russell, Ilie Sanchez and Khiry Shelton all converted their attempts to vault Sporting into the next round.

• Story from Sporting KC

by Brian Turrel

Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia returned to the starting lineup in time to help his team post its first shutout of the 2021 season, a 3-0 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps. Melia had been out of action with a chest injury since the start of the season.

Kansas City’s prolific offense and stingy defense made Melia’s task lighter, holding the ball for 67% of the match and allowing only 2 shots on frame, both handled deftly by the goalkeeper.

Daniel Salloi opened the scoring for Kansas City in the 28th minute. Alan Pulido lost the ball in a challenge near the Vancouver goal, but the ball rolled to Salloi on the left side. Salloi played the ball back across goal and inside the far post for the score.

Salloi and Pulido combined in a different way for Kansas City’s second goal just four minutes later. Salloi was brought down in the penalty area by midfielder Ryan Raposo to earn a penalty kick, which Pulido converted for Kansas City’s 2-0 halftime margin.

Sporting’s offensive pressure continued after the break, and Pulido notched his second goal in the 58th minute. From the left sideline Gadi Kinda fed the ball to Pulido near the 18-yard stripe. Pulido cut quickly to his right to earn some space, and then fired a shot that beat Vancouver’s lunging goalkeeper to the near post.

The defensive lineup featured Ilie Sanchez continuing at center back, away from his usual midfield position, while Gianluca Busio slotted in as the holding midfielder. After the match, head coach Peter Vermes praised his defense’s contribution to the result.

“When you look at the back four and Busio, and the way that those guys all played together, I thought it was excellent,” Vermes said.

“They allowed for the front five to get in good spots. The front five’s movement off the ball was rewarded because of the possession that we were able to keep in the back and in the way that we were building the field up.”

The victory pushes Sporting to third place in the MLS Western conference. They will play next Saturday at San Jose, and then return home for a match against the Houston Dynamo at 7:30 p.m. May 29.