Late fade vexes Sporting KC in Saturday defeat at Real Salt Lake’s Rio Tinto Stadium
Receiving the ball at his feet, Pablo Ruiz had all the time in the world to look up the field and pick his spot.
As a triangle of Sporting Kansas City players closed in around him, Ruiz slid a through ball down the right wing to teammate Andrew Brody, who delivered a perfect cross for Real Salt Lake’s equalizer.
Just six minutes into the second half, Ruiz once again found himself unchallenged with the ball in Sporting KC’s defensive third. With time to choose his pass, the Argentine slid the ball through to Damir Kreilach who sent in a cross that led to Real Salt Lake’s second goal.
The space afforded to Ruiz proved fatal to Sporting KC as his two-goal contributions made the difference in a 3-1 win for Real Salt Lake at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah.
Sporting KC forward Alan Pulido opened his 2021 goal-scoring account in the 17th minute, but goals from Kreilach and Rubio Rubin handed Sporting KC its first loss of the season.
A late second goal from Rubin put the game to bed for the home team.
“I think just a couple of plays we took off and that’s what it comes down to,” KC winger Khiry Shelton said. “And when you take those plays off good teams are going to punish, and that’s what happened.”
The win for Real Salt Lake breaks the dead-even head-to-head between the two teams, which stood at 14-14-10 before the game. It also marked the first time that Sporting KC has not won a game when starting Pulido, Johnny Russell and Shelton (7-0-0 before the loss).
Real Salt Lake finished the 2020 regular season with the fewest goals in the Western Conference (25), and Sporting KC defeated Salt Lake in Utah 2-0 on Decision Day. That trend looked like it would continue Saturday as Sporting KC came out of the gates flying, dominating possession and pressuring Salt Lake from end to end.
The opener came just over a quarter of an hour into the game after an interception from Luis Martins sprung a KC counterattack. Collecting the ball at midfield, Pulido played a ball out wide to Shelton who’s low cross back across the box was cleverly dummied by Gianluca Busio, allowing Pulido an open shot at goal.
“I saw Busio and I saw Alan,” Shelton said. “I knew Busio was bringing a defender with him and when I passed it to him I told him to leave and that’s what he does best.”
But the second KC took the lead, a switch seemed to flick in the Salt Lake camp.
The home side began not only retaining possession but playing the ball through dangerous playmaker Ruiz.
His breakthrough finally came in the 35th minute when he slid a slick through ball to substitute right back Brody, immediately taking three players out of the game. With those three players — primarily Ilie Sanchez — pulled toward Ruiz, an unmarked run from Kreilach allowed the Croatian to rise unchallenged in the box and head home the equalizer.
“I think that more than individuals I think that they have a good team,” Sanchez said. “They do two, three, four, five things really well and obviously with new players, they can put them on the field and try to implement new plays into their game.”
Kreilach and Ruiz both played a part in the second goal too. Ruiz was given too much space and an incisive pass to Kreilach allowed the latter to send a back post ball to Rubin.
Once again unmarked, Rubin had all the time in the world to take a touch and good look at goal before slotting the ball through KC goalkeeper John Pulskamp’s legs.
Real Salt Lake bossed the midfield from the second Sporting KC took the lead, finishing with 54% possession.
Excuses could be made for Sporting KC: It’s an early-season game at altitude, Sanchez played his first full 90 minutes of the season, KC handed a debut to homegrown centerback Kaveh Rad. But at the end of the day, poor marking through lackluster communication and a lack of tight marking on Ruiz and the rest of Salt Lake’s midfield was Sporting’s downfall.
Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes downplayed the importance of Ruiz’s contribution, instead opting to focus on his own team’s lapses in concentration.
“We started out well, I thought they were finding it tough to break us down,” Vermes said. “As the game wore on in the first half, easy passes we were kicking out of bounds, they were going under our foot, we wouldn’t recognize we had a 2-vs-1, sometimes 3-vs-1 on the outside, and we end up miss-passing the ball and the ball goes out of bounds or to the other team.
“You can’t do that. That annihilated us in the game, destroyed us.”
Rubin put the game to bed in the 78th minute, beating Pulskamp at his near post despite receiving the ball on the left wing in a 1-vs-2 with Jaylin Lindsey and Rad.
The loss moves Sporting KC to 1-1-1 to start the 2021 season; expansion team Austin FC is up next at Children’s Mercy Park on May 9.
This story was originally published May 1, 2021 at 3:14 PM with the headline "Late fade vexes Sporting KC in Saturday defeat at Real Salt Lake’s Rio Tinto Stadium."