Sporting KC earn 1-0 win in San Diego

Sporting Kansas City earned their second clean sheet and a critical win in their last match of 2026. With the victory, Sporting KC climbed out of last place, and the unofficial award of Wooden Spoon goes to Montreal instead. André Luiz scored the lone goal from the penalty spot in the 76th minute and SKC fought hard to maintain the 1-0 lead.

Sporting Kansas City head coach Raphael Wicky has rarely had a mostly healthy roster, and the last match of the season was no different. Lasse Berg Johnsen returned to the lineup but was on minute restrictions, and Owen Wollf has been injured most of the year prior to being traded Kansas City. Eight players were ruled out and a another questionable, making Wicky’s job more difficult than normal.

“I knew that I had to become creative today a little bit,” Wicky told media after the match. “I knew for sure I have to take Lasse out. I wasn’t sure about Owen because Owen obviously is just coming back. I wasn’t sure if he can go 75 and, with Lasse out and Owen out, I wouldn’t have had more midfielders anymore. Jake Davis already came inside so I knew that. We had an emergency plan for that with Justin Reynolds who would have been the guy coming in but obviously we have to play players out of positions. I’m happy that it worked well and the guys got a win and got a very good performance and got a good feeling going into this offseason.”

San Diego’s starters.

“It was overall a very, very good performance. I thought that the first half was a very good performance,” Wicky stated. “We know that, possession-wise, San Diego is a team who always has a lot of possession. That’s their game and they’re really good in that. But I felt like our performance was very disciplined defending. We were very well organized and we had really good pressing moments in the right moments where the guys worked really hard and actually stole some balls and created some stuff as well out of that. So the first half was really good. I think we could have won the first half and then we made a few adjustments in terms of possession on where the spaces are when they pressure us and I think the guys executed then really, really well. Obviously you could see that Owen (Wolff) and Lasse (Berg Johnsen) are very comfortable in midfield. They’re very calm players and very good players so that that obviously helped in those moments. And then we created all these big chances so I’m very pleased with the performance and obviously I’m very happy about the win. In the last game of the season, it’s really good to finish with a positive and especially with a good performance.

San Diego dominated possession through most of the match, but Sporting Kansas City had numerous chances in both halves. SKC utilized the speed Capita and André Luiz provided along the wings. San Diego keeper Pablo Sisniega came up big time after time, frustrating SKC offense until late in the second half. Andre was brought down in the penalty area while going to goal. SKC’s speedy attacker took the penalty himself, sliding the ball inside the post while Sisniega dove the wrong way. The goal gave André his eighth goal of the season and SKC a 1-0 lead in the 76^th minute.