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Sporting KC Draw at the Death against Rivals St. Louis

Sporting Kansas City lead early, lead late, and ultimately do what they do and drop points at home to St. Louis City SC.

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2 weeks ago

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Credit: Thad Bell

Sporting Kansas City hosted St. Louis City for just the second time during the MLS regular season and third time overall. Entering the game, the all-time series favored Sporting KC 3-2-0.

The starting eleven for SKC stunningly held no changes as Remi Walter somehow played through the pain of his ankle injury and stayed in the lineup after leaving early against Inter Miami. On the bench, Khiry Shelton made his first matchday roster appearance after suffering an injury in preseason.

The KC Cauldron tifo game was on point telling St. Louis to “Abandon All Hope.” Beautiful artwork. I guess they didn’t quite give up on that hope as early as we’d have liked.

First Half

The game got off to a frenetic start with near chances on both ends. Alan Pulido ended the first SKC attack with a heavy pass over the endline. On the other end Andreu Fontas intervened to steal the ball in the box just before a shot. In the 7th minute, it got really dodgy as Dany Rosero let a ball bounce over his head where the St. Louis attacker picked it up and put a dangerous ball in the box that somehow was eventually cleared by SKC.

The game settled down a bit before Sporting Kansas City played the beautiful soccer we all know they are capable of. After a St. Louis free kick, Tim Leibold stepped up to intercept the ball and then played a quick give and go with Daniel Salloi. Leibold then found Pulido who did a give and go with Willy Agada before Alan eventually scored a lovely team goal. 1-0 Sporting KC.

From there, St. Louis would gain a quite a bit of control with their relentless high pressure forcing Kansas City into quite a few mistakes. STL nearly got their first goal when a ball bounced off a player and Tim Melia came up with a huge save. Not long after, another sequence would see the ball pinging around the Sporting KC box before it went off Jake Davis’ face and out for a corner.

But a few minutes later, they’d get their first. Tim Leibold was dispossessed on the left side of the defense and a ball was sent into the box and Davis let up ever so slightly and Joao Klauss slotted it in past Melia. 1-1.

From there it turned into ‘hack a Sporting player.’ Referee Alan Chapman let it go on for a while before finally calling a non-foul that sent Rosero to the ground. Ironically, he missed the three times before that Rosero was pushed, stepped on or just hacked by STL players. The physical play would continue and lead to a second St. Louis goal before the half. Klauss absolutely laid out Willy Agada and took the ball off him, setting up the pass that led to the Celio Pompeu goal. It was a nice shot. 2-1 St. Louis.

The first card of the half would go to Daniel Salloi for dissent. After getting decked right in front of the ref by Chris Durkin, he did earn a foul, but no card was given until Salloi said something to Chapman. St. Louis would lead 2-1 at the half.

Second Half

The second half started like the first ended. Thommy got shoved in the back causing a stumble, but not a fall, so when he’s dispossessed, he’s actually called for the foul trying to win it back. A minute later Nemanja Radoja joins Salloi in the book with a yellow card, also for dissent. Around a million fouls in, both yellows are for dissent. Makes sense. St. Louis had a golden chance in the box in the 50th minute that they eventually botched instead of laying off a simple pass to Pompeu for what almost certainly would have been his second of the night.

In the 54th minute, Willy Agada was replaced by Johnny Russell. The team moved immediately out of their 4-2-3-1 shape and back into a 4-3-3. Markanich gets his third foul of the night, and it was a bad one. But still no yellow. The free kick by Thommy sailed over the bar.

At the 62nd minute St. Louis had 15 shots, 14 fouls and zero cards. In the 63rd minute the first card finally went to St. Louis defender Tim Parker time wasting for delaying a quick restart by Salloi. That free kick would be costly for St. Louis as Johnny Russell delivered a ball that Klauss actually flicked on to Salloi who scored from an impossible angle in the 64th minute. 2-2.

The physical nature of the game would continue, and Davis would go in the book for a foul on an odd sequence where Dany Rosero was too far up the field and turned the ball over. Davis did stop an attack so that actually probably should have been a yellow. Sporting KC getting the first yellow from a foul felt inaccurate though. Minutes later, Davis is wiped out stopping a promising attack the other way and it’s just a foul.

Look up the definition of inconsistency in the dictionary and I think you may find a picture of Alan Chapman.

Because Chapman clearly knew I typed that line, he just called a foul minutes later on Kyle Heibert for holding Thommy, who was trying to break free on an attack. But Erik Thommy would get his revenge in the 77th minute. After a weird sequence in the back where Rosero nearly gave the ball away, SKC recovered the ball and Andreu Fontas played a great ball over the top and Thommy made the perfect run to get himself all alone with Roman Burki. Thommy curled it in to the net to take the lead in the Sporting KC golden boot race with four. Sporting KC up 3-2.

Pompeu went into the book next for St. Louis after a pat to the head of Davis. I suppose that’s progress since Davis was hit in the head in both of the prior meetings and nothing was given.

Stunningly, after a bunch of subs, a lot of nonsense and a few yellow cards, there were only three minutes of stoppage time. But that was plenty for Sporting Kansas City to extend their league lead in dropped points from a winning position. A chaotic play in the midfield led to Salloi clearing a ball backwards to a St. Louis player (sound familiar?) for the game typing goal. Leibold went to ground and missed Tomas Totland who went on to beat an onrushing Melia to tie the game 3-3.

That is how it would end. Five of the last six games were at home. In those five games, Sporting KC won once, against the San Jose Earthquakes. They led all four other games and lost two (LA Galaxy and Inter Miami) and drew two (Portland Timbers and St. Louis). KC are on the road for the next two. Next Saturday they head to Southern Canada to play Minnesota United.

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Mister Murse

Vermes out.

22
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skcfanipromise

what is with this team, with the lead, with minutes left in the half or the game

yeah, i’m repeating my comment.

9
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Joe Pacheco

Well the fact.that he runs the players into the ground doesn’t help. Only 1 sub
St.louis used all 5 and that probably played to there advantage against tired legs. He never uses his bench, and it’s ridiculous. Vermes does.thos shit every game and it’s not working. #Vermesout..

13
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KCOutsider

This PV quote has me seething:

“I think you guys are all focused on that [the dropped points] and I think you miss the game because when you watch games like this, they’re entertaining,” Vermes said of his side’s home woes. “Do we want to be on that side of it? No…I think we’re getting better at and I think we’ll continue to do so over the course of the season. You guys are worried about it, I’m not.

How are you getting better at it? How are you not worried about this? Yes, the game was entertaining but you’re not friggin’ circus performers! We did not miss the game, we saw it all too well, you arrogant SOB.

All you have to say is “I’m sure that was fun to watch from an entertainment perspective, but the pattern isn’t acceptable from our point of view and it needs to be addressed”.

10
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Mister Murse

Yea I half listened while walking out and was just hoping that I misheard. I can’t believe he said this after our (lack of) home performance this season.

6
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kcrews123

Same. I was thinking maybe I misheard something while being in the crowd, so I re-listened, and was dumbfounded.

He completely skirted over the question and made it as if we’ve only dropped leads/points at home a couple of times, and made the media member out to be some idiot who doesn’t know what he’s asking.

2/3 of our games this year have been at home, and we have 5 points from it, while leading in all but one. That’s a problem that has most definitely not been “getting better”

5
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skcfanipromise

yup.

i had one foot on the #vermesout train last year, and the second foot followed during last year’s post-game clubhouse speech.

6
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KCSpurs1996

I can’t stand how condescending he is with media members and fans. He thinks he doesn’t have to answer to us or explain the team’s (and his) poor performance. I’m beyond fed up with him at this point.

11
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Howlie2

PV was arrogant before last year when fans were calling for him to be fired. Since that time, he has dropped all pretense of being civil with fans and the media. Now, he only gives middle fingers with words and he thinks we are too dumb to understand. Sadly, I think the ownership group IS too dumb to understand because they just let him do it.

1
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WonderfulWizHeWas

It felt like a gift when only 3 minutes of stoppage time were added, but at the same time I commented that it would be just enough time for SKC to piss down their leg again. I don’t understand the tactics. You’re leading, just a few minutes to go, and there is no organization or defensive shape. Guys are out of position everywhere on the pitch. Melia booting long balls on goal kicks, which are 50-50 balls (unless you kick one directly out of bounds, as he did.) Just play with the ball. Use the time wisely. You don’t have to take chances attacking and giving up possession. And what about the ridiculous corner kick with a few minutes left? What if SKC had tried to score instead of playing a short corner and wasting maybe 15 seconds before conceding possession? I can understand that decision if there was one minute remaining in stoppage time, but it was too soon to try it when you could have tacked on a game-killing goal on the corner kick.

1
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SportsChum

Just wondering what PV’s comments would be like if some form of relegation was a thing in MLS 🤔

0
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KCOutsider

He’d say the exact same thing.

“I think you guys are all focused on that and I think you miss the game because when you watch [relegation races] like this, they’re entertaining. Do we want to be on that side of it? No…I think we’re getting better at and I think we’ll continue to do so over the course of the season. You guys are worried about it, I’m not.”

2
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A&W

I honestly think there should be an investigation into Allen Chapman. I’ve never seen a soccer referee have THAT bad of an outing.

0
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KCOutsider

Saw this on Reddit and thought it was too good not to share. Paraphrasing:

SKC won’t get rid of Vermes because that would require making a substitution.

5
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