Sporting Kansas City gave far from a flawless performance in its 0-0 draw Saturday night at D.C. United to commence its 2017 Major League Soccer campaign.
And that’s OK. Really.
In a league in which the regular season stretches across eight months and playoffs can go into December, March soccer is made for mistakes.
So perhaps what was most encouraging about Sporting KC’s season debut was that, when it made the inevitable gaffe, it fixed it.
“I thought most of the time, the chances that we did give were our mistakes,” said Sporting KC defender Ike Opara. “It’s not going to be perfect Game 1, and we know that. But if we can take a step back and look at it I think we’ll be pleased with how we came out today.”
Take goalkeeper Tim Melia, who stepped up to deny Marcelo Sarvas’ 17th-minute penalty kick and Patrick Mullins’ rebound just moments after committing the foul on Julian Buescher that led to the penalty.
Those were the two most important stops of Melia’s five, on a night in which D.C. had the more dangerous chances, even though Sporting outshot the hosts 15-9 and outpossessed them 60-40.
“When you make a mistake in this game, you want to kind of correct it.” Opara said. “And as goalie, if you make a mistake and you get a chance to correct it immediately, especially if it’s a penalty kick, it’s big time.”
Or take Jimmy Medranda and Dom Dwyer, who each headed goalbound efforts off the line on a sequence that began when Lloyd Sam’s corner kick took an unlucky ricochet off a defender.
“There were a lot of huge plays guys made, goal-line clearances, tackles, headers,” Melia said. “I thought collectively as a group, with the amount of new guys we have, there’s a lot of positives to build off of.”
With the debuts of forward Gerso Fernandes at forward and midfielder Ilie Sanchez in midfield, and the relatively new shift of Graham Zusi playing at right back, Sporting earned this result despite playing against a D.C. squad that featured 11 returners from its own playoff campaign.
Sporting coach Peter Vermes praised Zusi in particular after the U.S. international player also played in that role in coach Bruce Arena’s U.S. National Team’s January camp.
“I thought the second half, his one-on-one defending was tremendous,” Vermes said. “He anticipates things tremendously. There were times when he stepped in front, he cut out passing lanes, he won the ball and helped us counter quickly.”
Sporting Kansas City may have been fortunate not to see injured D.C. playmaker Luciano Acosta, and maybe even to play on a choppy surface that favored a defensive mind-set.
And Sporting rarely generated truly dangerous looking attacks. Its best chance came from an early set piece, when Benny Feilhaber’s curling free kick forced D.C. United’s Bill Hamid soaring to keep it out of the top corner.
Dwyer had a pair of late efforts that he struck straight at Hamid. Otherwise neither side truly looked like breaking the deadlock in their final meeting at RFK Stadium, before D.C. moves to Audi Field, its long-awaited version of Sporting’s Children’s Mercy Park.
But sometimes, even in pro sports, it is about the effort.
“I was encouraged that we kept trying to play, despite the conditions,” Opara said. “We kept trying to pass out of the back and do the right things that we’ve been preaching all preseason. So moving forward I think this was a pretty good effort on our part.”
Sporting KC 0
D.C. United 0
Kansas City | 0 | 0 | — | 0 |
D.C. United | 0 | 0 | — | 0 |
KANSAS CITY: Tim Melia; Matt Besler, Ike Opara, Seth Sinovic; Roger Espinoza, Benny Feilhaber, Jimmy Medranda, Ilie Sanchez, Graham Zusi; Dom Dwyer, Gerso Fernandes.
D.C. UNITED: Bill Hamid; Steve Birnbaum, Sean Franklin, Taylor Kemp; Julian Buscher (Rob Vincent, 61st), Nick DeLeon, Jared Jeffrey, Lloyd Sam (Lamar Neagle, 76th), Marcelo Sarvas; Patrick Mullins (Jose Guillermo Ortiz, 69th), Patrick Nyarko.
GOAL SCORING
Kansas City: None.
D.C. United: None.
SKC | DCU | |
Shots | 15 | 9 |
Shot on goal | 5 | 6 |
Saves | 5 | 5 |
Corner kicks | 5 | 4 |
Fouls | 11 | 22 |
Offsides | 2 | 0 |
YELLOW CARDS
Kansas City: Sinovic (unsporting behavior), 37th; Espinoza (unsporting behavior), 72nd.
D.C. United: Franklin (unsporting behavior). 54th; Vincent (unsporting behavior), 64th.
RED CARDS
Kansas City: None.
D.C. United: None.
OFFICIALS
Referee: Robert Sibiga
Assistant referee: x
Assistant referee: x
Fourth official: x
Attendance: 18,268.
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