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A unique brand of frustrating
Sporting KC have only lost one game this season, but they’ve already dropped nine points from winning positions.
All teams frustrate their fans. It’s a vital part of sports.
The Chiefs just won back-to-back Super Bowls with a lot fans in a full on panic most of last season.
There are teams who get a notorious label for certain kinds of losing. For instance, you have the teams that are always great, but they just can’t quite win the big one. Think Buffalo Bills.
Other teams are always terrible and simply aren’t allowed to have nice things. Like the New York Jets.
Some teams are known to build you up with hope and optimism, only to tear it all away just when you could taste the glory. These are your Tottenham Hotspurs of the world.
But Sporting KC have found their own unique brand of frustrating.
They are regularly good! SKC can compete with anyone. They will even show you how they can be GREAT. They’ll tease you with foreplay when they’re brilliant and dominant. But a few minutes later, they’ll give you a reason to think they’re terrible.
It’s not just that Sporting KC are hot and cold one game to the next. They are often both good and bad in the same game.
In the first half against the Portland Timbers, and much of the season, the backline was exceptional. I’ve lost track of the number of goals called back this year because the tight line from the defense pulled them off. That’s not lucky. That’s purposeful.
But then apparently a flip gets switched and the other team scores with such ease you wonder how they haven’t done it ten times already.
SKC have only lost one game this season! The world is not ending. They can move to the top of the table with a very short hot streak.
At the same time, every other result this season, they were in a position to win (except for 0-0 draw vs LAFC). That’s nine dropped points so far!
Reading the comments around the internet from SKC fans, you can feel the pain. This is a brutal result. The team isn’t nearly as bad as the pain some of these losses caused, but you can understand the frustration.
The latest episode of Shades of Blue covers what went wrong in Sporting KC’s 3-3 draw with the Timbers, and Peter Vermes’ comments after the game. We have a long conversation about the two strikers. There’s Something About Willy. He bagged a brace but missed the PK which turned around the entire match.
From this episode:
- KC Star: Royals’ and Chiefs’ ‘vote yes’ tax campaign is headed by former Ron DeSantis strategist
- Was Voloder off on the third goal?
Find the KC Soccer Journal wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe, rate, & review! Feel free to yell at Cody @ThatCodyTho, Thad @TheBackpost, and Robert @SpKCLife.
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Cody, you took the hater position lol.
With that being said, the team can be more aggressive with Willy on the pitch simply because someone is actually in the box when attacking. He isn’t a PK taker. He isn’t the guy that’s gonna drop passing dimes. But you can guarantee hes gonna be making a run into that box EVERY time we go on the attack, and I personally prefer him to Pulido for those reasons. So he didn’t connect 2 passes. Big deal?! He will come into form the more he plays. Pulido might make some of those passes but it leads to nothing….because there’s no one in the box….
Which is why both guys should be out there. IMO Pulido and Agada are both in the best 11 players on this team, so we need to find a way to play them both significant minutes more often than not. If that means a formation change it means a formation change. If it means a tactical change then so be it. I thought the 4231 played to everyone’s strengths pretty well and that the problem was that Peter didn’t adjust to LA’s personnel change that put Puig between the lines more often. I also think they could make it work with the inverted triangle as well with Pulido on the left and Walter on the right as long as Peter can break from his horrendous substitution habits.
I agree I’d like them both on the field!
Positives:
Negatives
It is weird to harp on the team offensively when we scored 3, but Salloi is definitely a problem. He was won less than 50% of ground challenges and air duels in the last 4 games. He had the fewest touches of any outfield player this game (per fotmob). I don’t think he should be captain unless he brings some locker room magic that we don’t know about (like how khiry and Roger being super welcoming).
Defensively, either we are getting gassed or we are failing to respond to tactical changes by opposing teams. To me, that speaks to a failure of management. If players aren’t listening then yes, both are to blame, but the pattern is so consistent that I’m leaning towards managerial issues.
I want to watch the second-half implosion again to really analyze things, but I can’t watch from my phone (stupid apple and android) so I haven’t been able to do it yet.
Oh, and don’t change the name, Cody. We all know you took the hater stance.
Cody is such a hater
.
Feel like you talked yourself into the hater position and then had to backtrack and got caught in your own take. Willy is a micro verson of the article title – he is a unique brand of frustrating on the pitch. His results speak for themselves when he’s on a hot streak. Aside from missing a PK (which noone on the team was going to take it from him when he’s on a hat trick), he was not a detractor to the team against Portland.
Keep dragging Cody. It’ll be fun to read all these to him on air.
I find it amazing that Cody picks on willy when the stats condemn other players that are much higher paid.
It’s like buying a Geo and being pissed it doesn’t beat a ferrari in a race.
😂😂😂😂😂
Thad, that SKCII game turned out to be a barn burner. I almost gave up watching at halftime but thankfully did not.