Sporting KC
Not tonight: Sporting drops decision to Nashville SC
It is a Sporting Kansas City tradition. It seems so, anyway. Each match down the stretch is critical to at least feeling good going into the next season, but, hopefully, to earning a spot in the Major League Soccer playoffs.
With five matches left in their schedule, Sporting can finish anywhere, mathematically, from 14th to possibly 2nd at this point. In reality, all fans are hoping for is 9th, to nab that final playoff spot. (Ok, 8th for at least one home playoff match.) Elusive like 2022? Or a good bet? Tonight would provide more clarity.
But “Not Tonight” the soccer gods would proclaim as Sporting Kansas City dropped a 3-0 decision to Nashville SC Wednesday evening at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. Nashville’s Hany Mukhtar would claim a goal and an assist, while Kansas City’s sharpness in front of goal was absent.
For a brief, yet glorious, time last Saturday night and much of Sunday, Sporting was sitting at that #9 in the West after their 1-0 victory at Minnesota United. Tonight, again, presents an opportunity for Sporting to leap into that spot – perhaps only temporarily again – many did not think they could achieve after beginning the season 0-7-3 with only three points and three goals to the good.
Yet, Sporting has captured wins in three of the last four with the same, in general, Starting 11. In the first of the last five matches of the 2023 season, nothing changed:
https://x.com/SKCmatchday/status/1704645894744776715?s=20
To combat Nashville’s quick balls into reigning MLS MVP Hany Mukhtar and their long-ball counterattack leanings, Sporting played a high line in back. Early on, that line caught both Mukhtar and fellow attacker Fafa Picault offside.
For Sporting, quick interplay on the right wing saw the brightest early chance in the 23rd minute as Daniel Salloi laid down a tame ball on the inside right channel of Nashville’s box for Johnny Russell to hit, yet the Scot’s shot went wayward.
Two corners for Nashville nearly back-to-back were not what Sporting needed. Daniel Lovitz sent in both, the second in the 29th minute for Picault who had run up the gut unmarked as Walker Zimmerman baited a hoard as he cleared the middle of KC’s box. Unhindered, Picault only had to direct Lovitz’s service downward for a 1-0 Nashville lead.
Goal: F. Picault vs. SKC, 29′ | MLSSoccer.com
As halftime arrived, a question for Sporting was how to cut off Nashville’s holding midfielder Dax McCarty (and sometimes Alex Muyl) from the ball. McCarty had too often easily slid into space between the lines and had time to turn and purvey the field to pick out advantages or ideal matchups for the visitors in the first forty-five minutes.
Kansas City’s holding midfielder Nemanja Radoja spent the half dropping back to shield the back four, and no one in the midfield bothered much with McCarty. With Radoja leaving the match for attacker Gadi Kinda at the break, the responsibility likely would fall to Remi Walter who slid into the #6 position.
Nashville wasted little time earning a chance to go up two. Mukhtar carried and dipped and feinted until he found space to let loose in the 49th minute. The German’s far-post roller forced KC goalkeeper Tim Melia down to the right to fingertip the ball wide.
Nashville threatened again in the 63rd with a shot that whisked outside of Melia’s left post from a delightful ball in from Mukhtar and a subsequent slick drop back.
The unpredictable and the nearly unbelievable left the weekday crowd aghast in the 66th minute. Off Lovitz corner, Sporting cleared the ball and cleared out of the back. Nashville goalkeeper Joe Willis ran up near the center circle and flighted the ball back in. Though all of Nashville’s lingering attackers seemed offside, play continued. Zimmerman latched onto the ball wide right of Sporting’s box. The American international played for a runner at the six-yard box, but the cross was rejected. Mukhtar picked up the loose ball and found paydirt for the 2-0 lead.
Goal: H. Mukhtar vs. SKC, 66′ | MLSSoccer.com
Mild threats from Kansas City – as they had been all night at a 0.3xG at the 75th minute – continued before Vermes threw on a slew of substitutes, assumedly in preparation for a possible three point grab at home this coming Saturday: Willy Agada, Marinos Tzionis, Felipe Gutierrez, and Robert Voloder stepped on for Alan Pulido, Russell, Thommy, and Andreu Fontas.
The night grew more dim in the 76th minute. Mukhtar swerved in a free kick from Sporting’s left flank that found a rising Jack Maher. Maher deposited the ball into the net and Nashville were well on their way to their first win since July 8. From June 21, the Eastern Conference club had scored only four goals in nine matches.
Goal: J. Maher vs. SKC, 76′ | MLSSoccer.com
Sporting will face a surging Houston Dynamo Saturday night in a match that takes on even more importance if Kansas City is to make the playoffs.
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What was so clear tonight was how few ideas SKC had in the final third and how preventable the goals were. I truly believe the 4-3-3 possession system is a good fit for SKC, however, time and time again its been proven we lack the ability to break teams down, especially those that can sit back into banks of four and hit on the counter as well as Nashville. Of course, it would help to not give the ball in your half.
Then, we gave away three of the most preventable goals you will ever see. How does one of the smallest guys on the pitch in Pacault, get a running FREE header for the opening goal? That’s not skill or technique, that’s just marking. Even in a zonal marking scheme, you should be able to account for a free man. On the second goal, if Nndenbe had just stepped up, Zimmerman would have been offside. and then no one, i mean no one, follows Muhktar when he runs toward the ball. At this point SKC have the numbers, its 3 v 4, all Rosero has to do is follow the former MVP and the clearance is going to him. The third goal could have been cleared by Nedenbe but, I will give it to Muhktar, it was a great set piece.
All in all, these games are won in the fine margins. We just weren’t sharp enough and Nashville punished us for it. Despite not looking amazing themselves.
Honestly Ndembe had an atrocious defensive game. He’s zonal in the first goal, Picault just waltzes straight into his zone with no reaction from Ndembe. 2nd goal he’s unaware of his positioning relative to the rest of the line. 3rd goal he looked cooked. I’m not sure if it is physical and mental fatigue or what but given PV’s propensity to bench folks for less I’ll be surprised to see him start another game this year.
I turned it off after the second goal. I’ve been absurdly loyal to watching games all season and I’d finally had enough. I’ll watch the STL match for the theatre of it, but unless they somehow reel off 4 straight wins and get some help I’m done. I need a break from the constant betrayal cycle.
PV has had his first-choice lineup for a while now and it’s not working. Lots of hard choices to be made this off-season, and as much as I hate thinking it, not making the playoffs would help with that.
I am right there with you. I will continue to watch because I can’t help it, but I’m beyond frustrated with PV and this team. I hope to see a major roster rebuild after this season, but I thought that after 2022 and they brought in exactly one starting caliber player. I can’t hold out hope…I have to tell myself that PV will roll out the same team just one year older. At least SKC has the oldest roster in the league…so the team is winning that metric.
Have fans just giving up on the idea that a management overhaul from the top to the bottom is necessary?
I’m not sure they’ve given up on it being necessary. But I know I personally don’t see it happening.
If PV’s comments to the media yesterday about they can’t afford to be tired are any indication, we’ll see the same tired (physically and mentally, not a slander on the guys) lineup again and they’ll lose from just not being able to play their game b/c of fatigue.
If they do absolutely crap the bed down the stretch, maybe that’ll be some impetus for some change.
The SKC ability to consistently give up obnoxiously soft goals is outrageous. How do we manage to do this ON A REGULAR BASIS?! It’s criminal, and it ought to be terminable for players and / or coaches. These guys are (allegedly) professional soccer players, and we nearly never make teams score “good” goals against us. No, all they have to do is kick the ball around the park for a few minutes, and wait for us to inevitably gift them one or more goals. Separately, how do you enter an all but mathematical must win, on your home pitch, against a team that hadn’t won in six league matches and get absolutely blown off the pitch? Everyone affiliated with this team should be horrified, and afraid to show their faces. They should be paying us to watch them, not the other way around.