The Trainwreck known as Sporting Kansas City
By Mike Gambill
Plodding. Pensive. Predictable. Easily beaten. Old. You can take your pick of adjectives to describe the 2023 Sporting Kansas City side and with nine matches on the books, this franchise simply looks like a trainwreck moving down the tracks for a long, long season.
Is it time to start playing the blame game yet?
Why not? Fans and pundits love to point fingers at a scapegoat and Sporting KC has one in the form of their head coach Peter Vermes. Forget about the fact that Vermes is the longest-tenured coach in Major League Soccer and has won numerous titles during his time in this league. When the chips are down, the natural desire to blame the head coach, manager, or “gaffer” becomes even more pronounced.
After all, Vermes insists on staying with the highly predictable and easily defended press attack. When used as a tactic, the press can work quite effectively in pinning back any potential counter-attack before it even has a chance to transition out of the defensive third. As a matter of practice at all times, opponents can easily figure out what you’re going to do after losing possession in the attacking third and the pressure on your center backs becomes quite intense.
Oh, that’s right – Sporting Kansas City hasn’t had a strong center back in years, and using young players in the press will make them work hard for ninety minutes. However, the team motto this season might as well be the “36’ers” because veterans such as Graham Zusi, Tim Melia, and Roger Espinoza are all 36 years old, and having aging veterans trying to press all match long is like watching soccer players just run full-pitch suicides for ninety minutes.
Sporting KC looks like a trainwreck in the second half of each match.
While Sporting has been in most matches in the first half, by the time they get to the second frame, they are simply gassed. Sorry, Sporting doesn’t have any spare change to hire players right now since the bulk of their free cash went to signing Alan Pulido. With an MLS-low record of 0-6-3, something has to give for this franchise. Sadly, Sporting Kansas City remains the only winless squad in the league. Even more of a telling story is the fact that Sporting has exactly three goals, three total points, and three red cards so far into the 2023 season.
On the attack, Sporting Kansas City can’t seem to “put the round thing inside of the big square thing.” They’ve conceded 13 goals so far and only responded with three goals of their own out of 79 shots and 44 shots on goal. For you analytics folks, that’s a 3.8% conversion rate which of course is the lowest in MLS. Simply put, Sporting Kansas City has spent all of its time and energy on the press each match and has nothing left in the tank to actually put some shots on frame and score goals.
CF Montreal is up next-this could be an opportunity for Sporting KC.
While this week’s matchup with CF Montreal on paper looks like an even scenario for both squads, Sporting fans need to remember that CF Montreal has two wins so far this season and is coming off a winning weekend. CF Montreal has hardly found the net this season as well but still has a 9.3% conversion rate on goals – almost triple that of Sporting Kansas City. It’s lonely at the bottom and unless major tactical overhauls are done quickly, Sporting will find themselves as the MLS basement dwellers for the rest of the season.