Sporting Kansas City, who seems to be playing in big game after big game, had another must win game in San Jose against the Earthquakes last Sunday. Knowing both teams, it was going to be a physical and hard fought game. San Jose is a tough team for Sporting KC and past results have proven that. Even though they haven’t played in San Jose every year, Kansas City hadn’t beaten a team in San Jose since 2000. A lot (almost everything) between the two teams have changed since then but losing in San Jose remained the only constant with Kansas City.
The game itself began without Graham Zusi and Kei Kamara so Sporting was already at a disadvantage. Jacob Peterson was back on the starting XI due to the injuries of Zusi and Kamara. Lawrence Olum, who has played a little bit of midfield this year started in the role for the game other than his natural spot in the back four. The game proved to be as physical as expected with a lot of stop and start play and two early yellow cards for defenders Chance Myers and Aurelien Collin. Throughout it all, both teams were rather even in not only the field of play but on paper as well. Both teams had nine shots where three were on target, passing and possession was very similar. Sporting had almost double the fouls, which seemed rather misleading with San Jose being just as physical. Then came the moment that had everyone talking.
The Earthquakes scored their first, and game winning, goal off of a Chris Wondolowski header. Sporting claimed that Wondo was offside and while the replay showed that he was, I can’t blame the referee for missing the call. I criticize MLS referees, like many people, and most of the time it’s justified but it’s such a close call that I can’t fault the referee. It’s a bit disappointing that Sporting was on the wrong end of the call but that kind of thing does happen and the team just has to move on from it.
Sporting will try and move on from that call to play the Chicago Fire Friday night on NBCSN at 8:30 et. Chicago has infamously been in the news recently due to an editorial on the Fire website by their Communications Director. Cringe-worthy is probably the best way to describe what was written. The article criticized Chicago’s fans and kind of confirmed to their fans why they are upset with their team. Hopefully they can get that situation straightened out because it certainly isn’t representative of most people in professional sports.
(image courtesy of USA Today Images)
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