Charles Gooch
The Kansas City Star
It doesn't really matter if it came against a team depleted of its offensive firepower. It doesn't matter if it wasn't pretty. It doesn't matter if it wasn't a dominating performance from the opening whistle to the last flickering second of stoppage time.
The math is always the same. A win always equals three points. (Unless it's a friendly, of course.) Sometimes a win is pretty. Sometimes it's ugly and dirty. Sometimes it's extraordinarily lucky. Doesn't matter, in the long run. It's still a win.
Sporting Kansas City might not be lighting the entire world en fuego with its play (though it has been the most consistently entertaining MLS squad this young season) and there might be questions that linger about what happens next, but right now, they are top of the table. The only team with nine points from its first three games.
That isn't to say that the problems or the questions don't matter. They do. It's just about perspective. At least to start with.
XI Thoughts is a creatively named weekly feature of The Full 90. It incorporates 11 thoughts (or sometimes questions) on the most recent game. If you see a blue link, it's probably at the least worth a click. It's usually funny and will open in a new tab/window. Like this.
1. This was the first real challenge and KC passed it
Before Sunday, KC had beat up on a team that was down to 10 men for 75 minutes and another that appears offensively inept. But remember: A win and a win are both wins.
Dallas, however, was the first real challenge. Sure, Brek Shea and David Ferreira weren't around. But Schellas Hyndman's squad is as defensively sound as you'll find in MLS.
Ugo Ihemelu. Kevin Hartman. Daniel Hernandez. Zack Loyd. George John. These are MLS Cup-winning, Hall-of-Fame worthy, All-Star-caliber, National-team eligible, EPL-enticing players.
And Sporting piled on enough pressure that they broke down three times -- the Aurelien Collin goal, the Chance Myers penalty and the Kei Kamara winner.
It might not have been 90 minutes of brilliant Sport-elona soccer. But KC pushed for space, found it and turned it into three points.
2. A tale of two halves
I wrote last year that Hyndman had drawn up the blueprint on how to beat KC -- Pressure Sporting's distribution out of the back, slow down the overall pace game, keep tight lines when defending, push everything wide and then cut off space. If you can steal an early goal, all the better.
That plan worked fairly well in practice (right down to the early goal), as FCD stymied Sporting on Sunday for 45 minutes. Sporting seemed to accept the snail's pace (made worse by a little post-tackle gamesmanship by Blas Perez and Daniel Hernandez on more than one occasion) dropping off into a very defensive 4-1-4-1 for the first 25 minutes.
Space was hard to find. Counter-attacking lanes closed quickly. And every shot on Kevin Hartman was from a poor angle or from well outside the box.
But then Sporting woke up; likely prodded on by Dallas' goal, Jimmy Nielsen's "this isn't who we are" pep talk and, most importantly, Aurelien Collin's no-look header deep into stoppage time Sporting Kansas City began to re-assert themselves and pile on a crock-pot full of pressure cooking.
3. Why Collin's goal changed the game.
If Dallas went into halftime up a goal, the plan would've likely been to sit on the game and choke the life out of Kansas City -- like a giant python (unless you are deathly afraid of snakes, then picture something less terrifying in your own mind).
KC's goal meant that Vermes could re-organize the team and bring the focus back on playing like Kansas City. And KC came out like they were shot out of a cannon in the second half. How dominant were KC in the second half?
Shots: 9 > 4
Corners: 7 > 4
Open Play Crosses: 13 > 5
Totals Passes: 192 > 119
Possession: 61% > 39%
The dominance, via domino effect, led to the space being available for the game winner.
4. Let's talk about the game winner.
The goal was 1) a late shocker, 2) ripped straight out of a KC training ground exercise and 3) an absolute peach.
Here's the full build-up that shows the passes before the one-touch clinic.
Of course, it was not nominated for Goal of the Week. Because, presumably, Kamara didn't give it a poke from 45 yards out and/or Myers didn't half volley it from the edge of the box. I'll wait for a proper explanation.
Sidebar: What the heck was Hartman doing on that shot? Seems like he was shading far post. Did he think the pass was going to get by Kamara to Sapong? I don't know. Seems odd.
5. Speaking of Chance Myers, he was the Man of the Match
I get that Kamara deserves a lot of love for his game (he's currently top of the Castrol Index right now and everything), but it was Myers who created the two best chances for KC.
His work in the box earned the penalty kick (though Kamara missed it) and the final goal doesn't happen if he doesn't beat the Dallas defender to the ball.
He also created the best chance for Dallas (the foul on Perez that led to Ricardo Villar's goal) but whatever.
The former first-overall draft pick isn't the fastest guy on the team (that's probably Teal Bunbury). He's not the strongest on the team (that's either Matt Besler or C.J. Sapong). He's not the most athletic (Kamara).
But I don't think that KC has another player with his motor or stamina. At 88 minutes into the game, he's able to find top gear after an entire evening of playing in near top gear. That's impressive.
I've given him some stick in the past -- but I truly do love the way he plays. He's physical on both sides of the ball. He's getting better going forward and he's dramatically improved in the air.
6. Man, Kamara shots a lot.
The first thing Kamara does when he gets the ball in the attacking third is to set his body and look for a shot. Heck, I think the first thing he does when he gets out of bed in the morning is look for a way to position himself for a shot.
He's got 24 of them on the season -- by far the most in the league. He's on pace for 248 shots this season (that's 8-per game). Last year's shot-taking leader? MLS MVP Dwayne De Rosario. He had 113.
7. The Disappearance of C.J. Sapong
KC's sophomore striker had a very poor game: 0 goals, 1 shot and 10 successful passes for C.J. That's not good.
Now, a little bit of that was he was alone up top. With Kamara and Convey pushed wide and deeper than usual, Sapong did have the thankless task of fighting off both John and Ihemelu. But that's only a partial reason. Sapong needs to learn (and he likely will) how to get into better channels and avoid the two-on-one fight.
8. Hair does matter.
You might think that hair matters as much to soccer performance as athletic ability matters to sports journalism. And you might be right. I might just be a bald, unathletic lunatic blogger searching for patterns in some sort of knee-jerk folic reaction.
Well, perhaps not. I submit Exhibit A.
And Exhibit B.
Yes. Since Zusi and Espinoza have grown out their hair, both have transformed from bench/rotation players into rising stars in MLS. The two of them are as responsible for Sporting KC's current position as anyone on the team.
This is the sort of analysis and pattern research that people should pay big bucks for!
9. Winning duels creates offense.
Sporting got out-dueled by Dallas (57%-43%). That's not going to make Vermes happy. His team thrives off winning 50-50 duels.
When Sporting wins a duel, it will immediately turn that defense into an offensive move. Just like a basketball team that thrives on transition baskets. It's a disruptive style of play that KC can carry out because it has so much team speed and athleticism.
But it's hard to get into that rhythm (and get into space easier) when you're not winning those duels.
10. Do points against the West matter?
In the long run, there are 102 points available on the season. But, for KC, only 27 of those points will come from games against the West. That's just about 26 percent. So, 75 percent of the points that KC will earn will come against the Eastern Conference.
Sporting already have six points against the East with 23 games remaining. If you spot KC a reasonable 1.8 points/game average (slightly higher than last year's 1.5 p/g for the year to account for KC being slightly better), that would translate to 45 points just against the East. With the win over Dallas that would mean a hypothetical 48 points.
In this hypothetical, KC would just need one point from its 8 remaining matches against the West to match last year's total of 51 points -- when they won the Eastern Conference.
That's probably pie-in-the-sky and relentlessly optimistic, but you see where I'm going. It's to illustrate the larger point: Wins against the West aren't nearly as important as wins against the East.
And, despite the supposed strength of the conference, KC actually had a winning record (7-5-6) against the West last year. So, there.
11. But here's why the West still matters.
Despite all I stated in the last thought, the West is still where the real challenges will come from as the bulk of the best teams in the league reside out West (Seattle, Los Angeles, Salt Lake).
Hyndman said after the game that KC "are much further ahead than any other team in the league" at this point. They'll get a chance to put that to the test with huge "measuring stick games" over the next four weeks.
That starts this Sunday at Chivas. The Goats aren't a great team, but they just beat one (a 1-0 win over Salt Lake at Rio Tinto). They also have the one player who can rival Roger Espinoza as "The Best Guy in MLS That No One Talks About Because He Doesn't Play in New York, LA or the Pacific Northwest" in goalkeeper Dan Kennedy. These will be tough points.
After that KC hosts Los Angeles (April 7) and Salt Lake (April 14) before a two-game swing at Vancouver (April 18) and Portland (April 21). Those are tougher points. And also bigger measuring sticks.
Regardless of how KC has played up to this point, those five games might determine how the rest of the season will play out. Even if the points don't necessarily matter as much.