Kansas City, Kansas (Editorial)– Sporting KC vs. Atlanta United ended up being a much more cagey matchup than anticipated. It was a tight affair for the first 45 minutes, with Sporting KC emerging the more dangerous. In the second half, it was all Sporting KC, until the final ten minutes. Atlanta pushed for their equalizer and got it. Sporting KC dropped points again. Despite extending their unbeaten streak to nine games, six of those results have been draws. Here are three things to take away from this match for Sporting KC.
Sporting KC Drop Points at Home: Three Things To Take Away
This Wasn’t a Good Result
Without watching the match, and just seeing the scoreline and lineups, you would think that this was a fair result. It didn’t feel that for Sporting KC Manager, Peter Vermes: “It’s not bittersweet, it’s freakin’ bitter. We lost two points tonight. We had the game in hand. We gave away a ridiculous goal at the end, and we didn’t close the game out,” said Vermes.
It was a silly goal for Sporting to give up. They defended admirably for 90 minutes. Matt Besler was making perfectly timed tackles up and down the pitch, Ike Opara was physically dominant, while Seth Sinovic and Saad Abdul-Salaam held their own in the channels.
But a goal like Atlanta scored negated all the hard work they had put in before. “The fact that we give up a goal like that, at the end of the game, which is all you’re doing is lumping a ball into the box. You’re hoping that it falls down just like it did, you’re hoping there is a little bit of commotion and somebody pops out and somebody sticks it in the back of the net. Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened, and we weren’t ready for it.”
Sporting KC did this through a certain stretch last season. In games where it’s tight, they’d give up a late goal after working so hard to get the lead. It should be of some concern. But ultimately, the final 10 minutes wasn’t good enough.
Sporting KC had Wednesday in Mind
Sporting KC make an attempt to win every competition laid out in front of them. When asked after the match, Vermes denied the notion that he set out tonight’s lineup with the big matchup against the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday in mind. That in itself shouldn’t be surprising. However his comment at the end of that answer does give light to the fact that he most likely had San Jose in the back of his mind, whether he’ll publicly admit it or not.
“There is no doubt that you have to look at the season as a whole and games that are coming, but at the same time our focus was tonight,” said Vermes. You can still focus on the task at hand and have the next match taken account of.
Looking at the absences, it wasn’t too surprising that he went with the lineup he did. Lobato needed some real minutes against MLS opposition. Benny Feilhaber still played 45 and made a big enough impact. Diego Rubio came on and looked dangerous. Graham Zusi was the only big exclusion that didn’t feature, and Sporting KC barely missed a beat defensively without him. Offensively, that’s a different story. But Sporting KC still looked the better team by miles. Which is why the result is just so frustrating for them.
Cristian Lobato Couldn’t Find the Game At All
It’s hard to judge someone on their performance, especially when it’s the first time you see them. When Sporting KC signed Lobato, they hailed his ability to play across the entirety of the midfield spectrum that Sporting KC attack with. Last night, they stuck him in the number 10 role. The issue with his 45 minutes there was that he had little to no influence on the game, and it just seemed too fast for him last night.
There were multiple times where he didn’t have a good enough understanding of where to go when making his run off the ball. I wouldn’t expect someone to come in and be Feilhaber, unless they were a Designated Player signing in that position. But Lobato still didn’t seem to really grasp how that number 10 role really functions in the Sporting KC setup.
When he didn’t have the ball in the middle of the Atlanta high press, he would try and make his run deeper into the front three. Sometimes you need to step deep to find the ball and help keep possession instead of making a run where you get lost in the back line. Lobato did that way too much, and it cost Sporting KC the ability to really pass the ball around and keep possession in the first half.
In the first half, Sporting KC only had 76% passing accuracy and 52.4% of the possession. Both numbers were incredibly low. In the second half, even with how much possession Atlanta got in the final five to ten minutes, Sporting KC still held 55.6% of the possession. They also had 81% passing accuracy, and completed much more passes then they had in the first half. A lot of that comes down to the simple introduction of Benny Feilhaber to the match.
That introduction was planned according to Vermes, as they didn’t believe that Lobato could last more than 45 minutes. This analysis isn’t to criticize Lobato one bit. It’s just his first extended action in MLS, and likely his first in quite some time. But the types of runs he was making just seem more suited for one of the front three positions. It may be worth a shot giving him a runout in one of those spots against Seattle, or even San Jose on Wednesday.
Final Thoughts
Sporting KC were good enough to win last night, with a few second choice players playing significant time in key positions. That’s a good thing to take forward. But the goal they gave up was incredibly frustrating for them, as it seemed like a cruel ending after playing so well, especially in the second half. If they can learn to hang on to games like that, they could easily run away with the Western Conference, and frankly they should’ve done that by now.
But now their focus shifts to their most important match this year, a US Open Cup Semi-Final date on Wednesday. If they manage to get through this, they’ll host the final, which is more than enough incentive to get through. A win, and they get a chance to play for a trophy at home, where they haven’t lost a match since May of last year.
