By Alan Smith
Coming back home to Children’s Mercy Park, Sporting earned a draw against San Jose in their last MLS regular season match. An injury riddled Sporting looked to get three points against a last place Vancouver side.
This, however, did not happen. Sporting got off to a hot start in the first ten minutes, and seemed to be on the front foot. The defense was pretty solid with Kortne Ford and Andreau Fontas as the two center-backs holding it down.
In the 28th minute, Vancouver broke out on a counter-attack and Uri Rosell made a perfect sliding tackle on Dajome. Seconds after, Uri then clipped Cavallini’s foot in the penalty box right after his sliding tackle.
Cavallini was the one to take the penalty, and doing so, he chipped Tim Melia in the top right 90’ to give Vancouver the 1-0 lead.
This was an absolute blow to Sporting KC. It seemed to take all life out of the game and the motivation was not there from the guys.
From half to the 85th minute Sporting didn’t seem to play like they were down a goal. No urgency was shown and there was no creativity offensively.
As the game rolled on, the most notable event happened in the closing moments of the game. Sporting got a corner kick, and Tim Melia came from his goal to put all hands on deck. With a great ball whipped in, center-back Isi-Mirin had a perfect header straight towards the goal. This shot was headed away by a Vancouver defender to end the game.
Sporting KC next play The New England Revolution at Children’s Mercy Park on June 12th at 2:00PM CT
Ref: Ted Unkel
Starting 11:
Tim Melia
Andreu Fontàs
Kortne Ford
Logan Ndenbe
Ben Sweat
Felipe Hernandez
Roger Espinoza
Uri Rosell
Cam Duke
Johnny Russell
Remi Walter