Category: Sporting KC

by Brian Turrel

Sporting Kansas City welcomed league newcomer Nashville Soccer Club with a 2-1 defeat at Children’s Mercy Park on Sunday evening. Sporting’s Erik Hurtado scored the game winner with an amazing long-range volley in the 80th minute.

Kansas City had trouble finding scoring chances in the first half, taking only a single shot through the first 20 minutes. Nashville had the initiative and scored first off a corner kick in the 15th minute. Defender Walker Zimmerman rose above the scrum near the back post to nod in the ball.

Kansas City’s offensive pace picked up at the end of the first half, but they were unable to break through, leaving Nashville a 1-0 halftime advantage.

Sporting seized and held the offensive initiative throughout the second half, possessing the ball nearly 70 percent of the period. They found the equalizer in the 53rd minute. Johnny Russell pulled two defenders deep into the corner before breaking toward the middle and crossing the ball. Gerso Fernandes was waiting at the far post and needed merely a tap-in to tally the goal.

Moments after play restarted, Gianluca Busio created another scoring chance, but he was taken down just outside the penalty area by Nashville defender Alistair Johnston. The foul earned Johnston his second yellow card of the match, and he was sent off, leaving Nashville down a man.

Despite the advantage, Sporting was unable to convert another chance until the 79th minute. Erik Hurtado, brought in just after halftime as an injury substitution, took aim at a cross from Amadou Dia and curled a soaring volley into the upper left corner of the Nashville net.

After the match, manager Peter Vermes pulled out the stops in his praise of Hurtado’s goal, calling it “world-class,” “unbelievable,” and “magnificent.” Johnny Russell laid on the praise as well, saying, “I told [Hurtado] it was one of the most outrageous finishes I’ve seen live in a game.”

The win, Kansas City’s third in nine days, pulls them within single point of the conference-leading Seattle Sounders, which dropped its match 3-1 on the road against Los Angeles FC. Kansas City will play road matches at Dallas, Chicago, and Colorado and then return home to face Colorado on Oct. 24.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Major League Soccer’s pivotal month of October will resume Sunday when Sporting Kansas City (8-5-2, 26 points) puts a two-game winning streak on the line against Nashville SC (4-5-6, 18 points), an expansion club looking to extend its four-game unbeaten run.

Kickoff at Children’s Mercy Park is slated for 6 p.m. with tickets available at SeatGeek.com and stadium capacity reduced to 18%.

Sunday’s inter-conference clash will be shown live on FOX Sports Kansas City, FOX Sports Midwest and FOX Sports GO, with 30-minute pregame and postgame shows. Listeners can also catch the action locally on ESPN 94.5 FM and La Grande 1340 AM
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A competitive Western Conference race currently sees Sporting saddled in third place, a point behind the Portland Timbers and four behind Seattle Sounders FC. Manager Peter Vermes’ side went 1-4-2 from Aug. 25 to Sept. 23 but has since responded with consecutive victories to regain momentum.

Last Saturday’s 2-1 road triumph over the Houston Dynamo was followed by a 1-0 defeat of Chicago Fire FC on Wednesday at Children’s Mercy Park, which featured major contributions from goalkeeper Tim Melia and center back Winston Reid.

Melia, who saved a second-minute penalty kick, has now stopped four of the last five penalties he has faced in the regular season and boasts a 0.56 goals conceded percentage on PK attempts, the lowest in MLS history. Reid, meanwhile, nodded home the decisive goal in the 67th minute off a Johnny Russell corner kick and became the second Sporting player since the dawn of the MLS Opta era in 2010 to record seven interceptions and a game-winning goal in a shutout victory.

Sporting have scored in each of their first 15 MLS matches this season — a regular season club record — and remain the only team in the league yet to be shut out. Russell and striker Alan Pulido — who will miss Sunday’s game while on international duty with Mexico — have led the way with six and five goals, respectively, while Gadi Kinda and Khiry Shelton have added four apiece.

Scoring could be hard to come by Sunday, however, as Nashville SC boasts one of the better defensive records in MLS. Led by English head coach Gary Smith, the Tennessee outfit has conceded just 14 goals in 15 games this season. Experienced veterans such as Walker Zimmerman, Dax McCarty, Daniel Lovitz and Anibal Godoy have given the first-year club a formidable spine, even if the team has yet to catch fire offensively.

Nashville’s 11 goals are the second-fewest in MLS, and the team has taken part in a league-high four goalless draws this year — including each of their last two outings against the New England Revolution and Minnesota United FC. Zimmerman, fellow center back Dave Romney and goalkeeper Joe Willis have played every minute of the 2020 campaign thus far and helped Nashville to an impressive seven clean sheets, tied for the second-most in MLS.

The inaugural meeting between Sporting and Nashville will see the visitors aim to improve upon a dismal road scoring rate. Nashville has managed just two goals in eight away matches this season, a dry spell that includes a 345-minute road goalless drought dating back to Aug. 26. Sporting, meanwhile, is 9-3-4 in their inaugural regular season meetings with expansion clubs since 2005.

Both teams will be playing their third game in nine days on Sunday. The upcoming match schedule is particularly congested for a Sporting side that is scheduled to play nine regular season fixtures in a 30-day period from Oct. 3 to Nov. 1 — the busiest month in club history.

A frantic finish to the campaign will then conclude with MLS Decision Day 2020 on Nov. 8 as all clubs round out their 23-game regular season slates ahead of the MLS Cup Playoffs beginning in mid-November. The expanded 18-team playoff field will consist of eight Western Conference clubs and 10 Eastern Conference clubs in a single-elimination format through MLS Cup on Dec. 12.

• Story from Sporting KC

by Brian Turrel

Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia gave away and then saved a penalty kick in the first minute on the way to earning a shutout in Sporting’s 1-0 victory Wednesday night over the Chicago Fire.

Sporting’s lone goal was scored in the 67th minute by defender Winston Reid. Forward Johnny Russell earned a corner kick from the Chicago defense and then curled the kick toward the back post where the tall, imposing Reid waited to head it in from close range for his first MLS goal. Reid also anchored the defense, leading the team with seven interceptions.

Kansas City struggled to find offense in the first half. Striker Alan Pulido, who scored twice in the previous match, was called up to the Mexican national team and will be away from the club until late October. Manager Peter Vermes placed midfielder Gadi Kinda into the striker role, but Chicago was able to prevent Kansas City from playing the ball forward to him.

In the second half, Vermes shook up the formation, moving Kinda back to a midfield role and pushing Khiry Shelton forward. The move paid off as Sporting quickly created more chances and put pressure on the Chicago defense.

As Reid explained after the game, “The first half was a bit back and forth and in the second half, even though they had the ball, we had numerous amounts of chances on the counterattack to score.”

The Chicago penalty kick was earned just 30 seconds into the game. Melia hit a weak clearance directly to Chicago’s Fabian Herbers and then quickly fouled Herbers to smother his shot attempt. Robert Beric took the penalty kick, but was denied by Melia, who dove low and to his right to parry away the shot. Having blocked 11 of the 25 penalty kicks he’s faced in regulation (and 4 of the last 5), Melia has the lowest career penalty conversion percentage of any MLS goalkeeper.

The win pushes Kansas City up to second place in the MLS Western Conference as the regular season winds down. Sporting will play again at home against Nashville SC at 6:30 p.m. Sunday.