Sporting KC lets another one get away as host LAFC scores twice late in second half

Sporting Kansas City’s season-long streak of scoring no more than once in any given match proved costly again in a 3-1 road loss at LAFC on Sunday.

Sporting got on the board first with a 38th-minute own-goal in the holiday-afternoon match at Banc of California Stadium. Cristian Arango (44th minute), Ismael Tajouri-Shradi (70th) and José Cifuentes (78th) scored for the hosts.

Since losing 2-1 at home last weekend to Nashville, Sporting KC (2-6-0) had talked of getting back to its best. And the visitors did show moments of positive play on Sunday, but they were repeatedly negated by some all-too-familiar tendencies.

Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes changed formations in L.A. in hopes of giving his team a spark. Sporting played with two defensive midfielders and used Marinos Tzionis as a true attacking midfielder underneath striker Khiry Shelton.

Tzionis kept LAFC’s defenders off-balance and earned plenty of fouls in dangerous areas of the field as captain Johnny Russell helped Sporting KC get on the board first.

“He (Tzionis) caused a lot of problems for them,” Vermes said. “He found a lot of really good spaces, which in turn I think helped us kind of get on the attack and eventually get the first goal.”

In the 38th minute, Russell made a run to the end line. His cross was deflected in at the near post, resulting in an own-goal. Maybe Sporting’s luck was starting to change?

Not so fast. The equalizing goal that Sporting conceded five minutes later was eerily similar to the one that left Vermes so irate after last week’s outcome against Nashville.

After LAFC took a free kick that hit the post, the ball came back out to the top of the box. When LAFC lined up to send it back into the area, multiple Sporting players congregated at the top of the box, losing the man that each was supposed to mark in the process.

Arango was wide-open at the back post. Goal LAFC.

“A little tough to give up that goal right before halftime,” Vermes said. “We gotta do everything we can not to (concede).”

In the second half, LAFC leaned into one of its big advantages over Sporting: attacking talent off the bench.

Sporting KC had spent the majority of the first 20 minutes of the second half on their front foot and were starting to threaten LAFC a little bit.

“I thought we were in a good place in the game. I really did. I thought we were actually playing well,” Vermes said. “We were keeping the ball well. We were breaking through them. We were coming up the field, building out, went on the counter a couple of times.”

“In the end, that second goal was a backbreaker.”

One of LAFC’s subs, Tajouri-Shradi, scored the hosts’ second goal on a long volley taken outside the 18-yard box. There wasn’t much that Sporting keeper Tim Melia could do about it after at least two of his teammates got turned around in trying to defend it.

Cifuentes tallied LAFC’s third goal not long after, and that was that. Sporting has now lost three games in a row.

Russell said he and his teammates need to continue to play at their best individually and lift one another up.

“We’ve shown it in times this season how good we can be,” he said. “We just haven’t done it consistently. And we’ve just caused ourselves problems along the way. It is up to all of us as a team.”

Sporting KC (2-6-0) returns to action at Children’s Mercy Park against Columbus next Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

This story was originally published April 17, 2022 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Sporting KC lets another one get away as host LAFC scores twice late in second half."