Sporting KC
Sporting KC Fall on the Road to Minnesota
Sporting Kansas City are now winless in their last four games, including three straight home games they led.
Sporting KC fell on the road for the first time in the 2024 season on Saturday night at Allianz Field in St. Paul, MN. A quick start by Minnesota United saw the Loons up 2-0 in the first twenty-five minutes and that was enough for Sporting to extend their winless run to four games on the season.
The game started quickly as inside the first minute Minnesota United won a corner kick, and from that corner kick quickly grabbed the lead as Joseph Rosales’s corner was flicked at the near post by Robin Lod to the back post where Michael Boxall had lost his mark and knocked the ball into the net. KC should have responded later in the first half as a ball over the top by Tim Leibold found Willy Agada behind the Minnesota defense. Agada brought the ball down inside the box but fired his shot over the goal.
The missed chance by Agada came back to haunt Kansas City in the 25th minute as Minnesota did a good job working the ball down KC’s right, again through Rosales and Lod as the ball was got played across the box to Tani Oluwaseyi who simply had to tap the ball home at the back side. Oluwaseyi scored his third goal in four games. There were shouts for Oluwaseyi being offside, including by Peter Vermes in the postgame press conference, but there didn’t appear to be a definitive angle to show that Oluwaseyi was offside.
Vermes holding up a tablet in his postgame presser saying this is offside. That's something! #SportingKC #MINvSKC pic.twitter.com/d5Nzwzdvg8
— KC Soccer Journal (@KCSoccerJournal) April 28, 2024
And without an angle to show a clear and obvious error, the call on the field stood and Minnesota was up 2-0. The ever-reliable Offside Modeling Twitter account showed that Oluwaseyi was even on the goal.
#MNUFC goal vs #SportingKC by Oluwaseyi? Onside by 1 inch, behind the ball. Essentially even, but definitely nothing to make onside seem more likely than offside at this point. pic.twitter.com/GlqvhHcx6G
— SoccerPhotogrammetry AKA "A Nice Gentleman" (@OffsideModeling) April 28, 2024
Chasing the game down 2-0 now Sporting KC controlled possession for the rest of the game, ending with over 58% of possession. KC did find a way back into the game before half time with some good short passing in Minnesota’s half of the field before a long ball over the top found Daniel Salloi running behind his marker. Salloi laid the ball off to the top of the box for Alan Pulido who was trailing the run and with some help from a deflection on the way through beat Dayne St. Clair to make it 2-1.
The second half saw Sporting Kansas City continue to control possession for the game, but they struggled to produce the end result. Down a goal KC controlled the game, but Minnesota was compact and organized defensively and didn’t give KC much in terms of opportunities and chances on goal. In fact, KC didn’t produce a shot in the second half until the 79th minute when a Dany Rosero flick header was saved by St. Clair. KC did look more dangerous over the final ten minutes with Salloi having a chance and substitute Alenis Vargas forcing Boxall and St. Clair into a dangerous situation. But overall, Minnesota looked comfortable seeing out the one goal win at home, something Kansas City has struggled with over the month of April.
KC will now head out on the road again to take on a Real Salt Lake team that is unbeaten in their last six games (4-0-2).
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We’re reaching almost farcical levels at this point. Vermes whipping out the tablet in the post-game press conference to try to “prove” the offsides is amateur hour (especially since onside appeared to be the correct call in this instance). Blaming the refs for your team’s shortcomings is the last refuge of losers. Since the beginning of time across all levels of every sport imaginable, refs have been making and will continue to make calls that screw your team. Good teams recognize it’s out of their control and instead focus on the things they can control.
Vermes either needs to step up and be an actual leader of the team who takes accountability and shows adaptability, or he needs to step down and get out because he can’t hack it anymore. I get that he’s pissed off, I really do, I think all fans do, but the compulsive whining about the refs week in, week out is not the type of behavior that builds a winning culture. And if Vermes needs to be told that after all these years, then it’s past time for him to be gone.
Nahhhh, PV silenced the haters with the CITY playoff win and “best attempt in the last 3 weeks of playoffs” against Houston last year.
Dang, how could I forget? I sure look silly now! Lol
You guys focus too much on that wins stat, and don’t get me started on standings. Did you even watch the game? Were you entertained? We were in it to the end, that’s got to be fun for the fans. I’m not worried, we’ve already banked two wins we didn’t last year and once we start playing like we did last year we’ll be fine. Two more wins last year would have put us in 5th place and a road matchup against Houston, and we won’t get referreed like we did last year. So I’m really not worried and I’m tired of facing questions from people less important than me.
“I’m tired of facing questions from people less important than me”
Sounds so humble
To be clear this is sarcasm right?
Satire would be closer to the mark.
I honestly could see him saying this
I worry that Vermes made winning too much about him versus the fans (for example, his speech-rant last year).
He poisoned the well.
Let’s get more dramatic:
Everyone is frustrated with everyone and everything—I don’t think winning can fix it, because the inevitable Vermes “I told you so” would be brimming with resentment.
(It’s why a single loss in a run of wins would still disproportionately frustrate.)
And once resentment makes an appearance, a relationship becomes just waiting for the breakup.
When it happens, it hurts, but everyone feels so much better.
Vermes just wants to win for himself. The players feel it too. He needs a new club and a new reason to win as much as SKC needs new coach.
I’m going to say that this start is worse than last year. There aren’t any excuses this year. Theres been so many lost opportunities this year.
But hey, Vermes isn’t worried.
Then bringing a tablet to try to show how you are getting incorrect calls on you, on a call that was correct. I’ve usually been a fan of him calling out the refs when needed, but seriously? That was petty and showed where his priorities and focus were, instead of you know, taking responsibility to make the team better.
Oh yeah, then there’s the fact that IT WAS THE CORRECT CALL. That whole display from him was flat out embarrassing.
I think that’s also an indication on the complete lack of leadership the team has. If your main man can’t take any responsibility and is constantly complaining about “oh we got a bad call” instead of doing anything to improve, it’s going to trickle down to the guys he’s supposed to be leading.
I know it’s been said, but we don’t have a player that’s a leader. Russell has slowly turned into a player that just complains to the ref.
Overall, the team is very hollow and lost, and Vermes is too busy making sure his tablet is charged so he can bring it to the post-game conference to complain.
Vermes out.
He sure showed us though. We aren’t talking about dropped points this week.
PV silenced the haters man. You just don’t get it yet
Insert meme of painting on clown face as I convinced myself to renew season tickets and watch the away games thinking it would be a significantly better team than last year and 10 games in and I feel the same level of sickness
Don’t call me out like that. Now I’m sad.
Ha ha ha…the tablet. Nice one Pete. You’ve managed to deflect and redirect for another week. Next week, bring out really cute puppies and let them loose on those pesky sports reporters asking hard questions. The clowns are now running the circus.
What kind of puppies are we talking about here? It matters.
He was outsmarted by a coach that is younger than most of our team! Have his tactics become outdated by a new generation of players and coaches?
So I guess this is the team, then?
I hope there is a summer signing that dramatically changes things, but the bigger issue is glaring. I said last year that only an MLS cup will redeem Vermes, that hasn’t changed for me. I make that the bar, because for all of his blustering and posturing it should be possible. The talent is clearly there. How it is being used….
Vermes out unless we lift the cup. It is as simple as that for me.
At this point PV has assembled a midtable team, apparently with a midtable manager. The hilariously dumb thing is that SKC are still in the playoff hunt because like 65% of MLS teams make the playoffs. But man it’s hard to watch a team continually perform the same way.
After this week (match day 11, almost a third of the way through where seasonal data starts to become predictive) SKC are 10th, 2 pts behind Houston and 1 pt behind STL, but both teams have a game in hand. Below SKC are Portland, who have just spent tons of money in a transition year; Dallas (3 pts behind), widely considered a bad team this year with a game in hand; Seattle (5 pts behind with a game in hand), in a transition year, and then San Jose. who may be setting the record for futility this year.
I can’t believe you would write an article that’s about anything other than the great goal we scored. They played great for that time, I think you’re just not seeing it.