Sporting KC: The 2019 review, a season to forget

Sporting KC endured a terrible 2019 season riddled with injuries, poor performances and a failure to replace key players. Here is their year in review.

After the Portland Timbers eliminated Sporting Kansas City in the 2018 Western Conference Championship at Children’s Mercy Park, fans left disappointed on the night yet optimistic for 2019.

Sporting KC, forced to begin preseason early, got off to a flying start in the CONCACAF Champions League, demolishing Toluca and striding past Independiente in the opening two rounds while simultaneously suffering a late defeat at LAFC in their MLS opener, before securin a 2-0 win over the Philadelphia Union, a 7-1 win over Montreal and a point in Colorado. But it all went downhill from there.

Monterrey eliminated Sporting KC from the CCL10-2 on aggregate, something that no one could have imagined. They then had an injury crisis that plagued them throughout a seven-game winless run, which was ended with a Johnny Russell hat-trick against the Seattle Sounders. But that didn’t solve the problem as they went another four games without a win.

Finally, SKC got their second winning streak of the season with wins over Chicago and Vancouver in July, but they still continued to struggle each game. Right when you thought things were starting to click, someone would get injured or drop in form. Sporting KC ended 2019 with ten wins, eight draws, and 16 losses, finishing above only Vancouver in the Western Conference.

So, what went wrong? Other than the injury crisis that kept SKC from training twice and repeatedly naming fewer than the seven substitutes allocated for league matches, Peter Vermes’ team saw several key players who they were relying on underperform.

One key player who failed to fill the shoes of his predecessor was center-back Andreu Fontas. Fontas, acquired from Celta de Vigo in August of 2018, was expected to fill the shoes of Ike Opara, who was sent to Minnesota United as part of a three-team trade in the offseason. Fontas, who was thought to work well in Vermes’ system with great calmness on the ball, struggled with injuries throughout the year and, when fit, still looked very slow. He ended the season under the knife and will now face a long and arduous rehabilitation to be ready for 2020. Opara, meanwhile, proceeded to win his second Defender of the Year award as he helped anchor one of the very best defenses in MLS.

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At the other end of the pitch, Krisztian Nemeth also failed to produce as required. Acquired from the New England Revolution the previous season, the Hungarian international was miserable up top for much of 2019, scoring just eight goals. Sporting KC have struggled in the center-forward position for many years now, fans bemoaning their formidable midfield and defense without boasting a striker to put the ball in the back of the net. He actually started the season well, scoring six goals in his first eight MLS starts, as well as four goals in five CCL matches, but he then proceeded to score just two goals all year, and in one of those matches he was sent off in the 51st minute. When Sporting KC needed a goalscorer, Nemeth was nowhere to be seen.

Another big issue for SKC was the failure of some of their 2018 stars to replicate their performances. In 2018, Daniel Salloi scored a team-leading 14 goals. This season, he scored just once and assisted once. The Hungarian didn’t even register his goal until his final home game of the season. Graham Zusi, too, got off to a dreadful start to the season, giving the ball away too easily far too many times and potentially hinted at the looming end of a great and illustrious career. He looked rusty for most of the season though did improve in the latter stages of the campaign.

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The good thing for Sporting KC is that they can only improve for next year. Nevertheless, Vermes and his players now have some holes to fill this offseason and improvements to make. 2019 was a year to forget.

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