With a drastically different roster than last season, it was fair to assume that there would be an adjustment period for Peter Vermes’ Sporting Kansas City squad as they began the 2015 campaign at home Sunday evening against the New York Red Bulls…
New starters included goalkeeper Luis Marin, rookie defender Amadou Dia, returning bulldog midfielder Roger Espinoza, speedy striker Krisztian Nemeth, and Venezuelan midfielder Bernardo Anor. Not to mention Ike Opara, who sat nearly all of 2014 with a foot injury.
Indeed, the first half of play was disjointed and physical, not a thing of beauty by any means. Space on the pitch was limited by both squads’ desire to impose their will in this opening match, and combination play was sporadic at best.
None of the newcomers particularly impressed.
Marin had a helluva time just keeping his first few punts and goal kicks in bounds, and received a mock ovation when he finally settled down and kept a long ball in play.
Espinoza covered some ground, but didn’t look quite up to his legendary work rate. Dia might have been the bright spot among the bunch, especially considering that this was his pro debut after being recently drafted out of Clemson.
And it was great to see Opara get on the end of a nice Benny Feilhaber cross right in the middle of the 6 yard box to slam home a gimme header to take the lead, after all he went through last year with his injury.
“It was incredible for him to make this recovery, be able to play 90 minutes in his first game of the year and get a goal for us,” said Feilhaber. “We know how strong he is in the air, so if you put it anywhere close to him, he’s probably going to get one.”
But by the final whistle, Sporting fans were rightly a bit disappointed to come away with just a 1-1 draw after Dom Dwyer – last season’s goal scoring leader – failed to get on the end of several crosses that ended up skidding across the end line just feet from the far post.
And Graham Zusi missed as well, on a point blank one-timer from a difficult angle.
“We could have stolen the game at the end a couple of times,” lamented Vermes afterwards. “There were great opportunities. Dom had two of them, but in the end, I think a tie is probably a fair result.”
New York knotted things up in the 54th minute, right after Sporting had taken the lead. Red Bull Lloyd Sam controlled the ball in front of KC’s penalty area, turned KC captain Matt Besler around with a little feint, and curled a nice ball into the side netting, giving Marin little chance.
The point is, even though KC lacked cohesion, and was out-possessed for the majority of the game, they still had their chances to take the full three points. And that is despite playing with just 10 men for the final 25 minutes after Besler earned himself a second yellow card for an aggressive challenge that made the ref’s decision far too easy.
“There’s no doubt about it that we need to improve,” explained Feilhaber. “When you have the turnover that we did, when you have a lot of new starters and new guys on the bench, it’s obviously going to make a big difference for us. It’s going to take time—it’s not just going to take one preseason and we’re suddenly off with a bang. I think we’re in a good spot to compete in each and every game right now, but we want to be in a much better spot three, four, five or six months from now.”
Not an auspicious debut. Añor is not good enough for a team with aspirations. Dia impressed for a rookie, but understandably can’t bring anything like Myers at that position. I was not impressed with Marin, but I am still hopeful he can provide at least a slight upgrade over what we had in that position last season.
Another rebuilding year?
It would pretty tough to be worse than last year in the goalkeeper position.
The good thing about Dia is he can slide up into the midfield if necessary, once Chance is ready. Never was a huge Espinoza fan. And where was Zusi?
After watching some of the other games this weekend, KC needs to catch up, fast.
Donnelly:
just got into the soccer game this year. Tie with new York not all that
bad for a start.
I’ve got a few tickets in the “cauldron”…..its a blast.
Look forward to your future articles….
thanks.
Figured they’d come out a little disjointed with all the new faces but hoping things start to come together after a few games. Last night was too reminiscent of the end of last year. We score and then turn right around and give up an easy one. Good teams don’t do that.
Fairly ugly game….but face it, we’ve seen worse from Sporting. I actually thought the defense handled Wright-Phillips pretty well. He was assigned a permanent marking (as he should have been). Beisler’s second foul didn’t really look like a foul at all on replay, but when you come in that hard, even if you get the ball first, it’s hard for the ref not to blow the whistle. The NY player went flying over the ball.
Hard to evaluate Marin. He didn’t have a save really. The goal that was scored he had no chance on and NY’s other shots didn’t bother him at all. It will be interesting how communication in the back goes in the future considering Marin doesn’t speak English.
Was a little disappointed that Sporting instantly settled for the tie once Beisler was sent off. It was instantly apparent that they were going to delay, delay, delay and settle for one point instead of try for the win. I thought Dom played ok. He got himself in position for some opportunities, he just didn’t finish (that one four feet from the goal…dude? At least it wasn’t as bad as Kei’s famous muff.
Can’t really say anything about the new guys yet. No one stood out, and no one played awful. Time will tell. How about a designated player pick up Rob? Dom’s on an island right now.