Sporting Kanas City’s acclaimed offense pushed and shoved and beat the New England Revolution 3-0. The story of this game begins ahead of those three goals. Those three goals may suggest something of the character of this SKC team. For the Revs, though, this game is unlikely to be considered a significant demonstration of the story for 2012. So, before forgetting this game, let’s talk about how the SporKS dismantled the Revs.
I have played in a couple games where some shoving and a few calls against me totally crawled into my head and threw me off my game. This game had the look of that type of frustration in the opening 10 or so minutes. It will be important to watch for the resiliency of our Revs defense in the coming weeks. We must remain composed, even under pressure. Both Kei Kamara and CJ Sapong bring speed, skill on the ball, and size to the field in their pursuit of goals. It wasn’t the first time shoulders crashed together and it wasn’t as if Sapong hadn’t been whistled for fouls, too. The red card shown to Revs center back Steven McCarthy in the 14th minute was the turning point in this game. The daring 4-5-1 formation and hopes of building possession into goal scoring opportunities were shelved while Shalrie Joseph shifted to center back and the team tried to bunker down for the remaining half hour of the first half.
The Sporting Kansas City offense will pummel and chase until they score. The Revs were under siege. That SKC would generate shots, especially with the Revs down to 10 men, was assured. The part that was difficult to watch were all of the shots off of rebounds. Balls bounced off of the post, off of Matt Reis, off of defenders, and more shots were taken. I was frustrated watching, I can’t imagine how Matt Reis – who threw himself around making some amazing saves – must have felt looking up to see standing defenders watch the ball sail into our net. Graham Zusi poked a rebound in to open the scoring and Kei Kamara took a couple shots before his goal broke through. Sapong would salt away the victory in the opening minutes of the second half. Jay Heaps made some tactical changes, substitutes and shifting positions, but the Revs never really looked threatening. Kansas City has a team that will threaten and a home field advantage to defend and while they seek more wins. We will visit them again in late July before hosting them in early August.
We didn’t learn much about our Revs. Playing down a man was best described by Clyde Simms as not much more than “fitness really.” Speaking of which, it was good to see Simms playing box-to-box the entire match, even popping off a shot in the closing minutes. We did see a couple more minutes for some new guys. Saer Séne and Lee Nguyen recorded their first starts and Diego Fagundez and Jeremiah White both came on for their first minutes of 2012. The Revs were so far unsuccessful in scoring, though, however disappointing, we are still awaiting attacking pieces. We have the same weak spots we’ve been talking about since last year: goal scoring, solid defense. The pressure to score is building and may soon rival the pressure facing our defense. I suspect one of the reasons our defense crumbled last season was a consistent lack of scoring support to ease some of that pressure on our defense. Up next: our Revolution will play our home opener against the Portland Timbers still searching for a goal and some points.
(image courtesy of Getty Images)
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