While Imperfect, Sporting KC’s Tactics Showed Promise Versus Colorado

For the Glory KC is back with the 144th episode of the show!

Sporting Kansas City broke a nearly two-month winless streak on Saturday night against the Colorado Rapids. The streak went back to their last win, also against the Rapids, on July 4th in Commerce City. And while “winless” is technically right, it was worse than that. Between victories over Colorado, Sporting KC were 0-5-1, with just a single draw against NYCFC.

The defense was still flawed, and defense often starts further up the field, so there is blame to go around. Colorado should have scored far more than the two goals they put in, if not for outstanding individual efforts from John Pulskamp, Robert Voloder and Ian James. But it was something else that stood out on Saturday.

With Manu Garcia still unavailable due to injury, Kerry Zavagnin finally used Santiago Munoz as a straight up #10. You could call it a second striker, but he was floating all over creating opportunities. He was involved in so many attacking sequences and seemed to unlock Sporting KC’s creativity. Not every sequence ended with a shot, but there was so much promise.

Another move I’ve been asking for is not starting all three strikers together. It leaves no impact subs on the bench to play forward. With Mason Toye starting on the bench, it was a combination of him subbing on and Santi unlocking the midfield that led to the game winning goal. Munoz played a perfect ball to Toye to finished with precision to push SKC over the line for their seventh win of the season.

Of course, Sheena and I talked about a lot more Sporting KC happenings in this episode, including:

• Our favorite goal of the night (there were so many good candidates)
• Pulskamp heroics
• That James save off the line!
• Daniel Salloi showing man strength
• International callups and so much more

The KC Current did what we basically expect them to do at this point. Just keep winning. They’ve won twice since our last podcast and clinched a playoff spot. They aren’t that far away from locking up the NWSL Shield. But ultimately, the season will be defined by what they do in the playoffs. Before we get there though, we talk through the victories over the Portland Thorns and North Carolina Courage.

In the Digital Crawl, we hit on a few more topics, including:

• St. Louis fire their Sporting Director
• Barbra Banda done for the year
• The USWNT game at CPKC Stadium

Here is a rundown of topics and start times:

• Sporting KC’s big comeback victory – 8:22
• SKC make moves and Intl. Call-ups in the SKC roundup – 54:24
• KC Current keep winning – 1:01:03
• Strife between ownership & the NWSL in the Current roundup – 1:18:32
• Digital Crawl – 1:26:47

Upcoming Games

• SKC II vs. Real Monarchs, Sat. Sept 6th at 12:00PM CDT
• USMNT vs. South Korea, Sat. Sept 6th at 4:00 PM
• KC Current @ Bay FC, Sat. Sept 6th at 9:00PM
• Sporting KC vs. Austin FC, Sun. Sept. 7th at 6:00PM

As a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they’ll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!

Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

You can find For the Glory KC wherever you get your podcasts. Search “For the Glory KC” and be sure to subscribe! Here are some helpful links:

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Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast. Five-star ratings and reviews will help others find the pod. On Spotify you can review on the mobile app by clicking the three dots. On Apple Podcasts, it’s much easier. If it’s not quite five-star worthy yet, feel free to let us know in the comments or on Twitter (@PlayFor90 or @ForTheGloryKC). Sheena essentially runs our FTGKC BlueSky, so that’s a great way to get her takes. 

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