Five days ago, Sporting Kansas City looked to be turning things around from a five-match winless slide. With just one week to go before Sporting's first US Open Cup final since 2012, that doesn't appear to be the case any more.
Sporting looked out of sorts at both ends of the pitch in Wednesday night's 1-0 away loss to the Houston Dynamo, and not even playing with a man advantage for the last 20 minutes could help them snap out of their funk.
“It was horrific,” manager Peter Vermes told reporters in a postmatch conference call. “We were not good. We were not good in possession. We reacted to everything on the field. We played very, very poorly – very poorly – in the game tonight. This wasn't one of those games where we deserved anything, that's for sure.”
Sporting outshot the Dynamo 8-6 and put three shots on goal, but the most excitement Dynamo keeper Tyler Deric got all night was stopping a deflected ball off Kansas City right back Chance Myers late in the first half.
“We were never dangerous in and around goal,” Vermes said after Kansas City's fourth loss in six matches. “We were just there. We were just on the field. We weren't playing the game at all. That was not indicative of a Sporting Kansas City team, the way we want to play. No way.”
Sporting were up a man in the 70th minute after Boniek Garcia was given his second yellow card for an elbow to Dom Dwyer's face, but couldn't penetrate the Dynamo's tightly-packed defense down the stretch.
“Basically, it was the same thing when they had even men,” Vermes said. “We had very, very poor movement off the ball. Very few guys wanted the ball. Our solution was just to whack it forward. They had enough big guys that it's going to be very hard to penetrate that back line.
“To think that that would be the solution – we talked extensively about some of the things that we wanted to do in the game, but yeah, in the end we just didn't play well.”
Will Bruin's far-post tap-in for the game's only goal in the 67th minute came after Sporting failed to clear DaMarcus Beasley's low cross through traffic – another thing that didn't please Vermes.
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“I don't know if I'd characterize it as a soft goal,” Vermes said. “I'd just characterize it as a goal that should not have happened. The bottom line is that we were poor in possession. We gave up the ball in very critical areas of the field. That made us have to run a lot defensively, and we just never got any passing together. We were just bad.”
That stood in stark contrast to Sporting's energetic, well-executed game in Friday's 3-1 dismantling of FC Dallas. It also came at a time when Sporting, who will be without center back Matt Besler and playmaker Benny Feilhaber for Sunday's home league date with Seattle because of caution accumulation, are trying to build momentm for the late-season playoff race and next Wedneday's Open Cup final against Philadelphia at PPL Park.
“I thought the whole game against Dallas was a good game, not just the second half,” Vermes said. “We played very well. So of course, it's disappointing. Extremely disappointing.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
