Sporting KC
Sporting KC: More Questions than Answers Against Colorado
Looking for any silver linings from Sporting Kansas City’s home loss to the Colorado Rapids on Saturday night.
Well… That wasn’t awesome.
Sporting Kansas City once again under-perform and drop points, this time against the former worst team in the conference.
At this point, it’s hard to find anything new to say. Even with the return of Alan Pulido and Johnny Russell to the starting lineup, goals just didn’t happen.
SKC dominated possession (60.2%), shots (18), passes (446), passing accuracy (79.8%) and crosses (25), but somehow it didn’t end with the ball in the back of the net.
Even with all of those “good” numbers, SKC’s xG against the Rapids was 0.8. I’m not a big fan of the xG stat, but even I can understand that 0.8 is no bueno.
To quote the man in charge: “I’d like to score some goals. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
For the seventh time this season, Peter Vermes has had to answer for the lack of goals. And honestly, it’s hard to find many positives in what he said, and it might not be possible until SKC finds a win.
The first half was actually an enjoyable back-and-forth between two teams with something to prove. The backline of Graham Zusi, Robert Castellanos, Dany Rosero and Robert Voloder made their second-straight start and showed much of the same promise they showed last week.
Castellanos and Rosero made their case to be the center back pairing going forward, but Voloder was on the receiving end of the mistake that led to former Sporting forward Diego Rubio’s goal. I wouldn’t be surprised of Voloder returns to the bench once Tim Leibold is healthy.
A look at the GameFlow shows that Rubio’s goal killed Kansas City’s momentum.
g+ GameFlow: MLS Regular Season @SportingKC v @ColoradoRapids on April 08, 2023. #SportingKC #VamosKC #Rapids96 #SKCvCOL pic.twitter.com/9GiJkXwVM8
— GameFlow (@GameFlowxPG) April 9, 2023
Sporting had been piling on the pressure, but a deflected shot by Felipe Hernandez that should have been called a corner, was not. Which led to Colorado’s counter and Rubio’s long-range effort that scooted past a flat-footed Tim Melia.
It’s tough to continue looking for positives, and it doesn’t even feel like the right thing to do at this time. Sporting fans are not happy, and they have every reason not to be.
But the team did look better, or at least as good as they did against the Philadelphia Union last week. The obvious hope is that the more time Pulido and Russell spend on the pitch with the rest of the starters, the sooner we will earn more wins and at least points. Maybe even score some goals.
The team didn’t look uninspired or out of gas. They looked frustrated. The ball just isn’t going into the back of the net.
At the end of the day, we are effectively a fifth of the way through the season and even with our best roster (minus Gadi Kinda), Sporting KC is an effective bye-week for opponents.
The next opportunity to turn the season around won’t be an easy one. SKC travels to San Jose to take on the sixth place Earthquakes whose only losses have come at the hands of Atlanta United and St. Louis City.
If you are looking for another stat that can help you hold on to some hope… there is this:
Interesting stats… #SportingKC https://t.co/Vy1Kc8NChx
— Chad Smith (@PlayFor90) April 11, 2023
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I don’t know what mistake Voloder was responsible for. It was a foul on the challenge, uncalled. Castellanos made a bizarre recovery run to complicate what was already a 2v1. And Melia cheated the wrong way and far too early on a right-footed shooter squaring for a neat post shot.
If I’m assigning blame, Melia gets 80% of it. Castellanos the rest.
In my mind, primary mistakes were those that allowed Colorado to get in a 2v1 in the first place.
Walter and one of the 8s should rotate back when Rosero goes forward. Rubio and Barrios should have had Caste and Walter to beat. Rubio should have been battling Felipe for the ball at midfield.
Walter should have put the ball out of bounds rather than trying to shield it out of bounds. He should realize that Rosero is caught upfield and neither 8 is covering. Just clear ball out so that they don’t leave Caste in a 2v1 against Barrios and Rubio.
I don’t see the “bizarre recovery run” by Caste. I see him trying to stay between Rubio and near post, but has to step right to cover through ball to Barrios run. That step clears shooting lane to near post, and Rubio takes advantage.
Melia shades far post since initially Caste is covering near post.
Maybe these are mistakes, but seems harsh to me to blame either for losing a 2v1.
The Barrios run was the key to defeating the defense. Hope to see some of our players making those kinds of runs to open shooting/passing lanes.
Barrios should have been credited for that goal. He lives rent free in SKC’s heads
I like Peter Vermes, when he actually knew what he was doing, at least. He seems baffled that his tactics that haven’t worked since we had inefficient guys in the air. He doesn’t know what to do. Bring on the Deadpool and Rob McElhenney to turn this around, yikes.
I liked him too. And I still would despite his flaws except a few of those flaws are fundamentally bad for the club. For example, PV is where developing players go to die. The academy has developed a bad rep as a meat grinder among locals (I’m not saying it is, just that people think it is) and non-locals can see that kids who sign don’t play and are released quickly rather than further developed. It doesn’t matter if that was the right move; parents will not send their kids here when the best you can hope for is a year on the bench before PV sends you packing.
PV says that we don’t have enough talent locally. Of course we do, they just don’t want to play for him. But let’s say he’s right. Why are none of the talent pipelines that were funneling all those kids to us the last few years working anymore? Because no one good wants to come here! Our academy is not in good shape. And it will never be under PV. I mean, unless he fundamentally changes his M.O. …hahahahaha!
I understand your critiques of the first team because we constantly see Academy/Homegrown guys not playing (beyond Salloi and Hernandez). It’s a complaint of mine as well.
As for the Academy itself, how much of that do you think was Jon Parry? I heard a lot of complaints about him. Declan Jogi is hopefully changing things? I have no idea though.
Also, our most successful academy kids were largely recruited from other cities. Busio and Lindsey were from North Carolina. Now that Charlotte exists, we can’t recruit that territory.
Felipe is from Nashville. They have a team too.
Look at where our academy kids are coming from. The best ones were all out of state and those markets now have other mls clubs
TBH, I don’t know, Chad. I hope all the bad stuff was Parry, but I’m afraid that maybe it doesn’t matter and that the damage is already done. I know PV legitimately cares about the kids and has only good intentions. But I also know that his “tough love,” my-way-or-the-highway, Bobby Knight mentality is a thing of the past. It’s why I kind of believe the “meat grinder” rumor. You and I are both educators, so you know that even though a lot of the learning is on the student, it can’t all be. The teachers have to be accountable, too. Top to bottom, our development has not been good enough. And I absolutely recognize that the “hit” rate in soccer is very low. But we developed Graham Smith as a pro longer than we did Kaveh Rad! And there are a half a dozen other examples just like that I can think of off the top of my head. Ugh, I’m making myself angry. Basically, unless PV starts playing kids–just sometimes, at the end of games even–the academy is going to struggle with recruitment. Which feeds a vicious circle with the end result being PV concluding that talented kids don’t live in our territory… cough Cam Duke
SKC II seem dramatically better this year, so hopefully the young guys will at least get consistent minutes there to earn a breakthrough to even those “close out a game” minutes.
What is the meaning of offensive g+ and defensive g+ Gameflow stats?
My impression from watching the game was that Sporting was much better at creating possession in the attacking third. Is that what these stats indicate?
Simple g+ offensively is actions building towards a chance. I think defensively it’s breaking up a promising chance.
Here is a more robust explainer: https://twitter.com/GameFlowxPG/status/1442631981175431174
I know this is meant to be a positive thread, but other there have been other stats that are more concerning than the somewhat positive stats above.
I want to be optimistic like everyone else because I like this team a lot, but it’s hard to feel ok when we can’t seem to create any dangerous chances other than half-baked shots outside the 18 that go straight to the keeper or into a defender’s legs.
Good added context.
And I don’t think this thread has to be positive. Juan was digging for something, maybe to offset all of our other stories/pods from the week that trended a bit negative.
The most important question remains — why is Peter Vermes still the head coach. It is clearly time for him to either step down or be released. While it is nice to have a long-tenured head coach under whose leadership a system can be built, that means nothing when the team continues to lose. This team is not responding. And let me point out, that if this club was average in it’s turnover of head coaches, Vermes would have been gone 3 or 4 coaches ago.
Apparently Ronaldo just got his Saudi coach fired. Maybe we should have signed him after all?
Well, Vermes had a history of winning trophies through 2017. We went to the conference finals in 2018 after finishing 1st. So through 2018, results weren’t too bad. And we corrected certain issues (couldn’t score so we got a bunch of attacking talent. Couldn’t get a home playoff game so we made a big push)
2019 was awful and injury filled but we bounced back with the (admittedly covid weird year) in 2020 to win the west. Won a playoff game then got bounced by a very strong Minnesota team.
2021 we finished 3 points out of first after a Justen Glad no call handball in the box in decision day. That gets called? We win the west. Won a playoff game before getting bounced by a bad RSL team that also bounced Seattle.
2022 had big injuries before the season. We played awful until Thommy and Agada came in and turned it around. Finished as the hottest or second hottest team in the league.
So while this year has sucked and came on the heels of a bad season last year, it makes sense why we haven’t pulled the trigger 7 games in.
Historically Vermes has been able to adjust the team to improve. Not necessarily in game (we sub like shit) and not even always mid season, but traditionally he can identify a problem and work to correct it. That’s why ownership has given him a longer leash.
The interesting stat from Daniel Sperry leaves out some important information. Of the coaches that were kept and won cups, what were their roster turnover numbers? This might provide a clearer indication of whether the coach got through to his players or simply replaced them.
That’s a good question. The roster turnover could be pretty great after this season. The team can move on from both ‘true DPs’ in Pulido and Kinda. Or easily move Kinda out of a DP spot and make another DP spot if they keep him.
Adding some elite talent to what I still weirdly think is a talented group, could be big. That said, if they go a whole season not showing they are as talented as I thought they were, some of them surely won’t be around.