This Saturday Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City will take the pitch at Sporting Park for the first time as western conference opponents, and while SKC might still be getting used to some of their new conference rivals, they need no introduction from their rocky mountain foes.
RSL vs SKC: MLS’ Best New Rivalry
The bad blood between the two clubs began way back in the preseason of 2011 in the Desert Diamond Cup preseason tournament held in Phoenix. An extremely physical preseason match turned into anarchy when a bench clearing brawl erupted after a hard, studs up tackle on RSL’s Javier Morales from Sporting’s Roger Espinoza. After the swinging and shouting had dispersed, then RSL head coach Jason Kreis decided to pull his team off of the field and abandon the remainder of the match.
Players had more than a year to let that incident simmer in the back of their minds before the next incident in the budding rivalry occurred.
Fast-forward to July 2013, the leagues’ two best teams in RSL and SKC met up in a regular season clash at Rio Tinto Stadium in Salt Lake City. The echo of the opening whistle had barely dissipated before RSL defender Chris Wingert was shown a yellow card for a hard elbow to the neck area of a Sporting KC player. Although Sporting’s coach Peter Vermes’ pleas for a straight red were ignored, he eventually got his wish when Wingert was sent off for a second yellow early in the second half.
The match came down to the wire with both teams level at one goal apiece heading into stoppage time. After the 5+ minutes of stoppage time had elapsed, Sporting KC were still on the attack and referee Matthew Foerster decided to let play continue for an additional 2+ minutes. SKC were able to score the winning goal on an Ike Opara header in the 97th minute. The scene at the stadium turned ugly as some of the Kansas City players came toward the sideline fans in a taunting manner and the RSL fans, in turn, began to throw garbage and other objects onto the field.
A mere five months later, these two angry clubs would meet on the league’s biggest stage.
December 7th, 2013 RSL and Sporting KC meet up in the MLS Cup final held at a freezing Sporting Park in Kansas City. After playing to a 1-1 draw during the 90+ minute regular time and 30+ minutes of added time, the two clubs went to a penalty shootout to decide the league champion. RSL fans are still haunted by the vision of Sebastian Velasquez’s blocked PK that would have won the title, followed by Lovel Palmer’s miss that secured the MLS Cup for Sporting KC.
Finally, we look back to April of 2014. RSL and Sporting KC had played to a 0-0 draw in an earlier regular season matchup, thanks in large part to the brilliant goalkeeping of Jeff Attinella in place of an injured Nick Rimando, Sporting forward Dom Dwyer took to Twitter to let the world know about his feelings towards RSL.
“I hate them very much” comes to mind.
After that tweet, Dwyer and Rimando shared some choice words with each other via Twitter as both fan bases collected more fuel for the fire of the new rivalry.
Now in April of 2015, both teams are at (relatively) full strength, both have scored six goals on the season, both have eight points to their name in the western conference table and both enter Saturday’s matchup with a two game win streak. This could be the setup for an epic showdown full of drama between players and more than a few cards for good measure.
While the regular season matchups between these two teams will be important, both are looking forward to the ultimate goal of earning a high seed for what will be an incredibly competitive western conference playoff picture.
Here’s to hoping that both clubs do indeed make the playoffs and meet up sometime before MLS Cup, because the only thing needed to push this unfriendly affair into full on “rivalry mode” is a hard-fought aggregate playoff matchup.
