{"id":1491,"date":"2016-10-17T13:34:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T17:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2016-10-17T13:36:38","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T17:36:38","slug":"sporting-kc-play-draw-leave-fate-final-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2016\/10\/17\/sporting-kc-play-draw-leave-fate-final-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Sporting Kansas City Play To Draw, Leave Fate To Final Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandy, UT<\/strong>–\u00a0Sporting Kansas City<\/strong> played to a goal-less draw on Sunday afternoon against rivals, Real Salt Lake.\u00a0<\/strong>The result leaves their playoff fate to be decided on the final day. They can still clinch a home game for the wild card if results elsewhere go the right way. They will most likely need a win though to seal their place in the 2016 MLS Cup Playoffs.\u00a0<\/strong>The good, the bad, and the look ahead are on tap.<\/p>\n

Sporting Kansas City Play To Draw, Leave Fate To Final Day<\/h1>\n

The Good<\/h2>\n

Roger Espinoza<\/em><\/h3>\n

Jacob Peterson\u00a0<\/strong>was ruled out about an hour before kickoff due to injury. With Brad Davis<\/strong> not even in the 18, Roger Espinoza<\/strong> was forced into the “left wing” role. He filled in admirably and provided good service, and extremely good defensive play. That’s been a major issue with the left side of the field in the last month. They might have just found a good solution at left wing for the foreseeable future<\/p>\n

Graham Zusi Return<\/em><\/h3>\n

Zusi<\/strong> was very very good in his return. They most definitely missed his service into the box. Don’t get me wrong, Peterson has been a good fill in. However, nothing beats Graham Zusi’s service. Now maybe if Dwyer could’ve finished a few chances on Sunday, they’d be in the driver’s seat for the home playoff game in the opening round.<\/p>\n

Matt Besler<\/em><\/h3>\n

After putting in a few bad performances for Sporting, Besler<\/strong> turned in one of his best. Following his stellar performance for the USMNT<\/strong> on Tuesday, Vermes was questioned by Klinsmann on why he wasn’t playing for Sporting. In an interview with the Kansas City Star<\/a>, Vermes said “I need him to get back to who he is. That’s really it.” It’s safe to say “He’s back!” after his two showings this week.<\/p>\n

The Bad<\/h2>\n

Missed Chances<\/em><\/h3>\n

Both Dom Dwyer<\/strong> and Kevin Ellis<\/strong> missed golden chances within the final ten minutes to give Sporting a 1-0 lead. Dwyer also missed a one on one he had with Nick Rimando<\/strong>. The missed chances in this game hurt, because that was as good of a time as ever to get a road result. Especially with what was riding on the match, Sporting will look back at those three second half chances and feel like they should have had the game won.<\/p>\n

The Look Ahead<\/h2>\n

There are many, many scenarios for Sporting KC surrounding postseason placement. Currently they’re tied on points with Portland for the final playoff spot. Portland,<\/strong> however, hasn’t won a game on the road in the entire season. They’ll play a CONCACAF Champions League<\/strong> match against Saprissa<\/strong> on Wednesday, and then play at Vancouver<\/strong> for the final match of the year. Vancouver will definitely look to play spoiler on Sunday. Real Salt Lake will face Seattle<\/strong> in a game that could seal somebody’s fate as a home playoff game host.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandy, UT–\u00a0Sporting Kansas City played to a goal-less draw on Sunday afternoon against rivals, Real Salt Lake.\u00a0The result leaves their playoff fate to be decided on the final day. They can still clinch a home game for the wild card if results elsewhere go the right way. They will most likely need a win though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":361,"featured_media":905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-skc"],"modified_by":"Joe Hojnacki","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/361"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}