Pressure is something that comes with life. It doesn’t matter what you do, who you are, you have felt pressure. Dom Dwyer and the rest of Sporting Kansas City certainly know what it’s like to operate under pressure. Last season, when fighting for the starting forward spot, Dwyer showed he could thrive under pressure and helped his team get into playoffs. He scored 23 goals in 34 games and was right behind Bradley Wright-Phillips, hungry for a record. Dwyer and Sporting KC need to step up at NYCFC
This season, Dwyer has started all three games, created six chances, and hasn’t scored once. His shot accuracy is 43% compared to last years 56%. Sporting KC have two goals total on the books this year; one from Ike Opara in the season opener and the other from Roger Espinoza in Dallas. Dwyer will have to score, or at least get an assist, against New York City FC to get a result for Sporting KC.
NYCFC has scored one more goal than Sporting KC so far this season, but has also only conceded one goal to Sporting’s four. While there’s pressure on Dwyer to score, there’s also pressure on the back line to keep Mix Diskerud and David Villa off the attack.
Jalil Anibaba, in his first season with Sporting, has already impressed manager Peter Vermes. He played his first game last weekend and was instrumental in securing a clean sheet against Portland. Anibaba won 78% of his challenges. That’s form he’ll need to keep facing Villa.
With another newly acquired defender on international duty, Marcel de Jong, Seth Sinovic will be the best choice for left back. The partnership between Opara and Matt Besler in the middle will be key to shutting out NYCFC. With Espinoza also out with his national team, Opara will be the leading goal scorer on the field as well.
Benny Feilhaber will need to create his usual magic in the midfield. Graham Zusi, with 11 chances created so far, will need to connect with Feilhaber and Dwyer for the attack to get past Diskerud and NYCFC goalkeeper Josh Saunders.
Saunders performance in goal for the new blue team has been stunning. He has two clean sheets to his name and averages 2.33 saves per game. Sporting’s goalkeeper, Luis Marin, another new comer, averages one save each game and has one clean sheet. Marin looked intimidating and confident at Sporting’s home opener, but conceded three goals to FC Dallas the next weekend. Dallas is a force to be reckoned with and Besler was missing that week.
Can Dwyer break his scoreless streak against Saunders and NYCFC? Sporting KC fans are optimistic and will be in New York in numbers upwards of 150 to cheer him and the rest of their team on.
Everyone was impressed with the amount of fans and noise created in Yankee Stadium for NYCFC’s first home game against the Revolution two weeks ago. It won’t be an easy place for Sporting KC to play, but the team is going to need to start earning more than one point a game to compete in the western conference.
