Sporting KC
Sporting KC falls to Houston in US Open Cup
SKC won all the stat categories except the one that counts
Sporting Kansas City’s run in the 2023 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup came to an end in Houston Wednesday night in the Round of 32. Dynamo forward Thorleifur Úlfarsson scored the lone goal for the home side.
Manager Peter Vermes switched up ten of the eleven starters from the group that took the 2-1 win at the Seattle Sounders on Sunday. With games coming fast and furious right now for the struggling SKC side, Vermes had to balance out the players and get a little creative. The only returning starter was Gadi Kinda. Rarely seen Nemanja Radoja started at the six while recently reported Stephan Afrifa made his first appearance for Sporting KC, slotting in at center forward. Marinos Tzionis started on the right with Khiry Shelton on the left.
The backline saw the return of Graham Zusi on the right with Chris Rindov and Robert Castellanos as the center backs. The captain for this match was Roger Espinoza, making his return to the left-back spot, a position he had played in his early days with SKC and in his time with Wigan in England.
Roger Espinoza will captain tonight's USOC XI ⤵️#SportingKC | @BlueKC pic.twitter.com/Htz0NnqcDA
— Sporting Kansas City (@SportingKC) May 10, 2023
SKC started off strong but fell victim to a mistake and a very well-placed shot. Castellanos attempted to head a ball out of danger but it fell to Úlfarsson. The Iceland native’s touch took him to the top of the arc where he laced a shot through the defense and just inside the post past a diving John Pulskamp.
This Thor doesn't need a hammer to be in control 😮💨🔥⚡️ #HoldItDown | HOU 1-0 SKC pic.twitter.com/egUMuKMMNz
— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) May 11, 2023
Sporting KC gained an advantage in the 35th minute when Tzionis broke past Chase Gaspar. The Dynamo defender pulled him down on the edge of the box, earning a straight red card. Kinda’s shot on the restart was well-placed but Dynamo keeper Andrew Tarbell made a good save on the attempt.
Kinda and Tzionis were both showing well in the attack, creating several opportunities but one of the best chances early in the game found Afrifa in the box. The rookie forward got too far under the ball and sent it over the bar. Rindov had a pair of good looks off of corners but one went high and the other off the crossbar. SKC had a shot deflect off the post and a few just go wide.
Houston had two shots and one on goal compared to SKC’s seventeen and four. SKC doubled Houston in possession, passing, and almost every other stat except the one that mattered the most in the end.
After struggling all season to score and earn points, SKC’s road does not get easier. The win at number one in the West Seattle on Sunday showed they can play well, but they will now play three more matches in the next ten days. At home versus Minnesota (May 13th) and then on the road at LAFC (May 17th) and at St. Louis (May 20th).
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Gosh, where to begin? It feels like we undid all the good work from the Seattle match. We got to play with a man advantage for almost 60 minutes and couldn’t get the job done.…sigh.
Everyone left their shooting boots in Kansas City. We’ve had no issues with xG all season, including today, but can’t finish to save our lives. Afrifa missed a sitter – the commentators chalked it up to inexperience, but I’m sorry, a professional footballer has to do better there. Khiry clanked the post on the most basic of finishes, proving his ineptitude once again.
We continue to attempt to generate the attack almost exclusively from wide positions, which hasn’t worked all year. It just feels like we’re throwing up a prayer every time we put the ball in the box. We need a plan, not a prayer. And our opponents will happily let us concede the middle of the pitch while they sit back and watch us dribble into dead ends and put crosses into the ether all day long.
If you were worried about filling up your Vermes bingo card, hopefully the “head scratching sub” square was of help today, because we got one. I have no idea why we subbed a defender (Castellanos) for a defender (Voloder) in the 79th minute – did Vermes not realize we were down 1-0, with a man advantage, in a knockout game? Even more perplexing is that we left Sebastian Cruz on the bench, meaning that we basically took one of his 4 allotted short-term loan agreements and set it on fire (unless it’s valid through Saturday, then maybe we see him against Minnesota? But SKC website said we signed him Tuesday meaning it would expire Friday at the latest, if I understand those very cumbersome roster rules correctly).
As for the ref, it was not a great day at the office. It’s no excuse for us losing, but he missed a blatant handball in the box that seemingly occurred right in front of him. Then, not a single card was shown for the ungodly amount of timewasting by Houston, and I thought this was supposed to be a point of emphasis by refs this year.
The bright spots continue to be the youngsters – how long have we been banging the table for Tzionis to play more? And I do have high hopes for Afrifa despite his miss today. Wish I had more positives than that. Sorry for the long rant, I just have to vent sometimes!
Amen to everything you said here. This whole season has been an exercise in frustration, but today took that to a whole new level. I am so ready to just wash my hands of Sporting this season because the experience of watching them leaves me feeling…not good. The point-blank misses were bad (including some unmarked headers), but I’m especially tired of KC not feeling at all dangerous even when possessing the ball for huge stretches of the game in their attacking third.
I agree with all of this except for the young guys being bright spots. Pulskamp was awful, Tzionis did his usual dribble forever but never actually eliminate guys from the play thing and once we went up a guy he completely disappeared, Hernandez was invisible all game, they literally avoided giving Rindov the ball in possession, Bryant was ok but uneven, and Afrifa was Shelton-esque with his finishing. The only good player in the day for me was Kinda.
I disagree with your take. Tzonis was the only threatening player in the first half. Hernandez was pretty solid in the second half and had a beautiful through ball to Bryant. Bryant actually progressed the ball forward more than any other player on the pitch and tried some passes toward the middle vs wing. After making a pass, Bryant would move to work a give and go…dude made runs too. Afrifa is very new to the team and he missed a shot that was basically a tap in. That said, he was good with the ball at his feet, willing to make runs and tried to combine. None of it really came off for him, but I see promise there. I think these young players show promise…enough that I would rather see them play than many of the veterans.
You are right about Tzonis in the second half though…he took over Thommy’s mantle of hero ball dribbler to nowhere.
And Shelton…sigh…3 more years, really?
I’m tired of people blaming Tzionnis for Vermes playing him on the wrong wing.
The one time he was able to play left side this year, in a cameo even, he was dangerous. But Vermes being Vermes, the round peg will go in the square hole.
I personally didn’t understand the sub, Castellanos-Robbie, and when you pair it with Roger playing left back and getting a yellow immediately after the game started and having to carry it all game long it makes it more perplexing. Has he been great at left back, no. But you can’t tell me Robbie isn’t at least able to track back quicker than Roger and at least wouldn’t be as liable for a red
Not only that, but Roger committed at least (2) fouls (not called) that were yellow card worthy after his first yellow. He was a terrible LB. At least SKC didn’t need him on defense due to the red card.
Go figure, I took last weekend off because it was a busy weekend for the band being cinco de Mayo and all. Watched this display live for the first time I caught a game while it was on, sorry to jinx it guys.
I get rotation, I get managing mins, I get it’s open cup. I don’t get the necessity to flip tzionis on the right when Salloi is on the bench, and Khiry has primarily been on the right. I don’t see what we were trying to achieve with that, other than the staff is really pushing to develop him as the heir to Johnny? Just really odd. Also, I get Robbie hasn’t been the most successful at left back. But, I don’t understand why the thought Roger could conjure the ghosts of his past and was justified in questioning that when he promptly got a yellow pretty much 10 mins into the game. Made absolutely zero sense that the oldest guys are playing outside back together in a most likely humid climate game. Sucks that, if I interpreted the rules right, we burned the last game Ethan can play for the senior team on a open cup game we lost in. I also understand afrifa is still learning his role and the team, but that miss was just……..yeah.
I went in fully expecting we’d lose, confirmed it with the lineup, and still got excited with a red. Should of known that it was only going to end with disappointment if you get too excited especially when you utter the words, it’s only a matter of time they score!
Whoops
Just all around bad, don’t know what else to say. I don’t know if I’d give anyone other than Bryant and Kinda a 5 or better on player ratings.
Glad I missed it.
Can we see Tzonis on the left (his actual position) at least once? Dude was good in the first half…the only attacker that was threatening. He didn’t get the ball in the second half but a couple times and he played Thommy esque “hero ball” when he had it…not ideal.
Truthfully, SKC simply doesn’t have any attacker on the roster than can get on the end of these endless crosses. This game actually had crosses going to people (not all of them) and SKC still couldn’t get shots on frame. Tzonis got in behind a couple times in the first half…I think that was the first time all season that has happened for anyone on this team. I’m beyond sick of watching SKC pass the ball around the back. I enjoyed watching Kinda, Bryant and Tzonis trying to turn the ball forward instead of back and get a quick series of passes. These passes didn’t come off but it was looks in the right direction.
End of the day, the game sucked but I’ll take this game over the crap the veterans have been putting out for the first 10 games of this season. The kids show promise…this is encouraging.
Especially when you think Salloi was on the bench and tzionis is paired with Khiry as wingers. Tzionis naturally plays on the left and scored on the left in the game against Tulsa. Khiry “plays” on the right, but for whatever reason they played on their opposite natural sides. No idea why besides maybe Peter thought Khiry could potentially be defensive cover for Roger on the left? But even then, he didn’t do much when Roger got caught to far forward on the yellow and then after the red, they still played “out of position”. No idea what the thought process was there
Open cup was the only good that was going to come of this season. I’m on the fire everyone train now.
Throwing the Open Cup as a desperate play to save his job. If we have a miracle run like the end of last season and sneak into the playoffs, Vermes can’t be fired, right?
So throw the only competition we have a chance of winning this year. Makes perfect sense.
We could win Leagues Cup! Hahahahahaha