Sporting Kansas City Scouting Report: On Nervous Cornered Animals

You don't this Portland...wait. Maybe you do...

When I first sat down to type this, I thought Sporting Kansas City hosted this one. They don’t, of course, and that only makes this game the most-winniest of the season so far for the Portland Timbers. If the Timbers can’t win this one, what’s there left to do but cast all the spells and sacrifice all the goats necessary to keep the New England Revolution between Portland and The Wooden Spoon?

Now, to dig into why that is:

The Basics
2-6-5, 11 pts., 21 gf, 24 ga (-3); home 1-3-3, away 1-3-2; 13th in West, 23rd overall
Last 10: WLWTLTLLLL
Venue: HHAHHHAAHA

Like the Timbers, basically, only a little worse on offense and a little better defensively, but with the same gently underwater goal differential.

Even then, the “little better defensively” needs adjusting. SKC have allowed two goals or more in seven of their past 10 games and, bluntly, they don’t look good defensively. Based on some recent highlights (home draw v St. Louis, home loss v Houston, and the road loss at Minnesota) and vast swaths of last weekend’s loss at Austin FC, SKC hands out good looks like sweet, sweet candy – up to 5+ primo chances per game. Set-piece defending is a problem – just over 1/3 of all goals allowed - and they have given up a bushel of points (bushel=14 points) from leading positions. And that was before dropping some more at Austin.

Despite all the above, (far too) long-time head coach Peter Vermes only seems to change his starting XI when injuries or disciplinary actions make him. He recently flirted with a 4-2-3-1, but I see a lot of 4-3-3 in SKC’s past and that’s what Vermes rolled with in the last two road games as well. That 4-3-3 has been populated like so in recent weeks (the steadiest regulars are bolded):

Getting Reacquainted with Sporting Kansas City, aka, MLS's Barely Magical Wizards

When at his best, that's when you gotta watch out.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History
Seeing Sporting Kansas City as the fourth-best team in MLS history makes sense and doesn’t at the same time – especially given all the ups and downs (more than I expected or remembered, certainly) and the fact that they had their last championship season 11 years ago. They alternated between success and failure more over their first 14 seasons, reaching MLS Cup here (e.g., in 2000 and 2004) and missing back-to-back post-seasons there (e.g., 1998 and 1999 and again in 2005 and 2006). SKC became more consistent over the back 14, missing the playoffs just three times, but, after their second MLS Cup, the trophies got smaller and then stopped coming. They’ve fielded some famous goalkeepers – e.g., Tony Meola, Jimmy “White Panther” Nielsen, and Tim Melia – and as many famous defenders (e.g., Ike Opara, Jimmy Conrad, Matt Besler), and I suspect most long-time fans of MLS associate them with seemingly eternal head coach Peter Vermes’ aggressive, grinding approach to the game. Kings of the 1-0 win, basically, or even claiming the game in penalties after they throttled the life of the other team’s attack and couldn’t shove in a goal of their own: that’s probably unfair, but that’s the reputation I hold in my head. We’ll see how that holds up below, but I’ll always quietly love them for coming into the league with beautiful rainbows on their kits and literally starting as the Kansas City Wiz. The fact they thought switching “Wiz” to “Wizards” made it better? Chef’s fucking kiss.

Best Season(s)
I might get some dissents on this call – particularly given the way it centers MLS Cup 2013, a game they won on penalties over Real Salt Lake in the coldest final in league history – but I’m going with 2012 to 2017. Despite some shaky finishes (e.g., 10th overall in 2014 and 2015), SKC added three U.S. Open Cups (in 2012, 2015, and 2017) to their second MLS Cup. The counterpoint is 2000, the season they did the double (winning Cup and Shield), but the league had such claustrophobic margins back then and I genuinely believe they built their best, most stable long-time roster in the 2010s.

Long-Term Tendencies
The loose impression holds up pretty well, honestly: a couple exceptional seasons aside (some recent, e.g., 2018, 2020, and especially 2021), SKC generally sticks at average or under it in terms of goals scored (18 of 28 seasons) and generally gets at average or under on goals allowed (17 of 28 seasons). Think a lot of stacked ‘n’ stubborn defenses, combative midfields and an occasionally-interrupted succession of attacking stars to turns Ds (or Ts) into Ws. For what it’s worth, I do think this is shifting, if slowly, and with Vermes’ blessing. He’s mellowed. Except when it comes to working the refs.

Sporting Kansas City 1-1 Austin FC: A Wee Scouting Report

Sure, use your disgusting hands...

Since I had time, and seeing that Sporting Kansas City is the Portland Timbers next opponent after the…international break, I watched SKC’s 1-1 home draw against Austin FC. I understand Austin doesn’t serve up an apples-to-apples comparison to Portland - also, have I mentioned how much it wads my undies when people talk about each game as if the home team plays the same team every week (because they don't)? - but I still wanted to see what I could see about how SKC approached the game, which players looked good, etc. Nothing deep, just some notes…

Sporting dominated the game, had most the possession, disrupted the hell out of Austin’s flow (except when they didn’t; wait for it), and so on, but Austin didn’t get a ton of great looks at Austin’s goal - and, when they did, the found Brad Stuver in the way (for example). He made nine saves (box score), some quite good, and I guess that’s my first note for Portland - or, more specifically, whoever starts in goal for them next Saturday: the 'keeper will have work to do. Whatever I thought of the approach (more later) and the general quality, SKC fired 32 shots, 11 of them on goal. They also showed a stress-inducing knack for holding the ball in the area once they got it in there (see note on Daniel Salloi below). That meant time in the area, and shots, but Austin cluttered the area pretty reliably. That’s what the note above on “great looks” points to: they defended with 7+ in the area and, from ~ the 40th minute on, Austin set the line of confrontation about 10 yards inside their own half.

With all that in front of them, SKC still forced home a goal - a smart put-back by Salloi, in fact - so they got something out of all that strum, drang, und running. Related thereto, Kansas City has given up the first goal in five of their nine games this season; they managed only the draw today, but, in four of those cases, they came back to win the game. That’s to say, don’t get cocky if/when The Former Wiz goes down a goal. Which brings me to a relevant digression…

I don’t think Portland will defend anywhere near as deep as Austin did - especially, not at home. I also don’t expect them to cede as much possession (they'll certainly hunt the ball more, or should), but I do expect the Timbers to take more chances in the attack: that’s all to say, I don’t expect Portland v SKC to either look or play-out like SKC v Austin. The latter plays a different style - Josh Wolff follows the Gregggg Berhalter dogma of playing out the back and likes to possess the ball, while I’d call Portland more opportunistic and creative. Which brings up the next point…

FC Cincinnati 1-1 Sporting Kansas City: The Car Is Running All Right, But Where Is It Going?

I mean, what does this dog actually look like?

Just to mention it, ESPN’s broadcast of the game played roughly two minutes behind real-time. That allowed me to catch wind of two of FC Cincinnati’s bigger moments – the penalty call that gave them their first goal, and Nick Hagglund’s late offside goal (um, how is that not in the goddamn highlights? Are you motherfuckers Billy Barring me?) – and now I know that knowing events two minutes in the future would improve nothing in my life. It washes out as existing in a state of suspended animation, really, which I don’t recommend.

As it happens, that’s a pretty good short-hand for the state of FC Cincinnati as a team. Every game they’ve played so far bore some kind of wrinkle. When they played both of 2018’s MLS Cup finalists, they faced shadows of last year’s editions – something that’s only become more apparent since. When they hosted the Philadelphia Union, the rain pouring on the field seemed to weigh on their shoulders just as much. Today’s 1-1 draw against Sporting Kansas City, meanwhile, was lousy with wrinkles. To begin, SKC started a clear second choice team, ignoring general, well-intentioned advice to “focus on the league” after eating five fist-fulls of shit in Mexico mid-week. (Watching SKC’s Johnny Russell at the end of the game, who went the full 90 in Monterrey, makes a solid case that Peter Vermes took the correct approach; poor bastard was gassed.)

The real wrinkles broke into the skin with the unfolding of the match itself; by the end, the oldest, saggiest human being on Earth would have looked at that and thought, “goddamn, get some Oil of Olay up in this thing, stat!”

Where to begin? Players for both teams pissed away perfect chances – Kelyn Rowe for SKC, Kekuta Manneh for Cincy – and on opposite ends of the game. Just….terrible goalkeeping gaffes led to both goals – a bout of confusion by Adrian Zendejas early in the first half (link above), then Spencer Richey reprised something terrifyingly similar early in the second (also, I’m not sure that Greg Garza didn’t poke the ball past Richey when he fell down). With the exception of FC Cincinnati’s first goal – which, as I saw it, came during a time when SKC had recovered from Cincinnati’s strong opening - game-states generally loosely tracked those events. The same goes for Hagglund’s unfortunately offside winner, which capped a late (again, you must release the video), ultimately futile rally by FC Cincy, and that leaves what might have been gasping for life on this game’s cutting room floor.

Sporting Kansas City 3-0 Portland Timbers: Expectations and One (Vague) Idea

I dunno. Maybe try next time.

I had no expectations, at least not good ones. The Portland Timbers played under what expectations I had in the first half before rallying to a kind of latent respectability in the second. A pillow soft goal by Sporting Kansas City's Johnny Russell late in the game undercut the "latent" part of that whole "respectability" thought: in the end, the Timbers looked like discombobulated shit losing 0-3 at Sporting Kansas.

Still, if you ask after the state of my faith, I’d tell you it’s fine. This past week had "suck" written all over it, especially after the home loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps; neither of the week's road games looked easy in context (and, for the record, here are my thoughts on the 1-4 loss to DC United) and also, the road. Given SKC’s recent uptick - e.g., they’ve now won as many straight (3!) as Portland has lost (3?) - this loss really did have the predictability of getting lung cancer from smoking. I won’t buy a doom-spiral until Portland loses another game or two and on some track similar to giving up nine(!) goals and scoring only two. The team would inevitably drop some points this season - every team in MLS does, and usually in bunches - but the good ones recover, to where they win games like DC United away, maybe draw away to a rising SKC side.

The Timbers looked like that team I could lose all faith in tonight and, bring it in for a big group hug, and right now, I will still love that team, yes, the one that struggles. At the same time, I can’t even begin to organize tonight’s errors into some kind of useful hierarchy: the mistakes came from all over the field (no, you have to earn “pitch”), and each of the breakdowns on those three goals were whimperingly pathetic. For a team that has made defense its calling card so far this season, goals like that violate the fucking brand.

And, if you want to ask what’s wrong, this feels like the quickest answer: the Timbers have lost their way defensively and have therefore lost their way. There’s not much more to take out of giving up 3.0 goals per game over their last three (why the decimal? no idea). As for what causes it, questions proliferate until you’re tangled up in chicken-egg madness. With the loss to DC, did the disconnection between the defense and the midfield cause the problems, or should the defenders cope far, far better to…call them catastrophic breakdowns in midfield? That was easier to answer tonight with the red-carpet-welcome goals SKC scored, and that’s a new, disastrous calling card, something a team has to swap out before it kills them? Even when SKC missed, they moved through and around a stunningly stagnant Portland team with depressing ease, and all over the field. A cousin of the same bug played out on the other side of the field? Timbers players: you can’t play back to goal if you keep letting your defender step in front to receive the in-let pass. (And maybe the team is still sorting shit out post-Fanendo Adi, etc. All the same, how long had it been since Adi started/played?)

MLS Week 8: 10 Things, Heavily Weighted Numbers, And Those Who Defy Them

Results don't often vary, but can...

For reasons of sanity, I’ve decided to cut the “2 Games” piece out of these weekly round-ups of Major League Soccer. “10 Things” are all I have in me…and this is how it begins. (No, no, darling Barbara. I love you. I would never leave…).

That doesn’t mean I didn’t watch the mandatory number of games (I mean, someone’s watching, and failure to comply will result in a report to proper authorities…right?) - I watched Columbus Crew SC draw 2-2 to the visiting New England Revolution and the Los Angeles Galaxy coughing up two goals and all three points at home against Atlanta United FC - but giving featured games the paragraph or two I’ve given them eats a lot of time and, swear to god, I think it chases traffic away. I mean, if somebody keeps telling me something they wrote fts. two teams I don’t give a shit about, I’m not gonna read it.

I learned a thing or two, of course, and formed opinions, even if not closely held ones - e.g., I rate New England the better team, especially when both teams are gunning, and head coach Brad Friedel looks to have a good head for subs (and good subs to use); Atlanta never once left the driver’s seat, and a ton of that was down to Miguel Almiron (again), but I still somehow got it in my head that the Galaxy will end 2018 in the Top 3 in the Western Conference.

There’s more, lots more, pages upon pages of notes made on highlights, boxscores, and even a couple from the comments to the recaps (a guy posting as “Morningside Park” had some solid notes on New York v. Chicago. I don’t touch on everything down below, and can’t, really, but these are 10 comments on sights and sounds from MLS Week 8.