Sporting KC
Sporting KC earns gritty 1-1 draw with LAFC
Johnny Russell scored in an action packed draw to make it three games unbeaten.
It’s officially a streak. Sporting Kansas City picked up a point in Los Angeles against LAFC with a 1-1 draw, their third straight MLS match without a loss.
A modest achievement, sure. But we’re celebrating baby steps after a truly horrendous start to the season.
LAFC is not at the top of the table right now, but many in MLS have already anointed them repeat champions. It was a tall order for Sporting KC who were riding high on confidence after two straight wins, but was without keeper Tim Melia. 29-year-old Kendall McIntosh filled in with just his third ever MLS start. The goal was a true howler that went right through him, but McIntosh settled into the match and came up with several nice plays to secure the result.
The visitors came out with a lot of early pressure. It was a rollercoaster of a first half with back and forth action. LAFC is so incredibly quick and dangerous on the counter, which could and should have resulted in more than one goal. But they were able to open the scoring in the 13th minute.
21-year-old Kwadwo Opoku was causing problems all night for the SKC defense. He put Andreu Fontas on skates before cutting it back for a wide open Dénis Bouanga. He fired a bullet from the top of the box which somehow snuck directly under McIntosh for the 1-0 lead.
Denis Bouanga scores for @LAFC.
*this is not a scheduled tweet* pic.twitter.com/1KnHZjmkdy
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 18, 2023
LA continued the attack and forced McIntosh into a big save only a few seconds after the restart. Bouanga, the MLS Golden Boot leader, also missed a chance to score his 11th goal in as many games with a huge opportunity in the 18th minute.
Sporting KC responded just two minutes later with a brilliant individual goal from Johnny Russell. He got the ball outside the box and danced his way through traffic in classic JFR style. He found a sliver of an opening and punched it through. Amazingly, LA keeper Eldin Jakupovic also let the ball go straight through him.
Johnny F🤬 Russell levels it!
Watch #LAFCvSKC live on @AppleTV https://t.co/7L1T1Vpj75 pic.twitter.com/lFpMS7Rq47
— Sporting Kansas City (@SportingKC) May 18, 2023
The Captain doing Captain things.
Remi nearly put the visitors ahead in the 32nd minute with a shot just wide of the post as the intense action continued in the first half.
While the second half calmed down a bit, it started off with a bang. There was a scary moment for SKC in the opening seconds after an awkward deflection from Radoja. McIntosh was called into action and made a miraculous save to push it over the post.
Seeing some weak spots, Peter Vermes made two subs in the 61st minutes. Jake Davis was getting picked on all night, so the experience of Graham Zusi was called upon to sure things up. Gadi Kinda also replaced Erik Thommy in the midfield.
It was starting to feel like a goal from LAFC was simply inevitable. SKC was fighting off big chances left and right. In the 84th minute, LA thought they had scored the winner but VAR called back a goal from Ryan Hollingshead.
Sporting displayed some true grit to lock down the match, even coming within inches of a winner themselves in the dying minutes. However, they’ll be more than happy with a point on the road against the best team in the league.
It won’t get much easier this weekend as SKC will be walking into a buzzsaw environment in St. Louis against the ALLCAPS. The rivalry’s first ever clash kicks off at 8:30pm.
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You little minx, stole my line from the match thread… “Classic JFR”. Lol.
Great minds!
It’s a good result.
But this same lineup is rolling on Saturday, isn’t it? Hope the extra 2hrs of rest before kickoff helps.
It’s MLS stacking the deck for the expansion side when they made the schedule. Send the MLS 1.0 team to LAFC midweek, give STL the midweek match day off, and then let STL host the “rivalry” match on Saturday night (in front of a national audience). Any guesses who MLS would like to see win the match on Saturday night?
I feel the same way Daniel. Garbage setup. Almost every team played midweek except St Louis (and a couple others).
We should be able to rotate the midfield to mange minutes against StL.
Worried about the back line. My guess is Zusi plays.
Biggest issue is what happens with rotation up top. Frankly I’d be fine seeing Shelton (forgive me) for 45-50 before subbing Johnny in.
I’d rather see Tzionis than Kirby for 45 and then planned sub at half with Russell. Then leave Pulido on for 50 to 60 with Afrifa coming on. That’ll give Tzionis and Pulido a good half to pull something together, then Johnny and Pulido a good 15 minutes of play to try and create something and then hopefully Afrifa in to run the game out… OR instead of subbing Tzionis out put him at LW and sub Russell on for Salloi at halftime
No.
Maybe we see a start for Kinda finally?
He started against Seattle I believe. And maybe the open cup
I just meant, as opposed to bringing him off the bench like we have the past 2 games
Didn’t kinda start vs Seattle? And during the open cup?
Fun highlights to watch. Solid game for McIntosh; the goal he let in didn’t look worse than the one the LAFC keeper allowed. Anyone know what’s up with Pulskamp? Nothing against McIntosh, just seems weird that suddenly Pulskamp has been banished when he’s been plenty good as SKC’s secondary keeper.
Really, really curious how this new-look team handles STL, who are coming back to Earth a bit but still dangerous. Won’t be able to watch until Sunday night, though.
Was wondering the same about Pulskamp. Although I wonder if they went with McIntosh since he was presumably a little sharper coming off of about 30 min of playing time against Minnesota. If it’s not Pulskamp in goal against STL, then I’ll have more questions for sure.
I’d start McIntosh on form, regardless of whether Pulskamp is nominally higher on depth chart.
Agreed!
Thought the boys were fairly solid last night, but am curious to see our defensive lineup on Saturday (Leibold might be available again, but do we throw him in straight away?). I really like Davis but thought he struggled (chalk it up to growing pains), and I felt Fontas was out of position on both of the goals scored (at least VAR saved us on the 2nd one!).
I said last game and will say again, we look so much better when we’re direct in attack, and we had a few chances where we almost stole all 3 points! I hope we continue to see that moving forward.
I thought McIntosh played really well. He saved SKC’s bacon in the second half and his reflexes/aggressiveness reminded me of Timmy from 5 years ago. His distribution and feet are way better than Pulskamp. For me, he is man of the match. SKC doesn’t win that game with Pulskamp in because I don’t think he could handle the awkward balls back to him from Rosero inside of the 6 yard box with LAFC pressure. I’d like to see McIntosh continue as the #2 keeper. If he continues to play like that, make him #1.
Granted, he started a bit shaky but really grew into the game.
Pulido needs to have his job threatened by Afrifa. He gets gassed and contributes little afterwords. Also have yet to see him leave it all on the field.
The game management was terrible and there was no reason not to sub those lagging earlier than we did. Especially with the match congestion and injury management.
Zusi absolutely was a positive impact, but Davis has never faced that caliber of offense before – he ran them down, but zusi showed his game sense and experience (they were too tired to just blow past him at that point).
Surprised we held it at 1 – 1. They should have had 3 goals on us by the time we scored our first, though.