What to expect from Sporting Kansas City? We asked their coach and local beat writer
All eyes of the soccer nation will be on Heart Health Park as Sacramento Republic hosts Sporting Kansas City on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
The two teams from different leagues are competing in the nation’s oldest single-elimination tournament, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Should Sacramento win, it would be the first non-MLS team to make the final since 2008. No lower-division side has won the competition since the Rochester Rhinos in 1999.
Standing in their way of a trophy is one of the most-decorated clubs in MLS and Cup history. Formerly known as the “Kansas City Wizards,” Sporting have won the competition four times, most recently in 2017.
“There’s a reason why a team like them has such a good history of winning this tournament,” said Daniel Sperry, who covers the team for the Kansas City Star. “They take it very seriously when not everybody does.”
HOW THEIR YEAR IS GOING
As the saying goes, it is difficult to fight a war on multiple fronts.
That is why teams might not prioritize using their best players in the U.S. Open Cup, as opposed to the MLS regular season. While there are teams around the globe that can compete in both, or sometimes three or four at once, the conventional thought in soccer is teams tend to sacrifice one for the other.
Sporting KC currently sit last in the MLS Western Conference standings and are only two points ahead of the worst team in the league.
“Obviously, we’re not where we want to be,” head coach Peter Vermes told The Bee at a news conference. “We’ve had times where we’ve performed well and given up very silly goals, which are our fault, and other times, we just haven’t played so well. … The results are the results.”
But numbers on a table can be deceiving without context. Sporting lost two of their most expensive attackers in Alan Pulido and Gadi Kinda to season-ending injury before they even kicked a ball this year.
“The best way to explain this to fans would be to think of the (Golden State) Warriors the year they were last in the West and why that happened,” Sperry said.
“You have an offense where (Pulido) was the reference point for their entire build-up and the unpredictability (of Kinda) was what created room and opportunities for their wide players. … All that stuff completely fell apart without those two.”
That is starting to change. Last week, two new attacking signings from Europe made their debut for Kansas City: midfielder Erik Thommy from Stuttgart of the German Bundesliga and forward William Agada from Nigeria by way of the Israeli Premier League.
Both are eligible to take the field Wednesday.
HOW WILL THE GAME PLAY OUT?
Sperry believes that if Kansas City were to lose Wednesday night, it will be because of mistakes on defense.
“That’s where they can get caught up,” Sperry said. “The mental edge or commitment to play every roll of the ball is something that isn’t always quantified, but will determine the outcome of this game.”
“On the other side, if Sacramento can limit the opportunities Sporting gets inside the 18-yard box, that will frustrate them and potentially trickle down to other things. … Sporting would prefer to get off to a fast start. They do not like it when teams bunker down on them.”
Vermes said he thinks Sacramento is first and foremost a defensive team.
“They have good individual defenders that are aggressive in looking to win the ball,” Vermes said. “When they do, they try to go forward quickly and get the ball to some very mobile guys (up front). … They can do either. They can open the game and run you or drop off and come back and be very good defensively. It will be a big challenge for us for sure.”