Sporting Kansas City went into Wednesday night’s game against the Seattle Sounders knowing they would have to face, arguably, two of their three fiercest rivals in the same week. With the Houston Dynamo on deck Sunday, Sporting wanted to finally be able to break that stranglehold Seattle has on Sporting at Sporting Park. Even though Sporting KC won the 2012 US Open Cup Final against Seattle, they had to go into penalties after a 1-1 draw. Sporting still has never beaten Seattle at home and only won once in Seattle in 2009. Most of those games, especially the ones taking place at Sporting Park, Seattle won due to a late goal usually in stoppage time. The Sounders have a thing for the dramatics when they play in Kansas City and Sporting very much wanted to close it out early. But to make a bit of a tweak to a quote by Gerald Ford, our long national nightmare continues.
Off of a highly successful 4-0 victory over Chivas USA, Sporting KC came into the game with all the confidence in the world. Matt Besler may have been out with an injured knee but Kei Kamara was coming back from his loan spell with Norwich City. Sporting would again be without Besler as well as Paulo Nagamura due to a suspension from the Chivas game. Regular starters Seth Sinovic and Claudio Bieler would start on the bench to get a bit of rest before the Houston game.
The game started off and it was a rather entertaining first 45 minutes. Sporting and Seattle both played well and were very physical. The most controversial moment of the evening occurred in the 22nd minute as a Seattle throw in bounced and hit Ike Opara inside the box. Seeing the replay, it hits the inside of Opara’s forearm and he really makes a motion to get his arm out there. My first instinct was that it was a handball and a penalty and I’m not changing my view after seeing the replays. Anyway, this sequence of events caused backup Sounders goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann to receive his walking papers and was told by the 4th official to leave the bench and go into the locker room.
The 2nd half seemed like both teams wanted to play hesitant. We didn’t see the heavy attacking from the 1st half and saw a more reserved game from both sides. Sporting particularly looked sluggish and went to the subs early in order to bring on Bieler, Sinovic and Kamara for his Sporting debut this season. I don’t know how loud it was at Sporting Park but the roar for Kamara on TV was some of the loudest coming from the stadium. Getting closer to the end of the game, it remained a 0-0 game and going into the final minutes of stoppage time, you would think that it would finish 0-0. That typically does happen in fixtures other than this one. In the dying seconds of stoppage time, Aurelien Collin makes an uncharacteristic mistake when he whiffed in clearing a pass after a throw in leaving it right to Djimi Traore to tap it home sealing the win for the Sounders. A couple Sporting players were signaling handball on Traore because the ball hit his hand before bringing the ball down to score. Replays were rather inconclusive and even so, it didn’t look intentional so it was a good non-call.
As far as what this brings for Houston on Sunday, I would say that there should be signs of concern. I wouldn’t say there should be a concern for the season because Sporting is still progressing just fine, but I’m sure not confident Sporting Kansas City will be getting the win against Houston that’s for sure. Sporting’s recent history against Houston is similar to Seattle and the Dynamo currently have a MLS record 36 game unbeaten streak at home. I hope things will be different and my heart wants to see a Sporting win but my brain says otherwise. Looking forward to the game Sunday at 8 et.
(image courtesy of USA Today Images)
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