Sporting Kansas City’s MLS home opener nets win, three points over Houston Dynamo
Sporting Kansas City’s home opener at Children’s Mercy Park was a winner on Saturday as Remi Walter scored the match’s lone goal in a victory over the Houston Dynamo.
Tim Melia and the Sporting KC back line stood strong, too, keeping a clean sheet and ensuring Kansas City its first 1-0 win since October 2020.
It was Walter’s first goal at the team’s home stadium in Kansas City, Kan.
“In training, I score a lot,” Walter said. “That’s why Coach always tells me, ‘Benzema, Benzema’ (a reference to French striker Karim Benzema), because I score a lot. This year I will try to have a lot of goals because I have the quality for it.”
The outcome evened the Sporting club’s record at 1-1-0 after a season-opening road loss last weekend at Atlanta United FC.
While Sporting KC dominated the stat sheet, the home side didn’t look as dangerous as the numbers might suggest. Coached by former Sporting champion Paulo Nagamura, the Dynamo kept nine players and their goalkeeper behind the ball for the majority of the match, making it difficult for Sporting to play its usual type of game.
“Their line was deep,” Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes said. “As deep as a lot of teams that have played here in the past.”
The deep line forced Sporting to be patient, maybe even more patient than they would’ve wanted to be. But veteran Graham Zusi indicated this patience in the first half paved the way for Sporting’s second-half performance.
“I thought that (our) possession made them a bit tired and opened things up for us in the second half,” Zusi said. “I thought we continued to be patient in the second half. When you do that, eventually, spaces are going to open up, and they did.”
Sporting resorted to long diagonal passes and crosses in an attempt to break down Houston in the first half. But In the second half, that changed. Sporting found ways to be more penetrative with its passes, getting behind the Dynamo back line and creating more chances like the one that led to Walter’s goal.
Johnny Russell got behind the Dynamo back line in the 60th minute and played the ball to Daniel Salloi, whose shot was blocked. The ball rolled out to Walter at the top of the 18-yard-box, and the Frenchman poked it past a couple of defenders into the net.
Defensively, Sporting KC was able to sniff out any counterattacks from Houston. One moment late was nearly costly, as a misplayed pass from Melia fell directly to Houston’s Darwin Quintero. The stadium let out a collective sigh of relief as Quintero’s chipped shot sailed wide.
Sporting’s 1-0 win is its first by that score since October 28, 2020, against FC Cincinnati. While the result might have been tense late, Vermes was ultimately happy to see his team hang on for its first win of the 2022 season.
“You have to manage a game and I don’t think we were great at it today,” he said. “But one thing I do think is we defended well.”
Sporting KC’s next game is at the Colorado Rapids next Saturday.
This story was originally published March 5, 2022 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Sporting Kansas City’s MLS home opener nets win, three points over Houston Dynamo."