Why Sporting KC is playing ‘tournaments’ during practices amid rough start to season

A disputed during training on Tuesday illustrated the urgency Sporting KC is feeling.

Was the ball in or out? It was called out, but winger Daniel Salloi thought it was in. He let his displeasure be known, too — after all, as he explained on the field, that decision was “going to cost them the tournament.”

Tournament? During training? Yes and yes. It’s one way Sporting keeps the level of competition heightened during practice. Players’ winning percentages on the “teams” with which they compete during these sessions are tracked and displayed on video boards and monitors scattered aound the club’s Compass Minerals National Performance Center.

Sporting KC (2-4-0) has always practiced and trained with intensity, but the team’s start to the 2022 Major League Soccer season has upped the urgency even further.

Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes wants to see more aggressive and intense play during games, and he believes that all-out practices with tourney-level fervor can help achieve it.

“There’s a lot of really important things that we’ve been working on to be better at,” Vermes said. “We just at times need to be a little more aggressive or intense in certain parts of the field.”

Vermes could mention any number of “parts of the field” here, but one that stood out during last weekend’s 1-0 loss at Vancouver was the final third. Sporting went most of 2021 without being shut out but has already been held scoreless twice in their first six games.

And Sporting has yet to score more than one goal in a match this season.

“When it comes to the execution of what we’re trying to do in certain areas, we’re good,” Vermes said. “Then we’ll have this one little situation that doesn’t work, and that’s the sharpness. We just don’t have that sharpness yet, which we’re working towards.”

A spate of injuries over the last few weeks haven’t helped. But that explanation will cease to be valid as players regain their health. Salloi, striker Khiry Shelton and captain Johnny Russell have all missed games during the season’s first month, but each was back on the field for Saturday’s road loss in Canada.

The return to health doesn’t stop there. Midfielder Uri Rosell returned for the first 45 minutes against the Whitecaps last weekend, and midfielder Gadi Kinda has returned to the practice field, doing light work on the side during Sporting’s training sessions.

Kinda, a designated player, underwent minor knee surger that caused him to miss all of Sporting’s preseason and the early part of the regular season. While Vermes characterized Kinda as being “still in offseason mode,” he’s getting closer to game fitness.

One more notable aspect of Sporting’s rough start to the year: the early schedule did this team no favors. Four of their first six matches were against playoff teams from 2021, and now they face another 2021 playoff qualifier this weekend.

Nashville SC (2-2-1) comes to town for the clubs’ first Western Conference matchup on Saturday, a game that’s scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. Central Time at Children’s Mercy Park. These teams met during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, with Sporting taking all three points against the expansion side.

With the inclusion of Charlotte into the Eastern Conference, Nashville made the move to the Western Conference. They’re in the middle of an eight-game road trip to start the year while construction continues on their new East Nashville stadium.

So far, Nashville has picked up road wins in Seattle and Columbus. But getting three points this weekend could be tough, because Rosell believes KC is close to playing to its full potential.

“Definitely I see growth in the team,” he said. “Which is what, at the end of the day, matters. Hopefully, this next game we will prove that.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Why Sporting KC is playing ‘tournaments’ during practices amid rough start to season."