Donnelly: Vancouver Escapes KC With 1-1 Draw

As the opening whistle approached, the rain let up and a huge rainbow appeared over Sporting Park…

So in front of yet another sell out crowd, KC started with a good spark, good energy.

Though the visiting Vancouver Whitecaps have never beaten KC, they got the next best thing thanks to a perfect free kick from Camilo in the second half that leveled the score at one apiece, which is how the game ended.  

But prior to and after Vancouver’s goal, Sporting seemed most likely to notch the win.  They were first on the board, with Aurelien Collin netting a scrappy goal from in front of the goal.  When the ball ended up at his foot he turned and kind of muffed his first attempt, but had the presence to take another strike at it, beating the keeper from point blank range.

And statistically, Sporting dominated, especially when it comes to shots, as they almost always do.  But the problem- as it has been- is that not nearly enough of the shots actually have a decent chance of going in.

“You look at the percentage, whatever it is, and you know that it’s too low,” said forward Dom Dwyer afterwards.  “I’m sure we’ll work on that, but they just weren’t falling the right way tonight. I felt that we started to rush it a bit at the end. We had a few times where we pushed it and took some long shots. We’ve just got to work on our final balls and clean it up.”

And a little luck would help, too.  In what looked like a sure fire goal, Graham Zusi slammed the ball off the goal post from about 16 yards out late in the second half.  It’s chances like those that must be finished.

“[W]e had a lot of good actions going towards goal but I

thought we were a little impatient,” explained KC boss Peter Vermes.  “We could

have moved the ball around just a little bit more at times and found some guys who were clearly open, who had better chances and had better percentage shots if you will.”

But there’s not much time to work out those kinks now, as KC travels to Chicago for another quick turnaround on Sunday afternoon.  The game is being featured on ESPN and kicks off at 2 CT.