Sporting KC
Sporting KC falls at home to Chicago Fire
Listless attack leads to 1-0 loss for SKC
Sporting Kansas City squandered another home match with a 1-0 loss to the Chicago Fire FC. After a scoreless first half, Chicago’s Fabian Herbers staked the visitors to the lead in the 47th minute.
Both teams came off a midweek match and had the same travel so should have an equal level of tired legs. Sporting KC had a tough 2-2 draw at the Galaxy while the Fire had a strong 2-1 victory over the Portland Timbers when former SKC forward Kei Kamara scored late.
The lineup was as close to a first choice as Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes could field with the players hurt and Dany Rosero out on a yellow card accumulation.
It was another match where Sporting KC owned possession, passes, and most other stats except for shots. Chicago had 12 shots with a .8 XG while SKC had 13 and .9 XG. Sporting KC’s best scoring chance by XG was Daniel Salloi’s attempt in the 51st minute.
Chicago’s goal started with a throw-in that Brian Gutiérrez dribbled straight down the middle of SKC’s defense before sliding it to his left for Jairo Torres. With Kendall McIntosh protecting the near post, Torres slid the ball across SKC’s six-yard box. The ball bounced off of Andreu Fontas and back into the middle of the box where Fabian Herbers was all alone. Herbers had time to take a touch but one-timed it into the net.
Fabian Herbers kicking off the second half with a bang!
1-0 for Chicago. pic.twitter.com/szSin5oVUc
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) June 25, 2023
Overall a disappointing result for Kansas City. After an abysmal start to the season, Sporting KC had rounded into form and was playing well through May and early June but are again struggling to get points when the opportunity is there for the taking.
Next up for Sporting KC is the Vancouver Whitecaps on July 1st at Children’s Mercy Park.
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If your midfield isn’t 180 minuteses match fit Don’t run them like they are. Vermes is so goddamn out of touch with our fitness, ability, potential that we are dropping stupid points versus stupid teams. Both in thame first 1/3 of of the season and now. Vermes out. It is clear and obvious at this point.
Yeah if I had to say right now whether I think we make the playoffs or not, I say we don’t. Just looking at the table now, we’d need 2 straight wins without either Vancouver, Portland, or Austin getting any points out of their respective amount of games it will take for them to be even with us on games played. That’s just to barely be in the playoff standings, and then that has to be maintained; it’s not realistic.
A worry that I have is this: we don’t make the playoffs, season ends after a historically bad season, and then….? Do we really think there’s going to be this massive overhaul in the offseason? I say likely not, and next year we get more of the same, with the same patterns, same few scapegoat players thrown under the bus, etc. We don’t have any young prospects that we’re building up, we don’t have anything to point to and get excited about for the next season
Are you not excited to see the roster overhaul of Duke and Cisneros having their options declined because they expressed wanting to leave somewhere else for more playing time?
Where’s that sarcasm button????
That’s too accurate to be as funny as it should be.
1) We can officially bury the narrative of “All Sporting needed was to get healthy for their season to turn around.” 1 point in 3 games. 2 vs teams below the playoff line. The third a blown lead in a game against a team that lacked 6 regular starters.
2) “We were tired” doesn’t cut it. We played the 11th placed team in the East. And they had come off a midweek game in Portland to play a 2nd road game in 4 days. And we still laid an egg. When every home game is must-win, we’ve blown the last 2 and given up that “advantage” we had over other teams. While still not making up the games in hand they have over us.
3) Let’s just call a spade a spade: Sporting is not a good team. It’s a team as good as Alan Pulido makes it. If he’s human, this team loses.
#VermesOut
It’s getting harder to explain the month of May as nothing more than an anomaly. I thought maybe the team’s ceiling would be higher with all of our key players healthy, but June has been decidedly a mixed bag. I do think this current roster is capable than more than it’s currently achieving, but I’m starting to settle into the view that the team may just not be that good this year – middling at best. The new Vermes contract awarded after last season still boggles my mind and it continues to look like a monumental blunder at this point. Sorry for the negativity, but it’s just damn frustrating.
It was a blunder though. It’s not negativity, just facts. It’s the kind of extension you give someone who has been winning. It’s like ownership were just pretending two of the last three years never happened.
It’s not even the horrible player personnel decisions that makes PV’s time here done… It’s the overall concept. I saw multiple chances last night to get the ball through the middle, with a well placed thru ball, but instead they swing it outside like usual, and get trapped in the corner due to limited options. From there they will get dispossessed, or send in a fluttering cross with nothing behind it and a danger to no one.
They stand around on offense, there is no one coming to the ball, and when they do get the ball they’re so tired from having to press constantly that they have no legs… It’s little league soccer… And it’s trash
Just going off memory here, but it seemed like many of our goals during May came from build-up through the middle of the pitch. You’d think that would be a clue to the team that attacking from the wing every time isn’t the best choice.
Dynamic attacks with various styles make it easier to exploit defensive mistakes. Static offensive templates require 100% focus and allow no room for error… something that is impossible.
Don’t forget the classic attacking strategy of kicking backwards to the center backs and keeper while down a goal.
Maybe this isn’t thread to express this annoyance but oh well. How many times have we watched the game and described how tired players look on the field? I just don’t understand Peter Vermes logic. The team is playing a Saturday game after a mid-week game and we cant slightly change the midfield or forward line? Felipe Hernandez is MLS quality and does well with his minutes and he cant be trusted to get a start? If PV didn’t believe in his bench, why not spend the offseason getting solid MLS quality depth? For example, he extended Khiry Shelton’s contract who makes $600,000 but someone like Bobby Wood had his option declined and makes $400,000 now with the Revolution. Guess how many goals he has? 6 more Khiry.
I haven’t done the research on it, but id love to see how often other teams rotate their squads compared to SKC, because rolling out an exhausted squad when you have some quality that could start is just negligible.
Normally I would accept this argument. But not for this game.
Chicago played in Portland midweek, only to play us away as well. Shaqiri flew back from international duty and arrived too late to start. Klopas had at least as tired a team as SKC. And they were on the road.
Yet we didn’t even look interested in pushing the game the entire first half. And the only team that deserved to score did so.
All the more reason for Vermes to rotate the midfield. Squad players are gonna play better at home and provide energy. You mentioned they didn’t even look interested in pushing the game, well it’s because as you said, they were just as tired as Chicago. You cant tell me starting Tzionis, and Felipe or sending Afrifa out to make runs behind a tired backline wouldn’t have helped.
Rather than list and argue the many, many reasons why I — and you — should be #VermesOut, let’s instead list the reasons we should be #VermesIn.
?
It’s easier because they are so few, if any. Give it a go.
Hint: Worrying about who you hire instead is not a reason to keep him, nor is previous performance, which after these past few years, one wonders how much better or worse it might have been with a different coach.
p.s. can we stop scapegoating Khiry?