Sporting Kansas City began the playoffs falling just short at winning the Supporters Shield. And because the Houston Dynamo defeated the Montreal Impact, Houston played the New York Red Bulls while Sporting played the New England Revolution. To many Sporting fans, New England posed the least threatening option to move on to the Eastern Conference Final. New York had the Supporters Shield and Houston had eliminated Sporting the past two years en route to the MLS Cup Final so they’re always dangerous. That left a New England team who hasn’t had a recent playoff history and had never won at Sporting Park. If you think the Revolution would be an easy win though, you would be highly mistaken.
The first leg took place in New England at Gillette Stadium. Because of the NFL’s Steelers and Patriots game taking place the next day the field would have football lines. I know this is an issue that has been a sore spot in many soccer fans. Personally, I don’t like the lines either but it’s a necessary evil. Let’s face it, like it or not, the NFL takes priority over MLS and soccer fans need to get off their high horse if they think otherwise. Also, it’s not like lines on the field changes the actual play of the game. It may look disorienting to the viewer but I would much rather focus on actual issues that affect the play on the field and/or the survival of the league. In the grand scheme of things, football lines on a soccer field isn’t anywhere near as high of an issue as things like poor officiating, not having the away goal rule in the playoffs, the amount of playoff teams, unbalanced schedules, playoff games not being on national TV and/or are shown very late and so forth.
Anyway, the 1st half of the 1st leg was like a 6th grade dance. Everyone was very hesitant to make a move and it wasn’t fun to experience. The 2nd half of the 1st leg spiced it up considerably. Andy Dorman started the scoring with a highly controversial goal in the 55th minute. There’s debate whether or not Dorman was offside when he scored. I don’t think there’s a debate at all. It was a good call. Unless I’m seeing something different than others, that was a goal and it was 1-0 New Engalnd. Later on in the 67th minute, Kelyn Rowe and the Revolution powered up the middle and made it 2-0. The Revolution did a brilliant job at finding the angles and with smooth, soft flicks of the ball, was able to finish off a well-placed team goal.
This was the beginning of the first low point for Sporting. Down 2-0 in a playoff game, Sporting has seen this before with Houston. Luckily for Sporting, the pain only lasted 2 minutes after Rowe’s goal. It was messy and it seemed unorganized but those are goals that are sometimes scored. The luck of the bounce sometimes goes your way and you don’t ask questions. Aurelien Collin sure didn’t when the ball bounced through multiple players to his foot and buried it in the net from an inadvertent CJ Sapong assist.
Lots of goals also meant lots of cards and while the 1st leg ended in a 2-1 New England win, both teams had to worry about yellow cards. In the playoffs, if a player accumulates 2 yellow cards, they have to miss the next game. New England had to deal with 4 of their players (Dimitry Imbongo, Lee Nguyen, A.J. Soares and Chad Barrett) not getting a 2nd yellow and 3 players with looking to avoid a 2nd yellow at Sporting (Seth Sinovic, Teal Bunbury and Collin).
In between games in his press conference, Peter Vermes made some confusing comments on the state of the officials of the series saying things like they would deal with things on their own if the officials don’t help and that they would take matters in their own hands if necessary. I’m not sure what he meant by that but he wasn’t doing any favors with the officials if he was looking for a fair game. I’m sure MLS referees try not to use comments to dictate what they do and do not call but everyone has a subconscious and if you have the manager of one team criticizing a referee about their job performance, chances are they are subconsciously going to be watching that team more and being stricter because of it.
Shockingly, during the game, referee Mark Geiger mostly let both teams play for the most part and surprisingly gave 10 more fouls to NE (27-17) than KC. There were times where it looked like he should’ve been stricter with both teams but it was a rather open game for both teams. Sporting went out guns blazing and attacked from the get go. Most of the possession (64% possession) and play was on the attacking end and Sporting was taking shots (32 of them to New England’s 5) like a drunk college student on Spring Break. Sporting took the lead in the game and thus tied on aggregate with another Aurelien Collin goal that again bounced off multiple players and got to his feet.
After a half hour, the Revolution took a 3-2 aggregate lead with an Imbongo side volley into the back of the net. That was a beauty of a goal but it was nothing compared to what happened around 10 minutes later. Seth Sinovic ran up the left side and one timed the ball of a Graham Zusi header. You wouldn’t have known that this was Sinovic’s 2nd MLS goal (both in playoffs) because you couldn’t shoot that any more perfect than that. Very clutch goal that gave Sporting the equalizer and into extra time. At this point in the game, Sporting has had a problem with finishing. The three goals that were scored, 2 were scored by Collin and 1 by Sinovic. Both are defenders whose primary job is to defend and keep the other team from scoring and not score themselves. I’m sure no one will complain that they are scoring because a goal pays the same no matter who scores but where on earth are the forwards who are supposed to be up there and doing their job scoring and not rely on defenders to do it while the forwards are blasting the balls into the crowd like an NBA cheerleader firing a t-shirt cannon.
Once the final half hour began, it just becomes a new game. Everyone starts from scratch (except for cards) and they only have 30 minutes to make a move to win or endure the randomness of the PK shootout. Wanting to cement an attack, Claudio Bieler got subbed on in the 84th minute, seeing his first significant action in the past 2 months. First of all, I’ve been wondering why Bieler hasn’t been playing. It just seems insane that Sporting doesn’t play someone who has more experience and is getting paid way more than his replacement. It makes me wonder why we even have him on the bench in the first place. At the beginning of extra time, I was convinced that Claudio Bieler wasn’t going to remain in KC after this year and now I’m not so sure.
In the 113th minute, Matt Reis throws the ball out to clear and Benny Feilhaber made a terrific interception to go back towards the goal. Right at the edge of the box, he ground crossed the ball to the middle of the box towards a standing Bieler and flicked the ball into the goal finally giving Sporting their first lead in the series. I don’t know if this saves Bieler from leaving KC but I imagine it’ll certainly convince more fans to want to keep him after a performance like that. Finally Sporting were the ones in control and had just 7 minutes until they would stay alive in the MLS playoffs. After a couple of close calls and a very unfortunate injury to Matt Reis, Sporting won 4-3 on aggregate and 3-1 in the game to advance to play Houston in the Eastern Conference Final beginning Saturday.
Now that the dust settled on the series, Sporting KC will play in Houston to face the Dynamo Saturday afternoon on NBC. Obviously, this is a huge series and it’s a must win but it’s a must win for additional reasons. Houston has eliminated Sporting in each of the past two years both times in KC. Knowing from personal experience, I was working the home game the first time Sporting got eliminated and I and everyone there was crushed. It was the first year of the Sporting rebrand and the team literally went from worst to first over the season. The elimination was surely tough to take. And then history repeated itself the next year and Houston again went to the MLS Cup Final after eliminating Sporting. I don’t know what will happen if Houston eliminates Sporting for the third year in a row but clearly I’m hoping I don’t get to see it. It’s going to be a tense couple weeks for both Sporting and Houston fans.
