Sporting Kansas City Scouting Report: Mind the Banana Peel

See it, know it, avoid it. Also, cool shoes!

If that home loss to a limping Los Angeles FC side wasn’t in the sample, I would feel a bit less nervous about this one. Which is to say, I’m still a bit nervous. And that’s very much despite this…

Sporting Kansas City
1-5-1, 4 pts., 8 gf, 12 ga (-4); home 1-2-1, away 0-3-0
Last 5 Results: LDLLW
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ DC (1-2 L); v MIN (3-3 D); v LAFC (0-2 L); @ FCD (1-2 L); v STL (2-0 W)

Notes from the Field
Because they’re more mystery than I like, I clocked time over two of Sporting KC’s recent home results: the salvation draw versus Minnesota United FC from some weeks back and last weekend’s first-of-2025 win over St. Louis CITY FC; for reasons that look more misplaced with each passing week, I only glanced at their more recent home loss to LAFC…I got nuthin' besides, hype sticks, man...

Somewhat related, and no doubt because I only watched them at their best, I don’t get how Sporting KC isn’t better this season. Sure, Minnesota lit them up for three goals before they stirred – two of them easy as you like, the other a bomb from Hasani Dotson – but they kept their heads, stuck to what looked like the plan (still under Peter Vermes, fwiw), and fought back for their first point of the season. They never looked actually bad in that one, at least not any time I was watching, and most goals against played out more as a Minnesota sucker-punch (TM) than failure. Against that, Timbers fans should review some or all of the win over St. Louis to appreciate the worst-case scenario. Official stats be damned, SKC all but dissolved St. Louis’ press and strung together extended, suffocating spells of possession over both periods I watched (1st through the 15th, then 65-85). Any time St. Louis got on the ball, they struggled to do much with it; SKC defenders even shoved around Joao Klauss here and there. It took them most of the game to score their first goal and it took them many, many passes to create that goal. It felt like 20+, some under pressure, all of them under control, but the final look was clean, even slick. Just to note it, that could very well be the greatest moment of Sporting Kansas City’s season so far.

Sporting Kansas City 2-3 Portland Timbers: Conditioned to Believe

You are my God, there is no other.

Where to begin? With the ass-clenching anxiety of the final 30+ minutes, the beside-myself joy, or empathy for Sporting Kansas City for having the year they had and, yeah, Zarek Valentin probably really should have been sent off for a second yellow…

…then again, I’m good with that so long as you are…and, clearly, I’m only addressing persons outside the greater Kansas Citys, MO/KS and/or Seattle, WA metro areas. That was fucking incredible, right, a miracle on frosted grass (they play on grass in KC, right?), and a smoldering tribute to the lately infectious power of positive thinking?

As alluded to in the penumbra between the words above, the Portland Timbers advanced to MLS Cup 2018 on the back of a 3-2 road win in Kansas City, MO. Exactly two teams of 18 left Children’s Mercy Park with a win in all of 2018, a fact that threads garish neon threads around Portland’s accomplishment for tonight. And, for the record, I’m entirely serious about sparing a thought for everyone involved in the Sporting Kansas City organization and fan base (except the assholes who threw shit on the field after Portland’s second, stumbling goal; and, while I’m on it, has anyone else ever seen a coach step out to appeal to his crowd’s better angels like Peter Vermes did tonight (#StockRising)?). They believed every bit as inordinately in SKC’s odds of victory as Timbers fans believed in their own going into tonight (i.e., most of the hiccups in faith were my own), but that surely dissolved the second after Diego Valeri sank to his knees in disbelief after he scored his make-your-own-luck header (e.g., the "second, stumbling goal" noted above). I’ve never felt as close to him as I did in that moment (I'm buyin' the rounds, Diego!). And then Valeri got another one, and off the counter that would always follow so long as SKC pressed too high and the Timbers had available outlets…

…sorry, pausing again. Does this feel like ecstasy to anyone else? I mean the drug, not the state of mind. I’m just really, really happy right now, and on the grounds that, holy shit…the Timbers did it. They did all of it. Three fucking goals, in Kansas City, which, for what it’s worth, equals exactly 1/6 of the goals allowed in Kansas City during the regular season. (In the event I’m phrasing that badly, SKC allowed 18 goals at home during the regular season (the source of my math), and three goals tonight.)

I’m grasping at quantity because it’s tangible. But there’s nothing tangible about Sebastian Blanco’s equalizer, aka, the goal he seemed destined to score since 2018 started. That shit is permanently transcendent, just like Dairon Asprilla’s equalizer against Seattle about a month ago; it’s lore for the fan-base, a permanent, defining “where were you moment” that people will share – something that goes double if the Portland Timbers manage to claw their way all the way to the top, aka, hoisting MLS Cup to the sky for the second time in the franchise's short history.