Despite leading 2-0 into the 88th minute of a game at league-leading Dallas, Sporting KC found a way to concede twice before the final whistle, escaping the Lone Star state with only a disappointing point for the draw.
Not that their 2-0 lead was all that deserving. The first goal came on a questionable penalty call, and the second was an own goal.
Dallas ended up doubling KC’s shot count, and forced Jimmy Nielsen to be a much more active participant than the home squad’s keeper.
But a lot of those chances came after a head-scratching red card was issued to CJ Sapong. From what I can tell, he fouled a guy in the midfield; then redirected the ball as another player kicked it, and it ended up hitting the fouled Dallas player who was on the ground. The ref was standing right above the fouled player and didn’t hesitate at all when he pulled out the red.
“I saw it, but I don’t know all of it because I don’t know where the ball came from,” commented KC boss Peter Vermes. “I can tell you this. I know CJ (Sapong). He would never try to intentionally kick a ball at someone. It’s just not his personality. I’m just telling you it’s not his personality.”
I agree with Vermes on this point. Sapong is not a dirty player. He gets beat up more than most guys due to his size and speed, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him retaliate. No way that’s red. Yellow at most.
From that point, Dallas poured it on. KC had little argument with sitting back in a defensive shell and riding out the clock. And they almost did. Anyone would do the same thing with such little time left on the road.
But KC was just tired and falling apart.
“Well, first of all, we don’t have this kind of heat right now in Kansas
City, so that’s the first piece,” explained Vermes. “We were fine.”
Oh no. Sound familiar anyone? It’s just not a good look, we’ve been over this.
The first goal wasn’t so much of a mistake as it was a decent skimmed header that slipped into the top of the net. But the second goal was just lazy work from Kei Kamara, whose man completed about two steps toward the near bar with no resistance and headed home the tying goal.
But Kei manned up:
“Me personally, on both of the goals they scored I could have played a bigger hand in it but I let them slip away,” he said afterwards. “I had a big hand in letting those go.”
It was a good thing the ref blew the whistle a minute later, because KC looked like they might concede again at any moment.
The late breakdown was a dagger to a team that had all but marked the W on their board.
“It feels like a defeat to us,” lamented Kamara.
It did to us, too.
Not good, not good at all.
Total meltdown. That Sapong penalty was idiotic and changed the game. It absolutely did look intentional. Sapong was the man called for the foul (although it looked like a dive). Then as the ball was kicked back he flicked it into the Dallas player who was laying on his back with the ref leaning over him to see if he was ok, and the ball Sapong redirected hit the Dallas guy in the head, who of course proceeded to roll and thrash around like he was being electrocuted. It was bad luck that the ref was literally standing over the guy so he threw up the red, it should have been a yellow, but there is no way that was not intentional and it was incredibly stupid. That was just so dumb.
That is when the tide turned as Dallas poured it on with their one-man advantage. Sporting had to try and pack it in and just got gassed. Myers looked like he was going to hurl. Definitely not looking 100 percent yet. And yes, Kei (again and again) gives zero effort when it counts. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Kei, if you really want to go back to the EPL, dogging it on defense is not going to get you there. If you want out of KC, play as hard as you used to and the clubs will come knocking on your door again. Do what got you there. Man up burrito boy.
Put this one down in the Loss column. Sporting doesn’t deserve the point.
And Matt, no comment on Jimmie’s yellow card for unsportsmanlike conduct —-to his own players? Seriously, that was the best moment of the game. When Dallas almost scores their third goal in 5 minutes in extra-time and Jimmie just goes absolute batshit crazy on his defenders to the point where the ref throws him a yellow card. Unbelievable. Never seen that one before. Maybe the ref did it for time-wasting, but I’m not buying that. It was like 30 seconds and the ball had been kicked into the stands. I think Jimmie came up with a string of expletives that would make a Dane blush, and the ref was momentarily confused. I hope there was a fight in the Sporting locker room after the game.
As was pointed out during halftime of the ESPN game yesterday, Beckham got a yellow last year for doing the same thing Sapong did. CJ needs to be smarter than that, but it was a lame call.
Having said that, this club hasn’t scored a goal from the run of play in about 3 games now. You HAVE TO lock down 3 points in that game. Now they are looking at more shorted games coming up next month during the Gold Cup, then two nightmarish midweek trips to Central America after that. Things seem destined to get worse before they get better. It’s hard to believe Vermes will still have the job this time next year.
If they are serious and want to go to the next level they will have to pursue better coaching. Vermes has taken them as far as they will go under his watch.
Agreed. And I meant to say they are looking at more SHORT HANDED games.