A heavily-rotated Sporting Kansas City side came to Cincinnati and earned a point, thanks to a second-half strike from Gianluca Busio.
FC Cincinnati took a first-half lead from the penalty spot, after Roland Lamah was fouled by Andreu Fontas following a miscue from Sporting 'keeper Adrian Zendejas. Darren Mattocks stepped up to coolly finish the first penalty kick in FCC's MLS history, but it wouldn't be enough to give his team the three points.
After stepping up the pressure to start the second half, Sporting got their equalizer after a miscue between Cincy's Greg Garza and goalkeeper Spencer Richey. After a cross-field ball looked to bounce just beyond Busio's reach, Garza and Richey both came for the ball, only for Garza to touch it away from both of them, allowing the 16-year-old Busio a simple finish for his second goal of the campaign.
Both sides also missed notable chances, with Kelyn Rowe skying a wide-open look in the first half and Kekuta Manneh missing on the same goal when he somehow put a one-on-one look wide just after the hour mark. Nick Hagglund did have the ball in the net late in the game for Cincinnati, but his header was ruled out for offside.
Goals
Three Things
- THE BIG PICTURE: All things considered, Sporting will take this. The suffered a hugely demoralizing defeat in CCL on Thursday and heavily rotated their squad, but still managed a point in a tough away trip. Given the balance of the play, a draw was probably a fair result, but FCC will probably be a little more disappointed after taking the lead and missing a chance to join the second-place logjam in the Eastern Conference.
- MOMENT OF THE MATCH: With such a tight battle between these two teams, we're going to fudge it and point to four moments that illustrate just how even things were, two on each side: the mistakes that led to the Mattocks penalty and Busio goal, plus the sitters missed by Rowe and Manneh.
- MAN OF THE MATCH: The honors go to Mattocks in this one – he scored the PK, hit the post and provided a ball to Manneh that should've ended up in the back of the net.
Next Up
- FC Cincinnati: Saturday, April 13 at LAFC (10:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE on ESPN+ in the US and DAZN in Canada)
- Sporting KC: Thursday, April 11 vs. Monterrey - Concacaf Champions League (9 pm ET; Yahoo! Sports, UDN)
