Home and Away - A Sporting KC Podcast

Sporting KC went out with a whimper as they traveled to Frisco TX on Saturday night to close out a fairly forgettable season against FC Dallas.  Much of how the game went was a microcosm of the season as a whole, including giving up a bad goal, making ridiculous mistakes due to poor communication, and Willy Agada being the only one creating chances of any significance in the game. While we may hav...

Sporting KC welcomed LAFC to Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday night for what was billed as a re-match of the US Open Cup final and a final opportunity to close out the home season on a positive note.  What it was instead was a stark reminder of how vastly different the trajectories these two teams are at the moment.  It was so bad that anyone at the stadium within viewing distance of a television...

We are back!  After a bit of an extended break due to yours Drew’s visit to Los Angeles for the Open Cup Final, we have returned to find there are 2 games left in a season many people would like to forget. The performance in LA was probably as good as could be expected, with a legit chance to steal the game late on Johnny Russell’s foot.  Unfortunately once Extra Time started, the limitations of S...

Drew has returned from the Pacific Northwest and while he enjoyed much of his trip to Seattle, the soccer was not a reason why.  Sporting KC came away with a pretty lackluster performance and a 2-0 defeat to the Sounders that honestly could have been even worse. The absence of Jake Davis was apparent pretty early in this match, as the Bassong/Walter double pivot struggled to contain the Sounders a...

If you had told me that Sporting KC was going to head up to New Jersey without a number of players and come away with a 1-1 draw before the game started I’d have probably thought that was a decent result.  Unfortunately, the way they went about achieving said draw left a bit of a sour taste in the mouths of fans and was a reminder of how many leads the club has shipped in the 2nd half of games the...

In the category of “Things I did not expect to open with,” Sporting KC won twice in the last week and maintained shutouts in both games!  They had maintained a grand total of 3 shutouts in all competitions this season prior to last Saturday night, so to get two in a row was, shall we say, unexpected.  The performances in both games were significant improvements defensively over what we have become...

Leagues Cup has become a bit of an extended break for Sporting KC, and probably one they welcome after the level of schedule density and player availability issues that they had encountered over the past several weeks.  The players and staff all got a welcome few days off and hopefully are returning to training this week with a renewed sense of motivation as they look towards the last couple month...

We’re back!  After an inopportune bout of COVID for Drew, we have returned and wow have things gone well for Sporting KC in our absence.  Actually, I’m sorry, the exact opposite has happened as their Leagues Cup campaign hit the skids.  SKC went down 2-1 at home vs. Toluca in a match they certainly could have gotten a result from had things gone a bit more their way, but perhaps from a quality per...

It was Sunday Funday(night?) at Children’s Mercy Park as Sporting KC kicked off their Leagues Cup campaign with a win against the Chicago Fire.  There were a couple surprises in the gameday roster and starting lineup along with a couple really nice headed goals to get the 2-1 victory.  Of course the beginning of Leagues Cup has also reignited the discourse around the tournament, which wasn’t helpe...

Sporting Kansas City allowed fans to have hope of a potential turn around for about 3 days after dispatching a terrible San Jose team on the road last Saturday.  Unfortunately they followed it up by closing out this very dense stretch of the schedule with a loss in Vancouver and a 1-1 draw at home vs the Pink Dog Food CITY SC team on Saturday night.  The good news is, this means Cody is sufficient...

Sporting Kansas City’s performances were apt to be described best by Genarro Gatusso over the past week, but did reside mostly in the “sometimes maybe good” department, getting 2 consecutive wins at home over FC Dallas including a weather-interrupted Open Cup quarterfinal last night that went the full 120 minutes.  This had the effect of somewhat washing out the sour taste of a frustrating final 3...

Is that a light at the end of the tunnel we see?  Sporting Kansas City finally announced the hiring of their long awaited Sporting Director on Friday, former long time New England Revolution GM Mike Burns.  Then they followed it up with a comprehensive beat down of Austin FC at Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday.  Both of these stories have caveats, as they often do, but it was nice to have some se...

Every time we think things can’t possibly can’t any worse, Sporting KC finds new depths of despair to plummet into and that was on full display in Columbus last Saturday.  Peter Vermes tried a new formation, but the players seemed ill equipped to execute the positional responsibilities it entailed, and they candidly got dog walked out of the stadium in a 4-0 defeat.  What a wonderful homecoming ga...

Things are rotten in the state of Missouri(or Kansas), and a predictably hard portion of the SKC schedule has produced two more frustrating losses making it 10 losses from the last 12 games.  But, look on the bright side, at least the San Jose Earthquakes exist.  While both of the games did end in losses to very good teams in the LA Galaxy and Real Salt Lake, there was actually some semblance of p...

It finally happened, after almost 2.5 months, Sporting KC won another MLS game.  They certainly got some help from their opponent to do so, but it is 3 points nonetheless, and the vibes were good for at least Saturday evening in Children’s Mercy Park. Mike Illig sat down with Sam McDowell of the KC Star for what is becoming an annual event where the relationship between fans and Peter Vermes had o...

It’s been two weeks since we’ve last recorded the pod and not much has changed!  Sporting KC have lost 3 more games since that time taking the total to 7 in a row, and are now legitimate Wooden Spoon contenders given their measly 2 wins on the season from 16 games.  You heard that right, after Saturday’s game against Seattle, the season will be half over, and the best case scenario is Sporting wil...

Sporting Kansas City went down to Austin this weekend and lost their 4th straight game and pushed their winless streak in league play to 7, but at least the effort was good.  Peter Vermes made promises to sacrifice quality for effort where necessary but the only lineup changes were swapping backup defenders for other backup defenders. While we can perhaps agree that in general the players were try...

Things seemed to finally have reached a breaking point after Sporting KC lost again at home to Houston making it zero league wins since March, 2 total wins out of 12 games, and a point total under 12 from 12 games for the 3rd season in a row.  Peter Vermes did not hold back in his post game press conference calling the goals they conceded “atrocious” and “amateur at best”, while questioning the ef...

The Sporting KC Comms department made sure to let us know how well SKC had performed on the road this before the game up in Minnesota, conveniently leaving out the fact they had only played 3 road games all season.  That backfired a bit as the boys in blue took a 2-1 defeat at Allianz Field with yet another attempt to make the 4-2-3-1 happen.  It doesn't seem like it is going anywhere anytime...

It felt like Groundhog Day in Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday night as Sporting Kansas City scored first, and held a lead into stoppage time only to give up a late equalizer on a somewhat unfortunate, yet somewhat self inflicted series of events,  and this increased their tally of dropped points from winning positions to 14 on the season. In fairness, Sporting KC was pretty lucky to have that le...

72 thousand plus midwestern soccer fans descended on Arrowhead Stadium Saturday to see Sporting KC take on Leo Messi and Inter Miami and were treated to several golazos on both sides of the ball and an unfortunate 3-2 loss for the good guys in blue.  The environment was honestly pretty cool, and it did give a glimpse of what professional soccer could look like in this region, but it also highlight...

Sporting KC seems to be hell bent on shipping 3 goals in the 2nd half of home games, as they did it again on Sunday afternoon, turning a first half that had fans feeling great about the team’s prospects into a horror movie.  This team continues to have a bipolar nature to their play that is creating significant frustration for both the fan base and its coach, who blamed the 2nd half performance on...

Sporting Kansas City traveled to the great white north and came away with a 3-1 victory in Toronto thanks to a couple bombazos from Remi Walter and Jake Davis, with a cherry on top of the sundae resulting from a very fun and dynamic play by Alenis Vargas.  We spent a lot of time bemoaning useful depth on the pod last week, and with several starters unavailable it was reasonable to expect that thin...

It was a tale of two halves last Saturday night in Kansas City as Sporting KC controlled the proceedings through the first 45 minutes of the match entering the locker room with a well deserved 2-0 lead.  Unfortunately a 10 minute sequence in the 2nd half quickly erased that advantage and left the team chasing a result with limited options available on the bench to help them do so. Useful depth is...

As the estimable Sam McDowell noted after the end of Sporting KC’s 2-1 victory over San Jose last Saturday night, the team went from winless to undefeated in an instant! It was an improved performance in many areas, while certainly leaving continued room for additional improvements in future games.  The team was much more selective about the shots they took, and Dany Rosero scored on a set piece i...