Sporting Kansas City comes up a 3-2 winner over Colorado in MLS is Back action

After a pair of red cards in the second half for the Colorado Rapids, Sporting Kansas City found itself on the other side of the coin on Friday night in a 3-2 win over the Colorado Rapids.

After Sunday night’s MLS is Back Tournament opening round 2-1 loss to Minnesota United in which goalkeeper Tim Melia was sent off, Kansas City found itself two men up against the Rapids.

Red cards for Colorado’s Danny Wilson and Jack Price handed Kansas City that 11-9 man advantage in the second half. But despite the clear edge, it still took a Graham Zusi stoppage-time goal for Kansas City to run out as eventual winners.

“It was a whirlwind, a crazy game,” Sporting KC winger Khiry Shelton said. “Some unexpected things happened, but we got the win and that’s all that matters.”

A slow start to the game for Kansas City allowed the Rapids’ Kellyn Acosta to open the scoring in the 6th minute. Shelton equalized for Kansas City with a thunderous volley in the 65th minute, and forward Alan Pulido put Kansas City ahead with a 72nd-minute penalty.

With Colorado looking dead and buried, Jonathan Lewis pulled a rabbit out of a hat to tie the game 2-2 in the 84th minute. But with 12 minutes of stoppage time, Zusi scored a deflected 91st-minute winner at the ESPN World Wide of Sports in Orlando.

Following the Minnesota loss, Kansas City made just two personnel changes, fielding a full-strength team in Friday’s must-win game. Goalkeeper Richard Sanchez replaced the suspended Melia and Johnny Russell replaced Gerso Fernandes.

Inversely, Colorado made five first-team changes from its 2-0 loss to Real Salt Lake.

And that may have been the difference in the opening moments of the game, as Kansas City seemed to labor for the first 20 minutes while Colorado controlled possession.

The Rapids turned that possession into a goal after just six minutes on a quick counter-attack against a lackluster KC defense. Former Kansas City man Diego Rubio took the ball down the left wing before cutting it inside to Cole Bassett. From there, Bassett laid the ball off to a wide-open Acosta who slotted home from 20-yards out.

The play was indicative of a theme that ran through much of the first half. What was supposed to be a high-intensity high press from Kansas City only pulled its players out of position and opened massive gaps for Colorado.

But tactical changes following the early goal allowed KC to pave its way back into the game. A couple of chances for Shelton became an indication of things to come, but sloppy passing prevented KC from tying up the game before the half.

With Kansas City pressing the Rapids throughout the second half, the breaking point came in the 61st minute when Colorado’s Wilson was shown a straight red for pulling down Shelton.

From that point on, it looked like Kansas City would run away with the game — but that did not turn out to be the case.

Shelton tied up the game after a pinpoint cross from Luis Martins found Gadi Kinda at the back post. Kinda just dinked the ball across the goal for Shelton to fire home from close range.

“I definitely saw the angle and I was able to compose myself and just put it away,” Shelton said. “It was either put it in the back of the net or back across goal; my aim was in the back of the net but sometimes it will skip off and go across goal.”

Pulido then put Kansas City ahead from the spot after former KC man Diego Rubio was deemed, via video review, to have handled the ball in the box.

The goal was Pulido’s largest contribution of the game, as he had hardly been fed the ball in dangerous positions throughout the game. Much of Kansas City’s play seemed to focus down the wings and Pulido struggled to make much of a contribution in open play.

“Alan was still very active in the game, and I think in the second half he was on the ball a lot more than the first. But I also think it’s because we were trying to play wide and they did a really good job of trying to tactically take that away from us,” said Sporting KC head coach Peter Vermes. “We didn’t adapt, but we did in the second half.”

Things went from bad to worse for the Rapids as captain Jack Price saw red for a couple of choice words toward the referee.

And even with the two-man disadvantage, Jonathan Lewis found himself behind the Sporting backline to slot home past Sanchez.

“It is emotional; it’s emotional for so many reasons” Vermes said on playing in a game with red cards.

On the ESPN broadcast that is played with natural game noise, Sporting captain Matt Besler could be heard yelling on multiple occasions for his team to calm down. On one instance in which Pulido collided with a Colorado defender, Besler was clearly audible in yelling Shelton away from a confrontation with the Rapids’ players.

“We dealt with everything really well from an emotional point of view, we didn’t get caught up in what was happening with the other players on the other team,” Vermes said. “We just stayed focused on what we wanted to do.”

The winning goal finally came in the 91st minute off a Kansas City corner. Pinball-like action inside the box eventually resulted in Zusi firing a shot off the Rapids’ Sam Vines which then looped over goalkeeper William Yarbrough and into the back of the net.

The win is a big step for Kansas City toward qualifying for the MLS is Back knockout stages. Kansas City now sits in third place in the group on three points, with Minnesota and Real Salt Lake playing the late game on Friday night.

The result of that game could mean Kansas City moves up to second place on goal difference.

This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 9:44 PM with the headline "Sporting Kansas City comes up a 3-2 winner over Colorado in MLS is Back action."